Glissando: Laryngeal Motorics and Acoustics

Ulrich Hoppe, Frank Rosanowski, Michael Döllinger, Jörg Lohscheller,

Maria Schuster, andUlrich Eysholdt
Erlangen, Germany

Summary: The objective of this study was to investigate the laryngeal

mechanisms and the acoustical signal during a glissando. In particular,
glottal length, maximum glottal area, and vibratory amplitudes during a
glissando maneuver of a healthy male adult were measured. An endoscopic
high-speed system combined with a laser projection device was used to obtain
quantitative data both in the time and spatial domains. Simultaneously to
the endoscopic investigation, the acoustic signal was recorded. Fundamental
frequency and sound pressure level derived from the acoustic recordings were
compared to vocal fold length and glottis area derived from the high-speed
recordings. Results were used for interpretation of the phonation mechanism
during glissando by means of laryngeal and acoustic parameters. The transition
between the chest register and the falsetto register was identified by the absence
of vocal fold contact. A rather early onset of the falsetto register was observed
at 160 Hz. Although fundamental frequency of the vocal folds increased linearly
even at the transition point, sound pressure level dropped down.
These data represent the first ever quantitative description and interpretation
of the glissando based on both voice properties and laryngeal motorics. In the
presented example of an untrained singer, the falsetto sets in at comparatively
low frequencies. Although the chest-falsetto transition is rather smooth for
laryngeal motorics and voice pitch, a sudden drop of voice intensity was
observed.
Key Words: Glissando—High speed camera—Vocal fold length—Pitch—
Quantitative laryngoscopy.

Accepted for publication October 28, 2002. INTRODUCTION

From the Department of Phoniatrics and Pediatric Audiology,
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Ulrich
Hoppe, Department of Phoniatrics and Pediatric Audiology,
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Bohlenplatz 21, D-91054
Erlangen, Germany. E-mail: ulrich.hoppe@phoni.imed.
unierlangen.de
Journal of Voice, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 370–376
쑕 2003 The Voice Foundation
0892-1997/2003 $30.00⫹0
doi:10.1067/S0892-1997(03)00019-5
The ability to change voice pitch is an important
precondition for oral communication and is used
for producing prosodic features in speech and pitch
variation in singing. Although the pitch of comfort-
able phonation is primarily determined by the actual
size of individual anatomical structures, the fre-
quency range can be substantially extended by
voice training.1 An important aspect of voice train-
ing is to enable the singer to stabilize their voice

370
 FULLY QUANTITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE GLISSANDO
FIGURE 1. Upper figure: The laser projection device consists
of a light pipe channeling the laser light and two mirrors for
beam splitting. A metal casing and a glass plate protect the
device against disinfection agents. The device is mounted onto
a standard endoscope. A grid of 1 × 1 mm in the background
shows the size of the device. Lower figure: Schematic image
of the LPS. The laser light enters the device through a light
pipe and is split into two beams by a mirror of 50% reflectivity.
These parallel-adjusted laser beams leave the projection device
under an angle of 6.8⬚ and a distance of 3.8 mm.
along a broad pitch range, even if different registers
are used.2 Obviously, this is performed by training
the neuromuscular feedback slope in order to avoid
perceptible instabilities in voice pitch and voice in-
tensity.
Phonation accompanied by a monotonic increase
(or decrease) of pitch within a time range of several
seconds is called glissando. Essentially, the pitch
can be regarded as the perceptual analog on of the
fundamental frequency of the vocal fold vibrations
(ie, 1/duration of time needed for one oscillation
cycle). From a physical point of view, this corres-
ponds to a change of the eigenfrequency of the vocal
folds, which is primarily determined by the length,
tension, and mass of the individual vocal folds. Sub-
glottal pressure is just a marginal parameter influ-
encing the pitch.3,4 As neither mass, length, nor
tension can be varied separately, the details of the
underlying mechanisms for pitch variation remain
371
unknown. The study of glissando maneuvers is par-
ticularly interesting for clinical purposes because it
allows the investigation of the nonstationary voice,
which is closer to the everyday condition.
Widespread stroboscopy is a useful tool for inves-
tigation of regular vibrations.5 However, it does not
allow for the examination of nonstationary vocal
fold movements occurring, for example, during a
glissando.6,7 In principle, this problem can only be
solved with real-time methods, the most advanced
being digital high-speed glottography.8 Using cur-
rent systems, up to 10,000 images per second can
be recorded. They are particularly helpful for nonsta-
tionary effects occurring in a large variety of physio-
logic voice phenomena and voice disorders.9,10
High-speed systems allow the determination of
voice parameters in the time domain. Until recently,
the derivation of absolute metric units within the
endoscopic recordings was impossible. However,
our group has developed a laser projection system
that enables determination of the actual size of ob-
jects within the endoscopic images. Combined with
a digital high-speed camera, it allows the fully quan-
titative investigation of the phonation process
even when no stationarity is present.11
This paper describes a method that allows the
identification of laryngeal mechanisms responsible
for the pitch variation during a glissando. As an
example of application, a single healthy male subject
was examined.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Laser Projection System
To determine absolute measures within the endo-
scopic recordings, a laser projection system (LPS)
consisting of a portable laser unit and a projection
device was designed by our group.12 The laser unit
was a battery-driven semiconductor laser diode with
a wavelength of 633 nm (GaAs). The laser beam
was channeled through a light pipe to the projection
device shown in Figure 1. A mirror of 50% reflecti-
vity split the laser beam: The first part of the beam
propagated through the glass plate mounted on the
bottom of the LPS, and the second part of the beam
was reflected at a mirror with 100% reflectivity. The
mirrors were adjusted in parallel. Hence, the two
Journal of Voice, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2003
372 ULRICH HOPPE ET AL

