Acoustic and aerodynamic measures were used to objectively describe characteristics of Country-Western (C-W) singing in a group of six premier performers in a series of studies and of operatic and Broadway singing in a female subject with professional experience in both styles of singing. For comparison purposes the same measures also were applied to individuals while speaking the same material as sung. Changes in pitch and vocal loudness were investigated for various dependent variables, including subglottal pressure, closed quotient, glottal leakage, H1–H2 difference [the level difference between the two lowest partials of the source spectrum and glottal compliance (the ratio between the air volume displaced in a glottal pulse and the subglottal pressure)], formant frequencies, long-term-average spectrum and vibrato characteristics (in operatic versus Broadway singing). Data from C-W singers suggest they use higher sub-glottal pressures in singing than in speaking. Changes in vocal intensity for doubling sub-glottal pressure is less than reported for classical singers. Several measures were similar for both speaking and C-W singing. Whereas results provide objective specification of differences between operatic and Broadway styles of singing, the latter seems similar to features of conversational speaking style.
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