Long-Term Horizontal Vocal Directivity of Opera Singers: Effects of Singing Projection and Acoustic Environment

Horizontal directivity of low- and high-frequency energy in speech and singing

“…For this purpose, directivity has been measured specifically to aid in open office layout design (McKendree, 1986;Chu and Warnock, 2002) and small enclosure (vehicle) design (Bozzoli et al, 2005). Others have measured directivity for singing in an attempt to enhance singing performance conditions for both soloists (Marshall and Meyer, 1985;Cabrera et al, 2011) and group/choir singers (Marshall and Meyer 1985;Jers, 2007). Additional potential uses of speech/ singing directivity patterns include optimization of microphone placement for recording (Dunn and Farnsworth, 1939;Cabrera et al, 2011) and telecommunication purposes (Halkosaari et al, 2005), and for acoustical modeling of human talkers in virtual environments (e.g., video games).…”

“…Simultaneous horizontal plane data was collected by McKendree (1986) and more recently by Cabrera et al (2011) using microphones to create a full semicircle from directly in front of to directly behind the subject. While no data were collected in the vertical plane, the reported horizontal plane directivity patterns are likely more accurate than those in other studies as no repetitions were necessary.…”

“…(That subjects were seated in these studies is not a limitation per se-and in fact may be desirable depending on the application of interest-but this arrangement will likely introduce reflections from the legs and chair that could affect directivity patterns, particularly at high frequencies.) Cabrera et al (2011), on the other hand, recorded only eight subjects (two male), and only singing data were collected (not speech) as the authors were interested in directivity of singers in performance halls.…”

“…(3) Marshall and Meyer (1985) showed directivity differences for individual phonemes (vowels), suggesting that humans can volitionally manipulate their directivity patterns. (4) Cabrera et al (2011) predicted that singing would be more directional than speech, especially at high frequencies, on the assumption that a larger aperture (mouth) size is used for singing. Although these claims are interesting and potentially useful for applications utilizing speech directivity data, their validity (and pertinence to the higher frequencies) is questioned here due to the limitations of the previous studies.…”

The Application of Impulse Response Measurement Techniques to the Study of the Acoustics of Stonegate, a Performance Space Used in Medieval English Drama

“…Attenuation of sound energy at the rear of the source (180 • )c ompared to the sound energy at the front (0 • ). The data regarding the directivity of an opera singer wass ourced from [39], whereas the directivity of at alker wass ourced from [40]. have aminimum length that equals the reverberation time at high frequencies while allowing enough capture time for the decay of both lowa nd high frequencies [25], making 1.5s the minimum length possible for the measurements in Stonegate.…”