FIGURE 2. Sequence of eight images of a high-speed recording during sustained phonation.

For clarity, only every fourth frame is shown. Laser spots are visible on the subject’s left
vocal fold as marked within the first frame. The scale shown in the upper right figure marks
a length of 5 mm.

parts of the laser beams were parallel. The corres-
ponding laser spots were clearly detectable in the
high-speed sequence because they are very bright
compared to the reflected light of the surrounding
tissue. Their distance of 3.85 mm defined the metric
scale. The LPS allowed the determination of object
sizes within the glottal plane (eg, glottal length,
glottal area, and vibratory amplitudes) with an error
of less than 0.1 mm.12 As the laser spots usually
extended over several pixels, the center of each spot
was identified by fitting two-dimensional gauss
functions.
Endoscopic Investigation
For the endoscopic investigation, the LPS was
mounted on the tip of a rigid 90⬚-endoscope (Wolf
Corp., Germany) and attached to a digital high-speed
video camera as shown in Figure 1. The spatial
resolution of the camera was set to 128 × 64 pixel
(128 from left to right, 64 from dorsal to ventral).
The temporal resolution was 0.27 ms, which corres-
ponded to a frame rate of 3704 frames per second.
The high-speed camera allowed continuous re-
cording for up to 8 seconds. A 250-Watt Xe-light
lamp was used as a light source.
A 31-year-old healthy male volunteer with a per-
ceptual normal voice and a mean speaking funda-
mental frequency of 102 Hz served as experimentee.
He was used to endoscopic investigations and exhib-
ited no clinical signs of voice disturbances. How-
ever, he had not undergone any kind of vocal
education. For the test, he was asked to sustain a
vowel [i:] (as in “beat”) at a comfortable pitch. Then
he was asked to perform a glissando from low
to high pitch after the endoscope had been inserted
into the oropharynx. He was asked to start phonation
within the chest register in a comfortable way and
to increase frequency until phonation becomes im-
possible.
Acoustical Recording
Simultaneously to the high-speed recording, the
acoustical signal was recorded by a condenser mi-
crophone (type B&K 4129, Bruel & Kjaer Corp.)
mounted on the top of the camera at a distance of
approximately 20 cm in front of the experimentee.
The acoustic signal was digitized (44.4-kHz
sample rate, 16-bit resolution) and saved to the hard
disk. Fundamental frequency (F0) and sound pres-
sure level (SPL) were determined using a commer-
cially available speech analysis software (Dr.
Speech, Tiger Electronics, Inc., USA).14,15
Image Processing
Figure 2 shows eight frames of a high-speed se-
quence covering a time interval of 7.56 ms. In this
figure, only every fourth frame of the sequence
is shown. The sequence corresponds to one com-
plete glottal cycle starting and finishing with the
maximum open glottis during the sustained phona-
tion with a fundamental frequency of approximately
125 Hz. The primary aim of image processing was
to automatically extract the glottis as a function
of time. This was performed by a knowledge-based

