InterSinging 2010 First Interdisciplinary Workshop on Singing Voice The University of Tokyo, Japan October 1-2, 2010

Ah, How Sweet the Sound: Some Acoustic Characteristics of Emotionally Sung /ah/

Donna Erickson (1), Tomoe Suzuki (1), Kayo Tanosaki (1), Takeshi Saito (2), Eri Haneishi (1), Kuniyo Yahiro (1), Hiroko Kishimoto (1)

(1) Showa University of Music, Kawasaki, Japan; (2) Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan

Recordings of 6 sopranos were made singing the sustained vowel /ah/ at a com- fortable pitch with four emotions: angry, happy, sad, and neutral. Perception test results with Japanese university students suggest that there was not always a "match" between what the singers intended to sing and what the listeners perceived, and that almost half of the /ah/ were perceived by listeners as sad. Acousitc analysis of the perceived emotions suggests that F0, formant frequen- cies, formant bandwidth, jitter, shimmer, and vibrato contribute signi&# 12;cantly to how listeners perceive the emotional singing.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Erickson, Donna / Suzuki, Tomoe / Tanosaki, Kayo / Saito, Takeshi / Haneishi, Eri / Yahiro, Kuniyo / Kishimoto, Hiroko (2010): "Ah, how sweet the sound: some acoustic characteristics of emotionally sung /ah/", In InterSinging-2010, 29-34.