The mechanics and acoustics of the singing voice: registers, resonances and the source-filter interaction

Joe Wolfe (1) , Maëva Garnier (2) , Nathalie Henrich Bernardoni (3) , John Smith (1)

1 UNSW - School of Physics [UNSW Sydney]
2 GIPSA-PCMD - GIPSA - Perception, Contrôle, Multimodalité et Dynamiques de la parole
3 GIPSA-MOVE - GIPSA - Analyse et Modification de l'homme en mouvement : biomécanique, cognition, vocologie

Singing combines speech and music—two activities common to most human cultures. It involves precise, coordinated control of breath, vocal folds, vocal tract, and their interactions. This chapter first introduces the interaction between laryngeal airflow and vocal-fold vibration that produces voiced sounds. It then discusses laryngeal mechanisms or registers, and how nonlinearities in the larynx produce the harmonically rich voice spectrum. Acoustical properties of the vocal tract and its resonances filter the voice spectrum, but also affect vocal fold vibration. Finally, it discusses how singers adjust their tracts using resonance tuning to produce louder, more stable voice with less effort.

Mots clés: singing; laryngeal mechanism; register; vocal tract resonance; tuning

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Linguistique

Joe Wolfe, Maëva Garnier, Nathalie Henrich Bernardoni, John Smith. The mechanics and acoustics of the singing voice: registers, resonances and the source-filter interaction. Frank A. Russo, Beatriz Ilari, Annabel J. Cohen. The Routledge Companion to Interdisciplinary Studies in Singing, 1 (chapitre 5), Routledge, 15 p., 2020, Volume I: Development, 1351672045, 9781351672047. ⟨10.4324/9781315163734⟩. ⟨hal-03077873⟩