Professional Documents
Culture Documents
palate,
as
to
pronounce
the
velar
/ng/.
The
melody
of
fk
is
produced
by
manipulating
the
opening
of
the
front
cavity,
while
the
rear
cavity,
that
is
from
the
glottis
to
the
soft
palate,
remains
unchanged.
This
technique
suggests
that
the
front
cavity
may
be
more
important
for
the
production
of
fk.
Based
on
preliminary
impedance
measurements
of
vocal
tract
by
a
Jew's
harp,
Tsai
(2001)
reported
that
the
resonance
of
the
front
cavity
determined
fk.
The
author
modeled
the
front
cavity
as
a
Helmholtz
resonator
driven
by
a
flow
source
U1
at
the
articulation
point.
The
transfer
function
can
be
calculated
according
to
Eq.
(6.65)
in
[Fletcher
&
Rossing
1991].
Owing
to
the
tract
shape
at
the
articulation
point,
the
flow
U1
is
presumed
to
be
incompressible.
It
is
known
that
in
regions
of
fast
change
in
pipe
geometry,
such
as
a
tone
hole
or
the
pipe
termination,
the
Helmholtz
number
He<<1
implies
that
the
wave
equation
can
locally
be
approximated
by
the
Laplace
equation,
which
describes
an
incompressible
potential
flow
(Hirschberg
&
Kergomard
1995).
In
overtone-singing,
the
acoustic
flow
at
the
articulation
point
is
therefore
incompressible
(compact
region).
This
is
not
true
for
normal
phonations.
The
front
cavity
theory
failed
to
explain
the
small
bandwidth
of
Fk.
Fig.
2
compares
the
matched
theoretical
spectral
envelops
and
recorded
spectra
of
a
Sygyt
voice
and
a
Jew's
harp
tone,
which
were
produced
by
me
with
the
same
front
cavity.
It
can
be
seen
that
the
Fk
bandwidth
of
the
voice
is
smaller
than
that
of
the
Jew's
harp
tone.
The
latter
was
produced
without
the
rear
cavity
because
the
rising
tongue
completely
closed
the
channel
between
the
front
and
the
rear
cavities.
This
discrepancy
suggests
that
the
rear
cavity
may
play
a
role
in
sharpening
Fk.
Figure 2: Spectra of a Sygyt voice (left) and a Jew's harp tone (right) produced with the same front cavity.
Resonance-matching
theory
The
resonance-matching
theory
takes
into
account
the
contributions
of
both
the
front
and
the
rear
cavities,
whose
resonances
are
more
or
less
matched
to
produce
a
sharp
Fk.
Kob
(2002)
reported
that
an
improvement
of
the
second
resonance
by
about
15
dB
was
achieved
by
matching
two
resonance
frequencies,
which
was
fulfilled
by
manipulating
the
mouth
opening.
Although
this
theory
appears
to
'unified'
the
theories
of
rear/front
cavity,
it
should
be
noted
that
according
to
Table
6.1
in
[Kob
2002],
the
resonance
of
the
front
cavity
was
just
close
to
the
second
resonance
of
the
rear
cavity;
Fk
could
be
sharp
enough
for
pitch
production
without
an
exact
resonance-matching.
Discussion
Kob
(2002)
calculated
the
transfer
functions
of
a
Sygyt
singer's
vocal
tract
using
an
improved
method
of
continuous-time
interpolated
multiconvolution
(Barjau
et
al.
1999),
which
was
originally
developed
to
calculate
the
impulse
response
of
wind
instruments
with
tone-hole
discontinuities.
However,
this
approach
does
not
predict
the
flow
field
at
the
articulation
point.
Fig.
3
displays
the
shape
of
a
Sygyt
singer's
vocal
tract
and
the
potential
field
at
the
articulation
point.
As
can
be
seen
from
the
isobar
(equal-potential)
lines,
the
acoustic
flow
has
a
higher
velocity
near
the
tongue.
This
contradicts
the
assumption
of
planar-wave
fronts
in
Kob's
calculation.
Figure 3: Shape of a Sygyt singer's vocal tract (left) and the isobar lines at the articulation point (right).
The
limitations
of
one-dimensional
models
of
the
vocal
tract
or
the
bore
of
wind
instruments
should
be
borne
in
mind:
even
at
low
frequencies
evanescent
cross-modes
will
be
excited
in
the
rapidly
flaring
bell
section
because
of
strong
mode
coupling
(e.g.,
Pagneux
et
al.
1996).
In
a
Sygyt
singer's
vocal
tract,
one-dimensional
models
are
suitable
only
for
the
rear
cavity.
The
vocal
tract
sould
be
divided
into
four
regions,
in
which
the
wave
equations
have
different
forms
for
approximation.
In
light
of
Matched
Asymptotic
Expansions,
the
global
solution
can
be
obtained
by
'gluing'
the
local
solutions
together
(Hirschberg
&
Kergomard
1995).
The
four
regions
are
(1)
the
rear
cavity,
(2)
the
compact
region
at
the
articulation
point,
(3)
the
front
cavity
as
a
Helmholtz
resonator,
and
(4)
the
compact
region
at
the
mouth
opening.
The
rear
cavity
is
approximated
as
a
succession
of
cones,
where
the
acoustic
field
is
governed
by
the
Webster
equation
for
He<<1.
At
the
articulation
point
and
at
the
mouth
opening,
the
incompressible
air
is
approximated
as
a
piston.
The
front
cavity
is
a
Helmholtz
resonator
with
a
short
neck.
If
the
transfer
function
of
a
Sygyt
singer's
vocal
tract
does
not
predict
the
small
bandwidth
of
the
second
formant,
one
should
consider
the
possible
effect
of
acoustic
feedback
to
the
glottal
source
(Levin
and
Edgerton
1999).
This
may
be
related
to
the
nonlinear
effect
of
the
adducted
ventricular
folds.