• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.59-64
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• 2017

There are three sorts of voices of female vocalists: soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto according to the transliteration. Among them, the soprano has the highest vocal range. Since the voice is generated through the human vocal tract based on the voice generation model, it is greatly influenced by the vocal tract. The structure of vocal organs differs from person to person, and the formants characteristic of vocalization differ accordingly. The formant characteristic refers to a characteristic in which a specific frequency band appears distinctly due to resonance occurring in each vocal tract in the vocal process. Formant characteristics include personality that occurs in the throat, jaw, lips, and teeth, as well as phonological properties of phonemes. The first formant is the throat, the second formant is the jaw, the third formant and the fourth formant are caused by the resonance phenomenon in the lips and the teeth. Among them, pronunciation is influenced not only by phonological information but also by jaws, lips and teeth. When the mouth is small or the jaw is stiff when pronouncing, pronunciation becomes unclear. Therefore, the higher the accuracy of the pronunciation characteristics, the more clearly the formant characteristics appear in the grammar spectrum. However, many soprano singers can not open their mouths because their jaws, lips, teeth, and facial muscles are rigid to maintain high tones when singing, which makes the pronunciation unclear and thus the formant characteristics become unclear. In this paper, in order to confirm the accuracy of the pronunciation characteristics of soprano singers, the experimental group was selected as the soprano singers A, B, C, D, E of Korea and analyzed the grammar spectrum and conducted the MOS test for pronunciation recognition. As a result, soprano singer B showed a clear recognition from F1 to F5 and MOS test result showed the highest recognition rate with 4.6 points. Soprano singers A, C, and D appear from F1 to F3, but it was difficult to find formants above 2kHz. Finally, the soprano singer E had difficulty in finding the formant as a whole, and MOS test showed the lowest recognition rate at 2.1 points. Therefore, we confirmed that the soprano singer B, which exhibits the most distinct formant characteristics in the grammar spectrum, has the best pronunciation accuracy.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.634-642
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• 2018

People with spinocerebellar ataxia, a hereditary and progressive neurogenic disorder, suffer from ataxic dysarthria due to cerebellar dystrophy. This study was designed to examine if intensive motor speech treatment yields improvement in progressive ataxic dysarthria and if then, to investigate magnitude of therapeutic effect. SPEAK $OUT!^{(R)}$ was provided to a 55-year old female diagnosed with SCA for improving motor speech functions. Magnitude of therapeutic effect was large in changes of MPT and vocal intensity across speech tasks. Small effect size was found in changes of fundamental frequency, however, large therapeutic effect was observed in changes of frequency range. In addition, improvement of vocal quality based on jitter, shimmer, and HNR was observed with large therapeutic effect size and vowel space was expanded, particularly, due to F1. Lastly, VHI scores were decreased. Intensive motor speech treatment, called as SPEAK $OUT!^{(R)}$ was effective enough to observe improvement in vocal intensity, frequency range, and vocal quality, expanding vowel space and lowering VHI scores. Based on the results of this case study, further efficacy evaluation of SPEAK $OUT!^{(R)}$ for improving progressive ataxic dysarthria in people with SCA is required.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.49-56
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• 2014

This research compared the features of respiration and phonation between practical musicology students and general male students, according to their smoking status. Participants of this research are 15 practical musicology male students attending ${\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}$ university and 16 general ${\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}$ university students. The participants, both non-smokers and smokers with 5-years of smoking history have no history of voice disease in any case and have normal cognitive functions. The results indicated that, first, there is not a notable difference in the respiratory activity status(FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC), regardless of major and smoking status. In MPT, even though there is no significant difference in accordance with their majors, considering smoking status, the smoker group was shorter than non-smoker group significant difference statistically (p<.01). Second, the divisions of participants' major did not show significant difference in Fo, jitter, shimmer, and NHR in the vowel prolongation task. However, the smoker group showed a significantly higher degree of jitter and shimmer than the non-smoker group (p<.05) as Fo and NHR shows no difference. In the case of VRP, maximum frequency and frequency range of the practical group are significantly higher than normal group statistically (p<.001). Moreover, although the difference of the minimum frequency shown at the statistic is not significant, practical group showed a higher tendency of frequency than normal group (p=.051). In conclusion, even though there is no difference in respiratory activity between the smoker group and non-smoker group, the MPT of the smoker group is shorter than that of non-smoker group. In addition, the smoker group showed a higher degree of jitter and shimmer than the non-smoker group. MPT is related to the valve action of vocal fold that passes through the glottis. Thus, it is interpreted that the smoker group has a lower quality of voice and valve action of the vocal fold. Also, the practical group has a higher degree of maximum frequency and frequency range than the normal group. This research can function as basic data for vocal characteristics for the majors in relation to the voice-specializing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.114-121
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• 2016

