The human singing voice: PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, VOL 70

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Over the centuries, singers have developed vocal techniques to enable themselves to sing with greater acoustic efficiency in order to meet the changing demands of the music they are being asked to perform. Accompanying orchestral forces have increased in size as new instruments have been added, composers have written more challenging scores for singers, and auditoria have been enlarged to admit larger audiences. Laboratory techniques are now available which enable aspects of the vocal techniques employed by singers to be quantified and understood better in relation to their speaking voices. This chapter explores the human singing voice and introduces recent research results that help to explain how singers are able to sustain long notes over a wide pitch range, how they are able to project their sound to avoid being acoustically drowned out by accompanying forces, as well as the acoustic reasons behind some of the difficulties encountered by listeners in distinguishing words when sopranos sing notes towards the high end of their pitch range.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, VOL 70
EditorsP Day
Place of PublicationOXFORD
PublisherOxford University Press
Pages113-134
Number of pages22
ISBN (Print)0-19-850539-6
Publication statusPublished - 1999

Cite this