Acoustic Analysis of Five Different Voice Quality Parameters: a Pilot Study

This paper analysis five different voice qualities produced with a sustained C4 note (262 Hz), as follows: a) breathy voice (Br): modal voice with air escape throughout the vocal folds; b) weak voice (W): modal voice with minimum subglottal pressure (barely audible); c) modal voice (M): regular speech-like phonation; d) creaky voice (Cr): modal voice with the addition of irregular fold vibration; and e) tense voice (T): modal voice with maximum subglottal pressure. For the acoustic analysis we used the software VoiceSauce that automatically extracted thirteen parameters of short-term measures: 1- H1: relative amplitude of the first harmonic; 2- H1H2: difference in amplitude between the first and the second harmonics; 3- H1A3: difference between the first harmonic amplitude and the amplitude of the peak harmonic in the F3 region; 4- CPP: cepstral peak prominence; 5- Energy: measure of voice intensity; 6-9: harmonics-to-noise ratio from 0-500, 0-1500, 0-2500, 0-3500 Hz; 10-11: peak frequency of the first and second formants; 12-13: bandwidth of F1 and F2. The statistical results have shown that the parameters decrease in the following manner: 1) H1: M > Br > T > Cr > W; 2) H1H2: W > Br > (M = Cr) > T; 3) H1A3: (W=Br) > M > Cr > T; 4) B1: T > W > Br > M > W; 5) B2: M > T > Cr > Br > W; 6) CPP: T > M > Br > Cr > W; 7) Energy: T > M > Cr > Br > W. Moreover HNR presented the same decreasing pattern for the four conditions (W > M > T > Br > Cr), and the formants F1 and F2 also presented a similar decreasing pattern (T > M > Br > Cr > W).