Restraint of body movement potentially reduces peak SPL in western contemporary popular singing

Abstract

In western contemporary popular (WCP) singing, body movement is integral to overall stage performance. However, singers are often directed to stand still while singing during recording sessions or music theatre productions. No assessment has been undertaken by sound engineers or directors to determine whether singers can produce the same sound levels under conditions of voluntary movement restraint. The aim of this investigation was to assess the impact of body movement restraint on sound pressure levels (SPL) in WCP singing. Six professional WCP singers sang a section of a song in two performance modes: first with the directive to perform as they normally would on a stage and then when directed to stand still during their performance. The recordings were analysed for SPL and the results of the two conditions were compared. There was a significant reduction in the SPL recorded by the singers both statistically and acoustically in the 'non-movement' condition. This result suggests that restraint of movement during WCP singing is associated with reduced peaks in SPL. Possible reasons for this reduction include the inhibition of respiratory mechanisms for subglottal pressure production and interference with sensorimotor feedback mechanisms such as the autophonic response.

Voluntary Restraint of Body Movement Potentially Reduces Overall SPL Without Reducing SPL Range in Western Contemporary Popular Singing

“…Further, our expectation that SPL range in the NM condition would be reduced compared with the movement condition was also not supported. Possible explanations for the reductions in peak SPL under the conditions of movement restriction were covered in detail in our previous paper (Turner & Kenny, 2011). These results indicated that movement restriction is associated with the reduction of overall SPL not just SPL peaks.…”

“…This allowed singers to maintain a consistent dynamic difference in SPL throughout the song. This also meant that even though the same singers in our previous study had significant reductions in peaks (Turner & Kenny, 2011) this was compensated for in terms of maintaining the dynamic variation by an equivalent reduction in minimum SPL.…”

“…Torso movement in a posterior direction is associated with moments of high sound pressure level (SPL) in WCP singing (Turner & Kenny, 2010). Both acoustically and statistically significant reductions in SPL were associated with these same points when body movement was restrained (Turner & Kenny, 2011). These two prior papers focused on moments where both high fundamental frequency (F0) and high SPL occurred simultaneously.…”

Measuring embodied conceptualizations of pitch in singing performances: Insights from an OpenPose study

“…Musicians, although very familiar with Western musical conventions such as staff notation, are expected to be better at "escaping" the language-congruent vertical mapping that might have detrimental effects on the singing quality if gestures start to regulate suboptimal tension in the vocal apparatus (cf. Turner and Kenny, 2011). The directionality of the participants' head movements during their singing performances was computed using the vertical movement trajectories of the nose as tracked by the OpenPose (Cao et al, 2017) algorithm.…”