MR and Areafunction Study of Throaty Voice Quality

“Throaty” is a term used for voice quality, generally pejorative, but sometimes considered as a desirable timbral ornament in non-classical singing. The throatiness of a male subject’s examples of the vowels /u, i, a, ae/ pronounced in throaty and normal voice were rated by an expert panel, showing that the examples were representative. The formant frequencies of these vowels were analysed by inverse filtering, revealing a consistently higher F1 in the throaty versions. The same subject’s vocal tract profiles for these vowels, pronounced in the two qualities, were documented by MR imaging and the area functions were computed. Their formant frequencies showed reasonably similar differences between the two qualities, discrepancies presumably resulting from lack of information on lip conditions and larynx height.