DO SINGERS MODULATE THEIR HARMONICS DIFFERENTIALLY DURING PHONATION AND SINGING?

Objective: Singing has been used as a method to enhance the voice in singers. Singers have increased pitch range, high frequency in their voices when compared to untrained voice. Of late, the cepstral measures are gaining attention in the voice analysis as it is reported to be a strong predictor of vocal impairments. . These measures signify the degree of harmonic organization in the voices. It was interesting to investigate cepstral characteristics of voice during phonation and singing. The aim of this present study was to compare the cepstral peak prominence of singers during phonation and singing. Method: 10 individuals who were trained in classical carnatic music participated in the study, they all were females. Speech tool uses Hillenbrand algorithm for the calculation of cepstral measures. CPP and CPPS were calculated according to the hillenbrands algorithm. Mean and standard deviation for all the cepstral measures were calculated. Results: Results revealed no significant difference during phonation and singing, though there was an increased mean score for all the cepstral measure during singing. Conclusion: Further studies are warranted to investigate the same using larger sample size.