What is it about?
Vibrato is a singing technique that is similar in some ways to vocal tremor, a neurogenic voice disorder. In this study, singers produced vibrato while adjusting different aspects of their voice. When listeners heard the singers' voice recordings, they perceived the 'shakiness' of the voice differently when singers used a pressed voice as opposed to a breathy voice, a high pitch as opposed to a low pitch, and an "ee" vowel as opposed to an "ah" vowel.
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Why is it important?
These study findings indicate that some singers can change how 'shaky' their voice sounds by adjusting their voice quality or pitch. This might also be true for individuals with vocal tremor. Future studies will test if speakers who have vocal tremor can make the same adjustments that singers made to change listeners' perception of vocal tremor.
Perspectives
Singers producing vibrato served as a model of vocal tremor in this study. The voice adjustments that were tested in this study could be used to highlight vibrato for singers. Alternatively, if speakers with vocal tremor could make the opposite adjustments, they might be able to mask their vocal tremor during speech production.
Dr. Rosemary A. Lester-Smith
The University of Texas at Austin
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The effects of physiological adjustments on the perceptual and acoustical characteristics of vibrato as a model of vocal tremor, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, November 2016, Acoustical Society of America (ASA),
DOI: 10.1121/1.4967454.
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