This study seeks to ex
amine how t
arget stimulus timbre, vibr
ato, pitch,
and singer cl
assific
ation
affect pitch-m
atching
accur
acy.
absSec_2">Study design
abspara0015">This is a repeated-measures factorial design.
absSec_3">Methods
abspara0020">Source signals were synthesized with a source slope of −12 dB/octave with and without vibrato at each of the pitches, C4, B4, and F5. These source signals were filtered using five formant patterns (A–E) constituting a total of 30 stimuli (5 formant patterns × 3 pitches × 2 vibrato conditions). Twelve sopranos and 11 mezzo-sopranos with at least 3 years of individual voice training were recruited from the University Of Tennessee, Knoxville, School of Music and the Knoxville Opera Company. Each singer attempted to match the pitch of all 30 stimuli presented twice in a random order.
absSec_4">Results
abspara0025">Results indicated that there was no significant effect of formant pattern on pitch-matching accuracy. With increasing pitch from C4 to F5, pitch-matching accuracy increased in midpoint of the vowel condition but not in prephonatory set condition. Mezzo-sopranos moved toward being in tune from prephonatory to midpoint of the vowel. However, sopranos at C4 sang closer to being in tune at prephonatory but lowered the pitch at the midpoint of the vowel. Presence or absence of vibrato did not affect the pitch-matching accuracy. However, the interesting finding of the study was that singers attempted to match the timbre of stimuli with vibrato.
absSec_5">Conclusions
abspara0030">The results of this study show that pitch matching is a complex process affected by many parameters.
