COMPARISON OF VOCAL-TRACT FORMANTS IN SINGING AND NONPERIODIC PHONATION

The skilled use of nonperiodic phonation techniques in combination wit h spectrum analysis has been proposed here as a practical method for l ocating formant frequencies in the singing voice. The study addresses the question of the degree of similarity between sung phonations and t heir nonperiodic imitations, with respect to both frequency of the fir st two formants as well as posture of the vocal tract. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), linear predictive coding (LPC), and spectrum analysis, two types of nonperiodic phonation (ingressive and vocal fry ) are compared with singing phonations to determine the degree of simi larity/difference in acoustic and spatial dimensions of the vocal trac t when these phonation types are used to approximate the postures of s inging. In comparing phonation types, the close similarity in acoustic data in combination with the relative dissimilarity in spatial data i ndicates that the accurate imitations are not primarily the result of imitating the singing postures, but have instead an aural basis.