Marek Frič 1

1 Acadamy of Performing Arts of Prague, Musical acoustic research center, Prague

A gain factor (GF) is determined as an amount of the spectral band increasing related to overall sound pressure level. It has been published dependence of GF on the vocal loudness, subglottal pressure or vocal effort variation, acoustic spaces, gender and age differences. All that studies analyzed LTAS of a long time samples in the same voice tasks (reading, singing or shouting) at voice loudness variation.

Our study examines changes of GF in 3 different voice tasks (habitual speaking voice, supported speaking voice and singing) and in 3 groups of voice users, separately for both genders: professional operatic singers (3 male, 6 females), professional actors (7 m., 4 f.) and as a reference nonprofessional group of 20 students of 1^st class of acting (11 m. and 9 f.).

GF was calculated from third-octave spectral characteristics of manually separated long vowels [a:] (approximately 300 ms long) from gradually increasing of loudness of the word [ma:ma] pronounce in constant pitch. The GF was calculated for all pitches from frequency range of the subject and accepted was only with linear regression coefficient of p<0.05 significance level. Than for the subject was calculated mean overall GF in a given spectral band from all pitches GFs. Mean overall GF values was compared by Student’s test for 3 tasks and 3 groups. As relevant band differences was chosen only that with p<0.05 level.

Generally there has been found no statistical difference between habitual and supported speaking GF in all groups of subjects, but there has occurred evident difference between speaking and singing. In singing, the students (males and females) had higher GFs of lower (0.5 – 1.5) spectral bands; professional male actors had higher GFs in 0.6 and 2-3 kHz bands, but actresses in 1-2 kHz. Operatic singers have referred only differences between supported speaking and singing, when males had higher GFs in 0.6, 0.95 and 5 kHz bands and females in 0.6-0.8 and 2-3 kHz bands.

The comparison of different groups reveals main difference between singers and actors.

In habitual voice, male professional singers increased more the 1.5 – 2 kHz spectral bands than male actors (professionals and students). In opposite professional females (actresses and singers) have had higher GF of the spectral bands over the 3 kHz than female students.

In supported voice, professional actors gained more: 0.75 and 1.5 kHz males, females only 0.75 kHz band; operatic male singers had higher GFs in 1.5 – 2 kHz but lower in 0.75 and 3 kHz; female singers higher in 3 and over 7 kHz bands than males and females students.

In singing, professional male (female) operatic singers had higher values of GF in all spectral bands over 3 kHz than male (female) students, but actors have higher GFs in 1.2 and 3 kHz and actress only in 0.6 kHz band.

Results show that different groups use different spectral gain strategies in different voice tasks.

Weikert Matthias 1 , Schlömicher-Thier Josef 2 , Andrea Orendi 1

1 GesundheitsForum Regensburg, HNO-Phoniatrician-group praxis, Regensburg

2 Austrian Voice Institute e.v., occupational Voice, Salzburg/ Regensburg

Wivine Decoster 1 , Piet Mertens 2

1 K.U.Leuven, Expertisecentrum Stem, Leuven

2 K.U.Leuven, Linguistics, Leuven

Ahmed Geneid 1 , Marjo Rönkkö 1 , Paavo Alku 2 , Risto Voutilainen 3 , Liisa Airaksinen 3 , Erkki Vilkman 1

1 Department of Phoniatrics, Helsinki University Hospital, Phoniatrics Department, Helsinki

2 Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, , Helsinki

3 Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics, Espoo

Peter Pabon 1 , Sten Ternström 2

1 Royal Conservatory, Inst. of Sonology, The Hague

2 Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Dept of Speech, Music and Hearing, TMH, Stockholm

Jan G. Svec 1 , Svante Granqvist 2

1 Palacky University, Dept.Exp.Physics, Biophysics, Olomouc, Czech Republic

2 Royal Institute of Technology, Speech, Music and Hearing, Stockholm, Sweden