Singing and Emotion

2014 ◽  
pp. 296-314
Author(s):  
Eduardo Coutinho ◽  
Klaus R. Scherer ◽  
Nicola Dibben
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Singing Voice ◽  
Vocal Production ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Artistic Interpretation ◽  
Expressed Emotions ◽  
The Voice

In this chapter the authors discuss the emotional power of the singing voice. The chapter begins by providing an overview of the process of externalization of emotions by the human voice. Then, the authors discuss some fundamental determinants of emotional expression in singing, namely the ‘emotional script’, the artistic interpretation, and the singer’s affective state. Next, they describe the manner in which expressed emotions are encoded in the voice by singers and recognized by listeners, and compare it with vocal expression in everyday life. Finally, they identify various methodologies that can enhance understanding of the physiology of vocal production and the acoustic cues fundamental to perception and production of expressive sung performance. The authors propose that the knowledge gained from application of these methodologies can inform singing practice, and that interdisciplinary approaches and cooperation are central aspects of a fruitful and sustainable study of the expressive powers of the singing voice.

scholarly journals The neural control of volitional vocal production—from speech to identity, from social meaning to song

2021 ◽  
Vol 377 (1841) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie K. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Neural Control ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Vocal Production ◽  
Flexible System ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Social Traits ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Voice Modulation

The networks of cortical and subcortical fields that contribute to speech production have benefitted from many years of detailed study, and have been used as a framework for human volitional vocal production more generally. In this article, I will argue that we need to consider speech production as an expression of the human voice in a more general sense. I will also argue that the neural control of the voice can and should be considered to be a flexible system, into which more right hemispheric networks are differentially recruited, based on the factors that are modulating vocal production. I will explore how this flexible network is recruited to express aspects of non-verbal information in the voice, such as identity and social traits. Finally, I will argue that we need to widen out the kinds of vocal behaviours that we explore, if we want to understand the neural underpinnings of the true range of sound-making capabilities of the human voice. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)’.

scholarly journals Establishing Normative Data on Singing Voice Parameters of Children and Adolescents with Average Singing Activity Using the Voice Range Profile

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Tobias Dienerowitz ◽  
Thomas Peschel ◽  
Mandy Vogel ◽  
Tanja Poulain ◽  
Christoph Engel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Normative Data ◽  
Clinical Diagnostics ◽  
Singing Voice ◽  
Minimum Frequency ◽  
Range Profile ◽  
Percentile Curves ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Voice Range ◽  
The Voice

<b><i>Purpose:</i></b> The purpose of this study was to establish and characterize age- and gender-specific normative data of the singing voice using the voice range profile for clinical diagnostics. Furthermore, associations between the singing voice and the socioeconomic status were examined. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Singing voice profiles of 1,578 mostly untrained children aged between 7.0 and 16.11 years were analyzed. Participants had to reproduce sung tones at defined pitches, resulting in maximum and minimum fundamental frequency and sound pressure level (SPL). In addition, maximum phonation time (MPT) was measured. Percentile curves of frequency, SPL and MPT were estimated. To examine the associations of socioeconomic status, multivariate analyses adjusted for age and sex were performed. <b><i>Results:</i></b> In boys, the mean of the highest frequency was 750.9 Hz and lowered to 397.1 Hz with increasing age. Similarly, the minimum frequency was 194.4 Hz and lowered to 91.9 Hz. In girls, the mean maximum frequency decreased from 754.9 to 725.3 Hz. The mean minimum frequency lowered from 202.4 to 175.0 Hz. For both sexes, the mean frequency range ∆f showed a constant range of roughly 24 semitones. The MPT increased with age, for boys and girls. There was neither an effect of age nor sex on SPL<sub>min</sub> or SPL<sub>max</sub>, ranging between 52.6 and 54.1 dBA and between 86.5 and 82.8 dBA, respectively. Socioeconomic status was not associated with the above-mentioned variables. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> To our knowledge, this study is the first to present large normative data on the singing voice in childhood and adolescence based on a high number of measurements. In addition, we provide percentile curves for practical application in clinic and vocal pedagogy which may be applied to distinguish between normal and pathological singing voice.

