Formant frequencies in Middle Eastern singers.
OBJECTIVE
This work was conducted to describe the formant frequencies in a group of Middle Eastern singers and to look for the presence of the singer's formant described in operatic singers.


METHODS
A total of 13 Middle Eastern singers were enrolled in this study. There were 5 men and 8 women.


METHODS
Descriptive analysis was performed to report the various formants (F1, F2, F3, and F4) in both speaking and singing. The Wilcoxon test was used to compare the means of the formants under both conditions.


RESULTS
For both sexes combined, for the /a/ vowel, F1 singing was significantly lower than F1 speaking (P = .05) and F3 singing was significantly higher than F3 speaking (P = .046). For the /u/ vowel, only F2 singing was significantly higher than F2 speaking (P = .012). For the /i/ vowel, both F2 and F3 singing were significantly lower than F2 and F3 speaking, respectively (P = .006 and .012, respectively). There was no clustering of the formants in any of the Middle Eastern sung vowels.


CONCLUSIONS
Formant frequencies for the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ differ between Middle Eastern singing vs speaking. There is absence of the singer's formant.
Hamdan
Abdul-latif
AL
Department of Otolaryngology, American University of Beirut Medical Center, PO Box 11-0236, Beirut, Lebanon. alhamdan@svclb.com
Tabri
Dollen
D
Deeb
Reem
R
Rifai
Hani
H
Rameh
Charbel
C
Fuleihan
Nabil
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008877:Middle East; D009146:Music; D010699:Phonation / Q000502:physiology*; D010700:Phonetics; D010898:Pitch Perception; D013018:Sound Spectrography / Q000379:methods*; D014831:Voice / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult