Exploring Relationships between the Kinematics of a Singer's Body Movement and the Quality of Their Voice
Geoff Luck, Petri Toiviainen · 2008
Background in music psychology. Physical movement plays an important role in musical perception and production. It is generally agreed among professional singers and vocal teachers, for example, that there are relationships between the kinematics of a singer’s body and the quality of their voice. Thus, we might expect to find relationships between quantifiable indicators of a singer’s vocal performance and quantifiable features of their movements while they sing. Background in computing, mathematics, and statistics. High-resolution motion capture systems have been used in several studies to investigate connections between music and movement (e.g., Palmer & Dalla Bella, 2004; Wanderley, Vines, Middleton, McKay, & Hatch, 2005; Luck & Toiviainen, 2006). The overall orientation of different body parts and the amo”unt of their movement can be estimated from the motion capture data, and these features can be subsequently modeled computationally. Aims. To synthesize basic research on the singing voice, human movement, and quantification of audio and movement data in an exploration of relationships between bodily posture and singing quality.