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Text intelligibility and the singer's formant--a relationship?
Johan Sundberg1, Camilla Romedahl
1Department of Speech Music Hearing, KTH Voice Research Centre, SE-100 44 Stockholm. pjohan@speech.kth.se
Summary
Musical theatre singers exhibited slightly higher intelligibility than opera singers, contrary to the hypothesis that the singer's formant enhances text clarity. This suggests formant frequencies in normal speech may improve consonant intelligibility.
Area of Science:
- Vocal acoustics and speech science
- Auditory perception and phonetics
Background:
- Consonant enunciation is vital for text intelligibility, determined by formant frequency patterns.
- The singer's formant, a spectral peak near 3,000 Hz, enhances higher formants in male opera singers.
- It was hypothesized that the singer's formant boosts consonant and text intelligibility, making opera singers more intelligible than musical theatre singers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of the singer's formant on text intelligibility in singing.
- To compare the intelligibility of opera singers (with singer's formant) and musical theatre singers (without singer's formant).
Main Methods:
- Two professional opera singers and two musical theatre singers vocalized nonsense syllables within a carrier phrase.
- Vocalizations were masked with varying noise levels to assess intelligibility.
- A listening test was conducted to measure the degree of intelligibility.
Main Results:
- Intelligibility was found to be slightly higher for musical theatre singers compared to opera singers.
- This finding contradicts the initial hypothesis regarding the singer's formant's role in intelligibility.
Conclusions:
- Musical theatre singers may achieve higher intelligibility by utilizing formant frequencies closer to those in normal speech.
- Slower formant transitions in musical theatre singers' consonant production could also contribute to enhanced intelligibility.
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