title: Not just sound: supplementing the voice range profile with the singer's own perceptions of vocal challenges.
abstract: A commercial phonetograph was complemented with a response button, such that presses resulted in marked regions in the voice range profile (VRP). This study reports the VRP data of 16 healthy female professionally trained singers (7 mezzo-sopranos and 9 sopranos). Subjects pressed the button to indicate sensations of vocal instability or reduced control during phonation. Each press thereby marked potential areas of difficulty. A method is presented to quantify the consistency of button use for repeated tasks. The pattern of button presses was significantly consistent within subjects. As expected, the singers pressed at the extremes of VRP contours as well as at register transitions. These results and the potential of the method for the assessment of vocal problems of singers are discussed.
authors: Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, School of Computer Science and Communication, Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, Stockholm, Sweden. anick@nada.kth.se
authors: Anick
authors: A
authors: Lamarche
authors: Sten
authors: S
authors: Ternström
authors: Stellan
authors: S
authors: Hertegård
mesh_terms: D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D011930:Reaction Time; D012647:Self-Assessment; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014831:Voice