EUROSPEECH 2001 Scandinavia
7th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology
2nd INTERSPEECH Event

Aalborg, Denmark
September 3-7, 2001

                  

The Use of Fundamental Frequency Raising as a Strategy for Increasing Vocal Intensity in Soft, Normal, and Loud Phonation

Paavo Alku (1), Juha Vintturi (2), Erkki Vilkman(3)

(1) Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
(2) Helsinki University Central Hospital, Finland
(3) Oulu University, Finland

A method is presented to estimate the effect of intentional raising of fundamental frequency (F0) on vocal intensity. The method, Energy of the Synthesised Period (ESP), is based on computation of the energy of a hypothetical speech sound synthesised using a single period of the glottal volume velocity waveform and a digital filter that models the vocal tract. Both the glottal flow and the vocal tract filter are estimated by inverse filtering. The results show that, in producing loud voice, speakers use F0 to increase the number of glottal closures per time unit, which increases rapid fluctuations in the speech pressure waveform, which, in turn, raises vocal intensity. The average increase of sound pressure level due to this active use of F0 was approximately 4 dB in loud speech.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Alku, Paavo / Vintturi, Juha / Vilkma, Erkki (2001): "The use of fundamental frequency raising as a strategy for increasing vocal intensity in soft, normal, and loud phonation", In EUROSPEECH-2001, 919-922.