Extraordinary voices: Helen Keller, music and the limits of oralism

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156
Author(s):  
Michael Accinno
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Vocal Production ◽  
Cultural Logic ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
Helen Keller ◽  
Voice Teacher ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Opera Singers

Abstract This article examines iconic American deafblind writer Helen Keller's entræ#169;e into musical culture, culminating in her studies with voice teacher Charles A. White. In 1909, Keller began weekly lessons with White, who deepened her understanding of breathing and vocal production. Keller routinely made the acquaintance of opera singers in the 1910s and the 1920s, including sopranos Georgette Leblanc and Minnie Saltzman-Stevens, and tenor Enrico Caruso. Guided by the cultural logic of oralism, Keller nurtured a lively interest in music throughout her life. Although a voice-centred world-view enhanced Keller's cultural standing among hearing Americans, it did little to promote the growth of a shared identity rooted in deaf or deafblind experience. The subsequent growth of Deaf culture challenges us to reconsider the limits of Keller's musical practices and to question anew her belief in the extraordinary power of the human voice.

Text-to-Speech Software and Learning: Investigating the Relevancy of the Voice Effect

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1534-1548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scotty D. Craig ◽  
Noah L. Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Multimedia Learning ◽  
Text To Speech ◽  
Multimedia Design ◽  
Cognitive Efficiency ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Instructional Multimedia ◽  
Efficiency Measures ◽  
The Voice

Technology advances quickly in today’s society. This is particularly true in regard to instructional multimedia. One increasingly important aspect of instructional multimedia design is determining the type of voice that will provide the narration; however, research in the area is dated and limited in scope. Using a randomized pretest–posttest design, we examined the efficacy of learning from an instructional animation where narration was provided by an older text-to-speech engine, a modern text-to-speech engine, or a recorded human voice. In most respects, those who learned from the modern text-to-speech engine were not statistically different in regard to their perceptions, learning outcomes, or cognitive efficiency measures compared with those who learned from the recorded human voice. Our results imply that software technologies may have reached a point where they can credibly and effectively deliver the narration for multimedia learning environments.

scholarly journals Android Based Voice Activated Wheel Chair for Disabled

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 3508-3509
Keyword(s):  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Smart Phone ◽  
Dc Motor ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Recognition Model ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Dc Motors ◽  
Wheel Chair ◽  
The Voice

The aim of the project is to develop a wheel chair which can be controlled by voice of the person. It is based on the speech recognition model. The project is focused on controlling the wheel chair by human voice. The system is intended to control a wheel seat by utilizing the voice of individual. The structure of this framework will be particularly valuable to the crippled individual and furthermore to the older individuals. It is a booming technology which interfaces human with machine. Smart phone device is the interface. This will allow the challenging people to move freely without the assistant of others. They will get a moral support to live independently .The hardware used are Arduino kit, Microcontroller, Wheelchair and DC motors. DC motor helps for the movement of wheel chair. Ultra Sonic Sensor senses the obstacles between wheelchair and its way.

scholarly journals An Autoethnographic Performance: The Researcher’s Story of Hysterectomy and Menopause as Act of Resistance and Activism

2021 ◽  
pp. 194084472110428
Author(s):  
Grace O' Grady
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Medical Discourse ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Performance Ethnography ◽  
Early Menopause ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
One Year ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
The Voice

One year after beginning a large-scale research inquiry into how young people construct their identities I became ill and subsequently underwent abdominal surgery which triggered an early menopause. The process which was experienced as creatively bruising called to be written as “Artful Autoethnography” using visual images and poetry to tell a “vulnerable, evocative and therapeutic” story of illness, menopause, and their subject positions in intersecting relations of power. The process which was experienced as disempowering called to be performed as an act of resistance and activism. This performance ethnography is in line with the call for qualitative inquirers to move beyond strict methodological boundaries. In particular, the voice of activism in this performance is in the space between data (human voice and visual art pieces) and theory. To this end, and in resisting stratifying institutional/medical discourse, the performance attempts to create a space for a merger of ethnography and activism in public/private life.

