Comparison of singer's formant, speaker's ring, and LTA spectrum among classical singers and untrained normal speakers

Many studies have described and analyzed the singer's formant. A similar ph enomenon produced by trained speakers led some authors to examine the speak er's ring. If we consider these phenomena as resonance effects associated w ith vocal tract adjustments and training, can we hypothesize that trained s ingers can carry over their singing formant ability into speech, also obtai ning a speaker's ring? Can we find similar differences for energy distribut ion in continuous speech? Forty classically trained singers and forty untra ined normal speakers performed an all-voiced reading task and produced a sa mple of a sustained spoken vowel /a/. The singers were also requested to pe rform a sustained sung vowel /a/ at a comfortable pitch. The reading was an alyzed by the longterm average spectrum (LTAS) method. The sustained vowels were analyzed through power spectrum analysis. The data suggest that singe rs show more energy concentration in the singer's formant/speaker's ring re gion in both sung and spoken vowels. The singers' spoken vowel energy in th e speaker's ring area was found to be significantly larger than that of the untrained speakers. The LTAS showed similar findings suggesting that those differences also occur in continuous speech. This finding supports the val ue of further research on the effect of singing training on the resonance o f the speaking voice.