Background and Objectives : Many students major in applied music singing have various difficulties in phonation when they sing or perform. But the studies about this cause are lack. The purpose of this study is whether singing voice therapy based on vocal music is effective or not to applied music singing students that have difficulties in phonation. Materials and Methods : Singing voice therapy program had been done to 8 students major in applied music singing during 7 weeks. We did laryngeal stroboscope, perceptual, acoustic and aerodynamic examination before and after singing voice therapy to this students. And we studied post examination results have differences or improvements compared to pre examination results. Results : Four male students don't have effective improvement after singing voice therapy but they shows slight improvement in aerodynamic examination values compared to pre examination values. Four female students shows improvement in aerodynamic examination values and pitch range increasing. Above all, one student's vocal nodules disappeared after singing voice therapy. Conclusion : Singing voice therapy based on music singing is very effective to the students major in applied music singing. Above all, their curriculum in applied music singing should include phonation training based on music singing before training perform and technic practices.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.7-16
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• 1999

Starting as a poet, I learned about the sounds of words with David Abercrombie. Then, remembering my background in physics, I moved to studying acoustic phonetics and speech synthesis. From there I learned about psychology and how. to test perceptual theories. A meeting with a physiologist led to work on the use of the respiratory muscles in speech. Later I landed in Africa teaching English phonetics and learning about African languages. When I went to UCLA to set up a lab I was able to find bright students who helped make computer models of the vocal tract and taught me linguistic theory. And I was able to continue wandering around the world, describing the sounds of a wide range of languages.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1978.06a
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• pp.6.4-7
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• 1978

