Identification of sung vowels
Terry L. Gottfried · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1980
Identification of vowels sung by males, while not as difficult as when sung by sopranos, can still present problems for listeners. Ten American English vowels/i, I, e, ε, æ, a, ʌ, o, U, u/ in /b/ - vowel-/d/ syllables were sung by a trained male singer at seven different pitches: C3, E3, A3, C4, E4, A4, and C5 (131–524 Hz). The upper five pitches were sung with a counter-tenor head voice. The lower five pitches were sung with “full” pharyngeal voice. Subjects listened and identified randomized sets of tokens. Identification accuracy was lower for vowels sung at the higher pitches, regardless of vocal register. Errors for all pitches tended to be greatest for back vowels; confusions between /a/ and /ʌ/ were especially common. Acoustical analysis of the target formant frequencies were performed. The relationship between sung vowel identification and vocal production was examined. [Supported by MIMH, NICHHD, and NSF.].