Journal of Voice, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2003

 FULLY QUANTITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE GLISSANDO
FIGURE 3. Sound pressure during sustained phonation as a
function of time for 30 ms. A periodicity of about 8 ms can be
observed. Arrows in the upper left corner mark the time instants
corresponding to the images shown in Figure 2.
algorithm enhancing, which enhances image con-
trast and allows automatic recognition of the vibra-
tory pattern of the vocal folds.13 This algorithm was
shown to be stable even when the images of the
high-speed sequence were dark.16 For the purpose of
this study, the previously described algorithm was
modified in order to focus on extraction of the
glottis for a predefined high-speed sequence.
Three different parameters were evaluated:
(1) Glottal length
(2) Maximum glottal area (Amax)
(3) Vibratory amplitudes
For the most open glottis condition, the glottal
length was determined from the digital images in
time-steps of 50 ms. Amax was derived automatically
as the glottal area for this condition. Vibratory ampli-
tudes were determined as the distance of two adja-
cent points on the medial line (50% from anterior
to posterior).
RESULTS
Figure 3 shows the microphone signal of the
acoustical recording for the sustained phonation over
a time period of 30 ms. Arrows in the upper left
corner mark the time instants corresponding to the
frames shown in Figure 2. They were corrected for
different velocities of light and sound in air. The
373
FIGURE 4. Pitch (A) and sound pressure level (B) as measured
with the microphone during the glissando. Vertical lines mark
the end of sustained phonation and the beginning of the linear
increase of F0.
period duration of 8 ms corresponds to a fundamen-
tal frequency of 125 Hz.
Figure 4A (top) shows the fundamental frequency
(F0) as a function of time during the glissando. F0
increases monotonically within a time range of 1.3
s from 125 Hz to 244 Hz. Despite the fact that no
instructions were given to the subject about the
amount of frequency shift, the frequency shift cor-
responds nearly to one octave. Between 580 ms and
1500 ms, a nearly linear pitch increase, with a slope
of approximately 0.1 Hz per millisecond, can be ob-
served. Linear regression is shown as a dashed line.
The horizontal line within Figure 4A marks the
frequency of the nearly constant frequency of 125
Hz prior to the glissando. Two vertical reference
lines are introduced indicating particular instants: (1)
The first vertical reference line, at 350 ms, marks
the intersection of the constant frequency line with
the extrapolated line of the linear frequency increase.
(2) The second vertical line at approximately 580
ms marks the beginning of the linear pitch increase.
The sound pressure level (SPL) as a function of
time is shown in Figure 4B. During the first 350 ms,
the sound pressure level tends to increase. Between
350 and 600 ms (corresponding to F0 of 130 Hz
Journal of Voice, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2003
374 ULRICH HOPPE ET AL

and 150 Hz, respectively), a decay of about 5 dB

is observable. Above 600 ms, SPL tends to increase
monotonijfhycally. However, larger short-term fluc-
tuations occur.
During the complete high-speed sequence, the
whole glissando maneuver consists of more than
5900 single frames, wherein about 300 vibratory
cycles can be observed. Figure 5 shows the glottal
length (A), maximum glottal area (Amax) (B), and
vibratory amplitudes (C) as a function of time. Using
the LPS, derivation of metric units (mm, mm2) was
possible. The glottal length remains nearly constant
during the first 85 ms and increases steeply up to
1400 ms. For Amax, a tendency to increase can be
observed during the first 580 ms. This is followed
by a nearly linear decrease with a slope of 1.7 mm2
per 100 ms. Vibratory amplitudes exhibited a similar
behavior: Until 600 ms, amplitudes remain nearly
constant; afterward, a linear decrease with a slope
of about 0.14 mm per 100 ms can be observed.
Additionally to the above-described quantitative
investigation, the vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
was visually analyzed. Up to approximately 600
ms, the vocal folds vibrate with clearly detectable
mucosal waves and glottal closure is complete
within each glottal cycle. Compared to sustained FIGURE 5. Laryngeal parameters during the glissando as a
function of time. Glottal length (top), maximum glottal area
phonation, mucosal waves are reduced during the (middle), and vibratory amplitudes (bottom). Vertical lines cor-
glissando. At about 600 ms, the glottal closure respond to those shown in Figure 4 (for explanation, see text).
becomes incomplete along the whole glottal axis
and a resting area of approximately 10 mm2 is ob- (1) During the first 350 ms, the fundamental fre-
served. This resting area remains nearly constant quency F0 remained more or less constant.
until the end of the recording. A slight increase of the vibratory amplitude,
maximum glottal area, and sound pressure
level was observed. Glottal length remained
DISCUSSION
constant. This interval can be regarded as
In this paper, we presented the investigation of the preparation phase of the glissando where
an upward glissando performed by a male subject the subglottal pressure is deliberately in-
from B to b during a time of 1700 ms. Acoustical creased. Consequently, vocal fold amplitudes
and endoscopic parameters were measured simulta- and sound pressure level increases.
neously and described fully quantitatively. Gener- (2) Between 350 ms and 580 ms glottal length,
ally, during the glissando, glottal length increased vibratory amplitudes and maximum glottal
of about 3 mm and both the maximum glottal area area remained constant, pitch increased lin-
and vibratory amplitudes decreased. The sound pres- early, and sound pressure level dropped
sure level exhibited a nonmonotonic behavior and down. This correponds to the initial phase of
varied between 66 and 74 dB(a). the glissando where the vocal fold tension
Considering the pitch curve, three time intervals begins to increase. Consequently, the pitch
as separated by the reference lines in Figures 4 and goes up on the one side and sound pressure
5 were identified: level drops down on the other side.

