DIFFERENCES IN PHONETOGRAM FEATURES BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE SUBJECTS WITH AND WITHOUT VOCAL TRAINING

Singing not only requires good voluntary control over phonation and a musical ear, it also demands certain capacities of the voice source. T hese capacities include a desirable range of sound intensity and frequ ency, which can be measured and represented in a phonetogram. The infl uence of specific factors on voice capacities may be ascertained by th e analysis of phonetograms. To determine the influence of the factors gender and voice training, phonetograms of 224 subjects, subdivided ac cordingly into four groups, were analyzed in two different ways. One i s based on the rescaling of phonetograms, whereas the other derives an alytic variables from the features' shape, area, and dynamic range. An alysis showed that, regarding gender, male subjects are able to produc e softer phonations, whereas female subjects produced louder phonation s at specific parts of their comparable frequency ranges. Trained subj ects have a larger enclosed area of the phonetogram, which is primaril y based on extended soft voice capabilities in both genders and the si gnificantly larger frequency range in trained female subjects. The sha pe analysis, performed with Fourier Descriptors, revealed differences for the factors gender and training.