Measurement of characteristic leap interval between chest and falsetto registers.
A markedly smaller time constant distinguishes a chest-falsetto leap from the more usual execution of a sung interval by muscular adjustments in the length and tension of the vocal folds. The features of such a chest-falsetto leap are examined in detail with respect to F0, peak-to-peak amplitude of the vocal-fold contact area signal (EGG), and the closed quotient. A method is proposed to standardize and quantify this chest-falsetto leap in the characteristic leap interval (CLI), a measure of the separation between the natural registers in a given singing voice. The measure is applied to a varied group of experienced singers. Preliminary results include a suggested dimorphic pattern with respect to sex, with female voices exhibiting smaller CLIs and less individual diversity than male voices.
Miller
Donald G
DG
Groningen Voice Research Laboratory, Biomedical Engineering, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. d.g.miller@med.rug.nl
Svec
Jan G
JG
Schutte
H K
HK
D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D006801:Humans; D013997:Time Factors; D014827:Vocal Cords / Q000502:physiology*; D014831:Voice; D014833:Voice Quality