Journal of Voice, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2003

 FULLY QUANTITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE GLISSANDO
(3) The third phase of the glissando above 580
ms was characterized by a linear pitch in-
crease. As vibratory amplitude and Amax de-
creased, SPL was observed to increase.
Large fluctuations of SPL are indicative of
an instable voice in this phase. A considerable
glottal length increase could not be observed
until 850 ms.
The above-described classification of the glis-
sando is initially based on the fundamental fre-
quency curve of the acoustical signal. It is also
reflected in the SPL curve and in most of the laryn-
geal parameters. However, there is one important
exception: The glottal length remains constant over
a broad pitch range and does not increases until
fundamental frequencies of 170 Hz are reached.
Hence, glottal length is the most stable of the
observed laryngeal parameters. This behavior con-
firms that it is not the vocal fold length that con-
tributes primarily to the pitch, but the vocal fold
tension. Obviously, vocal fold tension has to be in-
creased during a glissando. In the preparation phase,
this increase contributes little to the pitch. However,
beginning with the initial phase, the isometric in-
crease of vocal fold tension involves a substantial
increase of the pitch. At 170 Hz (ie, 850 ms), the
tension leaves the isometric range and glottal length
is increased. Although the pitch of the voice is not
affected by this laryngeal change, a sudden decrease
of the sound pressure level of 3 dB is present.
Surprisingly, the increase of fundamental fre-
quency during the glissando corresponds to almost
exactly to one octave, even though the subject was
not instructed to cover a certain frequency range.
This phenomenon was observed in other subjects
too and may be explained by the octave dominance
of the ear physiology.
As the experimentee is an untrained singer, only
the chest (or modal) register and the falsetto register
must be considered.2 The transition between both
registers is clearly audible. From the different regis-
ter definitions, the clinician is in favor of the laryn-
geal one: The chest register is characterized by large
vibratory amplitudes of the vocal folds and clearly
observable mucosal waves. The falsetto register
shows small vibratory amplitudes and complete
missing of glottal closure. Vocal folds do not entirely
375
vibrate along the anterior–posterior axis but only
along a small fraction.17 For the presented glissando,
the glottal contact vanishes at about 600 ms (ie, 150
Hz). At the same instant, the register transition is
observed when the voice SPL drops down.
A second surprising finding is observed in both
registers: The glottal length does not change neither
in the chest nor in the basal falsetto register. A
measureable length increase can be observed only
six semitones above the register transition. This is
in contrast to previous studies in trained singers by
Hollien and Rubin.3,18 This observation may have
been missed in other studies where the superior digi-
tal high-speed system was not used. Alternatively,
this may be explained by physiology because the
subject as an untrained voice user exhibits a rather
early onset of the falsetto register and may use
another kind of motoric laryngeal control. Con-
sequently, as indicated by large short-term fluctua-
tions of the SPL function above 600 ms, the voice
sounds “thin” and “instable” within the falsetto
register.
This work is the first fully quantitative description
of a glissando maneuver based on evidence from
both endoscopic and acoustic data. Although the
simultaneous analysis allowed the interpretation of
most of the topics concerning the laryngeal motorics
for the investigated subject, the transferability of
the results is highly limited. Firstly, due to different
phonation mechanisms of trained and untrained
singers, a great variability between subjects has to
be assumed. Secondly, there are numerous studies
that give evidence for different phonation pro-
cesses in males and females.17 For example, me-
chanical adjustment in moving from chest to falsetto
voice source is considerably greater in the male
voice.9,19 Additionally, the subglottal pressure,
which contributes substantially to the kind of pho-
nation, was not investigated.20 Therefore, studies
including measurements of the subglottal pressure
in larger groups of subjects are in progress.
CONCLUSION
For the first time, the simultaneous recording of
both high-speed endoscopic measurements and
acoustical parameters during a glissando was dem-
onstrated. The use of a laser projection system
Journal of Voice, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2003
376 ULRICH HOPPE ET AL
enabled the derivation of absolute spatial units (ie,
vocal fold length, vibratory amplitudes etc.). The
presented data demonstrate that glissando studies
provide important information about laryngeal mo-
torics. The simultaneous recording of acoustic and
endoscopic parameters during a glissando is particu-
larly interesting for clinical investigation of the la-
ryngeal motorics.
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank
Dr. L. A. McKenna for her constructive suggestions and
comments in preparing this manuscript. The work was
supported by grants from the “Deutsche Forschungs
Gemeinschaft” (Project-Nr.: DFG EY 15/8 and DFG
EY 15/10).
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