Level and center frequency of the singer's formant

The "singer's formant" is a prominent spectrum envelope peak near 3 kHz. ty pically found in voiced sounds produced by classical operatic singers. Acco rding to previous research, it is mainly a resonatory phenomenon produced b y a clustering of formants 3, 4. and 5. Its level relative to the first for mant peak varies depending on vowel, vocal loudness, and other factors. Its dependence on vowel formant frequencies is examined. Applying the acoustic theory of voice production, the level difference between the first and thi rd formant is calulated for some standard vowels. The difference between ob served and calculated levels is determined for various voices. It is found to vary considerably more between vowels sung by professional singers than by untrained voices. The center frequency of the singer's formant as determ ined from long-term spectrum analysis of commercial recordings is found to increase slightly with the pitch range of the voice classification.