Voice Quality

1. Voice Quality Feburary 11, 2013

2. Practicalities • Course project reports to hand in! • And the next set of guidelines to hand out… • Also: the mid-term is on Friday! • So I have a review sheet for you. • For the mid-term, we will be in EDC 384. • (there’s more space there) • Caveat: TOBI portion of the mid-term is take home. • You’ll get a hard copy at the end of class on Wednesday. • Before that, we can walk through any questions you might have at the beginning of class on Wednesday…

3. 1. Modal Voice Settings • At the low end of a speaker’s F0 range: • Adductive tension force is moderate • Medial compression force is moderate • Vocal folds are short and thick. • = longitudinal tension is low • Moderate airflow • F0 is increased by: • Increasing the longitudinal tension •  activity of the cricothyroid muscle • Increasing airflow

4. A Little More Hardcore • Increasing Medial Compression of the vocal folds can create tense voice. • Remember the Mpi contrasts: • Also check out the Steve Sklar video • Increasing Medial Compression even further can induce ventricular voice • …in which the ventricular folds vibrate along with the (true) vocal folds. • (go back to the video + endoscopy evidence) • Finally, amping up the intensity of all the laryngeal forces results in harsh voice. • Compare with: “death metal voice”

5. A Different Kind of Voicing • The basic voice quality in khoomei is called xorekteer. • Notice any differences in the EGG waveforms? • This voice quality requires greater medial compression of the vocal folds. • ...and also greater airflow • Check out the tense voice video.

6. Taken to an Extreme • Extreme medial compression can lead to the closure of the ventricular folds, as well as that of the true vocal folds. • = ventricular voice • The false and true vocal folds effectively combine as one. • …and open and close together (usually) • Kargyraa voice • Head over to the video evidence.

7. Ventricular Voice EGG • Notice any differences? • Difference between closing and opening slope is huge! • Also: amplitude is larger.

8. 2. Creaky Voice • A voice quality that is somewhat similar to ventricular voice is creaky voice. • Also known as “glottal fry” • Laryngeal settings for creaky voice: • Ventricular folds often compressed down on true vocal folds. • High medial compression • Very little longitudinal tension • Low airflow •  Air bubbles up sporadically through the folds, near the thyroid arch.

9. Creaky EGG • Note: vocal folds are very short during creaky voicing. • Look at the creaky video.

10. Creaky Quirks • Note: creaky voice often emerges at the low end of a speaker’s range. • In a language like English, at the ends of utterances • In a tone language, for very low tones. • Note: creaky voice also often has a “double pulse” effect.

11. Modal to Creaky [ ]

12. Jitter • Creaky voice often exhibits a lot of jitter and shimmer. • Jitter = • Variation in timing of glottal pulses • Defined as a percentage: • period deviation/period duration.

13. Shimmer • Shimmer = • Variation in amplitude of glottal pulses • Note: synthetic speech has to include jitter and shimmer • …otherwise the voice won’t sound natural. • Check the measures out in Praat.

14. Harsh Voice • A “raucous voice quality” (Holmes, 1932) • Acoustically: fundamental frequency is aperiodic • = lots of jitter (variability in time) • Articulatorily: harsh voice does not add anything new to the voice quality parameters; • it just increases the intensity of those already in operation. • Harsh voice  “excessive approximation of the vocal folds” • = high medial compression and high adductive tension

15. Harsh, continued • “Harshness results from overtensions in the throat and neck; it is often if not usually accompanied by hypertensions of the whole body.” (Gray and Wise, 1959) • Harsh F0 is usually > 100 Hz • Creaky F0 is usually < 100 Hz

16. 3. Breathy Voice • In breathy voice, the vocal folds remain open… • and “wave” in the airflow coming up from the lungs. • Laryngeal settings for breathy voice: • Low medial compression • Minimal adductive tension • Variable longitudinal tension (for F0 control) • Higher airflow • Check out the breathy video.

17. Breathy Voice EGG • Also note: opening and closure phases in breathy voice are more symmetrical than in modal voice.

18. Some Real-Life Examples breathy modal

19. Contrasts • Gujarati contrasts breathy voiced vowels with modal voiced vowels: • Hausa contrasts modal [j] with creaky [j]: • Hausa is spoken in West Africa (primarily in Nigeria) • Creaky consonants are also said to be laryngealized.

20. All Three • Jalapa Mazatec has a three-way contrast between modal, breathy and creaky voiced vowels: • Jalapa Mazatec is spoken in southern Mexico, around Oaxaca and Veracruz.

21. Voiced Aspirated • Some languages distinguish between (breathy) voiced aspirated and voiceless aspirated stops and affricates. • Check out Hindi:

22. One Random Thing • Breathy voiced segments can “depress” the tone on a following segment. • Examples from Tsonga: • Tsonga is spoken in South Africa and Mozambique. • Voiced stops also “depress” tones more than voiceless stops. • depressor consonants • Nobody really knows why.

23. Open Quotient • From EGG measures, we can calculate the “open quotient” for any particular voicing cycle = • time glottis is open • period of voicing cycle • EGG measures show that there are reliable differences in open quotient values between the three primary voicing types. • Breathy voicing has a high open quotient • Creaky voicing has a low open quotient • Modal voicing is in between

24. Open Quotient Traces one period open phase • The open quotient in modal voicing is generally around 0.5

25. Tense Voice one period open phase • Tense voice (from throat singing demo) has a lower open quotient. • Result of medial compression. • Actual value: about 0.3

26. OQ Traces, continued • OQ for creaky voice is also supposed to be low… • but it’s actually quite sporadic. • Breathy voice OQ is quite high • (0.65 or greater)