Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Acoustical Measurement Of The Human Vocal Tract: Quantifying Speech & Throat-Singing, Bryant R. Foresman

Pomona Senior Theses

The field of biological acoustics has witnessed a steady increase in the research into overtone singing, or “throat-singing,” in which a singer utilizes resonance throughout the vocal tract to sing melodies with the overtones created by a vocal drone. Recent research has explored both how a singer vocalizes in order to obtain rich harmonics from a vocal drone, as well as how further manipulations of the vocal apparatus function to filter and amplify selected harmonics. In the field of phonetics, vowel production is quantified by measuring the frequencies of vocal tract resonances, or formants, which a speaker manipulates to voice …