Vocal tract dimensional characteristics of professional singers with different singing styles

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between different singing styles and vocal tract dimensions and vowel formant frequencies in different genders. Thirty-two sopranos, 25 mezzo-sopranos, 27 tenors, and 23 baritones were recruited. Acoustic pharyngometer (ART) was used to measure the vocal tract dimensions. Participants were asked to produce vowels and sing the song “Happy Birthday”. Praat software was used to find out the formant frequencies of targeted vowels. Results showed that sopranos had shorter oral and vocal tract length, smaller oral and vocal tract volume than mezzo-sopranos significantly. Sopranos had higher first three and averaged first three vowel formant frequencies than mezzo-sopranos generally. Current study provided insights on the objective classification method of singing styles.