Liveness and Mediatization

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-126
Author(s):  
Tereza Havelková
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Singing Voice ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Sound Theory ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Louis Andriessen ◽  
Film Sound

Chapter 3 approaches liveness as an effect of immediacy. It analyzes how hypermedial opera constructs an opposition between live performance and that which is “mediatized,” that is, generated or reproduced by media technology. Relying, among others, on film sound theory, the chapter shows how the effect of liveness becomes a function of a particular relationship between sound and its source, and especially voice and body. Where some scholars have played up the discrepancy between the voice heard and the body seen in opera, this chapter is attentive to how an apparent unity of voice and body is maintained within the context of hypermediacy. With the help of Louis Andriessen and Peter Greenaway’s opera Writing to Vermeer, the chapter suggests that an alignment of liveness with femininity and body-voice unity subverts some of the critical claims that have been made with respect to both live performance and the embodied singing voice.

Allegory and Excess

2021 ◽  
pp. 38-68
Author(s):  
Tereza Havelková
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Singing Voice ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
The Voice

Chapter 1 deals with the excess that opera always seems to produce in performance, which has mostly been associated with the physical, material aspects of the singing voice. Drawing on performative theory, this chapter approaches this excess as the result of a dialogic situation of meaning-making, where the audio-viewers strive to make sense of what they see and hear on stage or screen. The concept of allegory is evoked to approach the processes of meaning-making in hypermedial opera, drawing attention to how opera incites reading while at the same time withholds a coherent, univocal meaning. Allegory also helps recognize that the reading of opera involves not only text and image but also music and the voice. By contrast, the perception that the singing voice escapes signification is understood here as an effect of immediacy. Louis Andriessen’s and Peter Greenaway’s Rosa serves as the main case study.

scholarly journals Acoustic information about upper limb movement in voicing

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (21) ◽  
pp. 11364-11367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Pouw ◽  
Alexandra Paxton ◽  
Steven J. Harrison ◽  
James A. Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Upper Limb ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Limb Movement ◽  
Interpersonal Perception ◽  
The Body ◽  
Acoustic Information ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Vocal System ◽  
The Voice

We show that the human voice has complex acoustic qualities that are directly coupled to peripheral musculoskeletal tensioning of the body, such as subtle wrist movements. In this study, human vocalizers produced a steady-state vocalization while rhythmically moving the wrist or the arm at different tempos. Although listeners could only hear and not see the vocalizer, they were able to completely synchronize their own rhythmic wrist or arm movement with the movement of the vocalizer which they perceived in the voice acoustics. This study corroborates recent evidence suggesting that the human voice is constrained by bodily tensioning affecting the respiratory–vocal system. The current results show that the human voice contains a bodily imprint that is directly informative for the interpersonal perception of another’s dynamic physical states.

scholarly journals The Effects of Timbre on Neural Responses to Musical Emotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-146
Author(s):  
Weixia Zhang ◽  
Fang Liu ◽  
Linshu Zhou ◽  
Wanqi Wang ◽  
Hanyuan Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Affective Priming ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Musical Emotion

Timbre is an important factor that affects the perception of emotion in music. To date, little is known about the effects of timbre on neural responses to musical emotion. To address this issue, we used ERPs to investigate whether there are different neural responses to musical emotion when the same melodies are presented in different timbres. With a cross-modal affective priming paradigm, target faces were primed by affectively congruent or incongruent melodies without lyrics presented in the violin, flute, and voice. Results showed a larger P3 and a larger left anterior distributed LPC in response to affectively incongruent versus congruent trials in the voice version. For the flute version, however, only the LPC effect was found, which was distributed over centro-parietal electrodes. Unlike the voice and flute versions, an N400 effect was observed in the violin version. These findings revealed different patterns of neural responses to musical emotion when the same melodies were presented in different timbres, and provide evidence for the hypothesis that there are specialized neural responses to the human voice.

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