MUSC 3230: Acous cs of Music - Litke Lorenz Edward Sarrondo

EVALUATION 7

Summary of Recorded Sounds

Instrument Used: Voice

A. Conven onal technique

SOUND 1: Vowel ‘a’ with plosive ‘b’

SOUND 2: Vowel ‘i’ with frica ve ‘f’

B. Non-conven onal technique

SOUND 1: Lip trills

SOUND 2: Overtone Singing

A.

For this evalua on, I used my voice in di erent ways to create sounds of the same pitches with
di erent styles and mbres to create an acous cal analysis and comparison of each sound. For
the rst two sounds, I used a plosive with a vowel to demonstrate the concept of no voicing
during the ini al closure of the plosive consonant ‘b’, then suddenly crea ng a burst of energy
and the singing begins; and the frica ve ‘f’ with a bright vowel to demonstrate how the energy
of one pitch can di er from another by changing the vowel and the consonant used.

Comparing the two sounds, seen in Figures 1.1 and 1.2, they both have the same fundamental
frequency of ~300Hz. However, if we look at Figure 1.3, it can be seen that there is signi cant
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energy at a frequency lower than the fundamental. This I believe is the ini al release of the
energy from the plosive ‘b’. On the other hand, sound 2, which used a frica ve, has a somewhat
pronounced higher frequency onset as seen in Figure 1.4 which indicates the turbulent
airstream coming from the frica ve, which resulted in a spectral component that can be
compared to noise.

Just by listening to both of the sounds, it can be observed that the rst sounded thicker, richer,
and fuller as compared to the second which sounded brighter, and higher. This is evident in our
spectral analysis - the rst sound has higher energy in the lower par als, and the second sound
has higher energy in the higher par als. Below is a table of comparison for the rst two sounds:

SOUND A SOUND B

• Around 12 stable partials • Around 16 stable partials

• Richer and fuller • Thinner and brighter

• Most energy can be observed in lower • Most energy can be observed in mid to high
frequency region frequency region

• Both have a fundamental frequency of ~300Hz, with each succeeding partial being integer multiples
of the fundamental frequency

Figure 1.1. Plosive with the vowel ‘a’

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 Figure 1.2. Frica ve with the vowel ‘i’

Figure 1.3. Plosive onset

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 Figure 1.4 Sound of air ow caused by the frica ve ‘f’

B.

In this part, I used lip trills and a empted to do an overtone singing. Both of the sounds have
very dis nct acous cal components that dis nguish them from conven onal techniques.

Trills, in general, “increase the amplitude of vocal fold vibra on, reduce the glo al gap
(Rodrigues, 2001), and improve the results of auditory-perceptual and acous c analyses,
resul ng in less shimmer, a higher harmonics-to-noise ra o, increased amplitude of the
harmonics, and decreased noise” (Cordeiro, 2012). As seen in Figure 2.1, the noise component
of the sound is almost negligible due to the very compact frequencies, especially in the lower
region. I tried to isolate a por on of the spectrogram, as seen in Figure 2.2 and the result was a
clear sound with a frequency of ~450 Hz, far from what we can perceive as a ~300Hz sound. This
was just a por on of it. Just by looking at the spectrogram, we can deduce that lip trills produce
hundreds of di erent frequencies at the same me.

For the last sound, I did my very best to produce overtones (Figure 2.3). My main goal ini ally
was to locate frequencies that are not integer mul ples of the fundamental, but I discovered
and con rmed the concept of formants as discussed in class. I did a variety of changes in my
vocal tract to create overtones such as changing the shape of the tongue and lips. Looking at
Figure 2.4, it is very clear that some frequency ranges were boosted when I changed the

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 posi on of my ar culators. As for the overtones, it was very faint, but I isolated a par al and the
result was di erent from the fundamental.

Figure 2.1. Lip Trills

Figure 2.2. Isolated Par al of Lip Trills

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 Figure 2.3 Overtone Singing

Figure 2.4 Formants

Reference:

Cordeiro, G. F., Montagnoli, A. N., and Tsuji, D. H. (2012). Comparison Among Phona on of the
Sustained Vowel /ε/, Lip Trills, and Tongue Trills: The Amplitude of Vocal Fold Vibra on and the
Closed Quo ent Retrieved April 13, 2023, from h ps://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/37031.pdf

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