A Study of Two Vocal Qualities Exhibited by Professional Female Singers

This paper reports on singing analysis research being carried out at York University using standard speech analysis techniques.The work concentrates on the experimental comparison and modelling of two vocal qualities used by professional female singers: the classical opera quality (Bel Canto), and the loud brassy vocal quality known as "Belting" which can be heard in rock.gospel, ethnic and music theatre.The standard analysis techniques used include spectrography.linear predictive coding, electrolaryngography and closed quotient measures.Many of the techniques used are available on the Speech Filing System, a so ware package originally from University College London, which is being further developed at York.The vocal quality models are being tested by comparative recordings of real and resynthesized sound data using a Klan speech synthesizer modi ed to include parameters relating to the singing voice.This paper will present some results from the experimental analysis of the voice source waveforms.