The author has experienced 50 cases of vocal nodules and polyps in our department for 3 years from May 1974 to April 1977. These nodules were removed out with laryngeal forcep under indirect laryngoscopy and maximum phonation time and timbre of the voice were analyzed before and after operation. Very shortened phonation time of the patient with vocal nodule has returned to normal range (Male : 30 seconds, Female: 20 seconds) and the voice timbre has recovered to almost normal voice postoperatively. The author has made a brief literature review.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.131-137
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: The current study investigates pitch coding using frequency following response (FFR) among vocalists, violinists, and non-musicians for Indian Carnatic transition music stimuli and assesses whether their listening biographies strengthen their F0 neural encoding for these stimuli. Subjects and Methods: Three participant groups in the age range of 18-45 years were included in the study. The first group of participants consisted of 20 trained Carnatic vocalists, the second group consisted of 13 trained violinists, and the third group consisted of 22 non-musicians. The stimuli consisted of three Indian Carnatic raga notes (/S-R2-G3/), which was sung by a trained vocalist and played by a trained violinist. For the purposes of this study, the two transitions between the notes T1=/S-R2/ and T2=/R2-G3/ were analyzed, and FFRs were recorded binaurally at 80 dB SPL using neuroscan equipment. Results: Overall average responses of the participants were generated. To assess the participants' pitch tracking to the Carnatic music stimuli, stimulus to response correlation (CC), pitch strength (PS), and pitch error (PE) were measured. Results revealed that both the vocalists and violinists had better CC and PS values with lower PE values, as compared to non-musicians, for both vocal and violin T1 and T2 transition stimuli. Between the musician groups, the vocalists were found to perform superiorly to the violinists for both vocal and violin T1 and T2 transition stimuli. Conclusions: Listening biographies strengthened F0 neural coding, with respect to the vocalists for vocal stimulus at the brainstem level. The violinists, on the other hand, did not show such preference.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.131-137
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: The current study investigates pitch coding using frequency following response (FFR) among vocalists, violinists, and non-musicians for Indian Carnatic transition music stimuli and assesses whether their listening biographies strengthen their F0 neural encoding for these stimuli. Subjects and Methods: Three participant groups in the age range of 18-45 years were included in the study. The first group of participants consisted of 20 trained Carnatic vocalists, the second group consisted of 13 trained violinists, and the third group consisted of 22 non-musicians. The stimuli consisted of three Indian Carnatic raga notes (/S-R2-G3/), which was sung by a trained vocalist and played by a trained violinist. For the purposes of this study, the two transitions between the notes T1=/S-R2/ and T2=/R2-G3/ were analyzed, and FFRs were recorded binaurally at 80 dB SPL using neuroscan equipment. Results: Overall average responses of the participants were generated. To assess the participants' pitch tracking to the Carnatic music stimuli, stimulus to response correlation (CC), pitch strength (PS), and pitch error (PE) were measured. Results revealed that both the vocalists and violinists had better CC and PS values with lower PE values, as compared to non-musicians, for both vocal and violin T1 and T2 transition stimuli. Between the musician groups, the vocalists were found to perform superiorly to the violinists for both vocal and violin T1 and T2 transition stimuli. Conclusions: Listening biographies strengthened F0 neural coding, with respect to the vocalists for vocal stimulus at the brainstem level. The violinists, on the other hand, did not show such preference.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.49-59
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate vocal hygiene habits and Korean Voice-Related Quality of Life (K-VRQOL) among classical singers. A total of 128 classical singers filled an online voice and K-VRQOL questionnaire, and the results were analyzed. In order to investigate the characteristics of K-VRQOL according to age groups, and the presence or absence of a history of voice problems, we conducted a two-way ANOVA. The results are as follows. Of the 128 classical singers, 28 (21.9%) with a history of voice problems said that excessive conversation, singing practice, and yelling were the causes of their voice problems. The symptoms of voice problems were fatigue, loss of range, hoarseness, and breathiness. In addition, classical singers were less likely to smoke, or to drink alcohol or caffeine. The K-VRQOL was highly correlated with all sub-domains. There was a statistically significant difference according to age groups (p<.05) and history of voice problems (p<.01). There was no correlation between age groups and history of voice problems. Voice management is important because classical singers can ruin their voice by speaking, and the risk of voice disorder is high. Voice problems affect quality of life. In future studies, it is necessary to obtain information on the subjective voice characteristics of classical singers by examining the relationship between their voice hygiene habits and VHI, SVHI, and K-VRQOL.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.151-154
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• 2002

Background and Objectives : The pitch range of the human voice is variable, extending from chest register to falsetto register. Although numerous studies have investigated after laryngeal mechanism description of falsetto tone, systematic and objective studies were lack. The purpose of this study was to systematically analyze and compare modal with falsetto voice. Materials and Methods : Seven adult baritones were selected from a larger population of volunteers at choir. Simultaneous measurements of acoustic, electroglottographic and aerodynamic study were made during /e/ sustained in two vocal registers, lowest modal and highest falsetto. Statistical analysis was performed using Wilkoxson signed rankes test. Results : In the acoustic analysis, shimmer was increased in flasetto voice(p<0.05). In the electroglottographic analysis, closed quotient(CQ), speed quotient(SQ) at the modal voice were higher than at the falsetto voice(p<0.05). In the aerodynamic analysis, and airflow rate(MFR) of falsetto voice was higher than modal voice(p<0.05). Conclusions : In the results of the study indicate that, falsetto register ineffective, inefficient, generally unpleasant because it was produced by incomplete clousure of true vocal cord. We anticipated that further study with large samples can provide an objective criteria for status and classification of singer's modal and falsetto voice.