Fado’s Voice: Acoustic Features

Mendes, Ana; Ibrahim, Soraia; Vaz, Inês

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/10626

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Authors

Mendes, Ana

Ibrahim, Soraia

Vaz, Inês

Abstract(s)

Fado is a popular Portuguese singing style acoustically characterized by reduced fundamental frequency, jitter as well as shimmer and perceptually by a low pitch, hoarse and strained voice. This study aims to scientifically contribute to the acoustic understanding of Fado singer’s voice profile. 104 Fado singers participated on this study: 47 males, 57 females; 90 amateur and 14 professional, with ages from [18–67]. Fado singers produced spoken tasks consisting on sustained [a,i,u,s,z] plus reading aloud and sung tasks consisting on sustained [a,i,u] of the song “Nem ´as paredes confesso”. Acoustic voice parameters were compared between males vs. females, professionals vs. amateurs and young vs. older voices a two independent t-test with an a at .05. Spoken voice samples of Fado singers presented: 1)higher values for F0, jitter, shimmer and NHRcomparing to nonsingers; 2) lower F0 for maleprofessionals with age range [55–70] vs. amateurs ,formale amateurs with age range [18–55] vs. [55–70] yrold, and for female professionals vs. amateurs (exceptfor [a]); 3) older females had higher F0 than youngersingers, except for [a]; 4) professional male singershad higher jitter and shimmer than amateurs; and 5)professional female singers had lower jitter andhigher shimmer than amateurs. Sung voice results revealed that males’ and females’ Fado voice were acoustically distinct in fundamental frequency and perturbation measures. Along with vibrato, these measures were similar for different age groups as for amateurs and professionals. Vibrato was present in most singers: vibrato rate ranged 5.49–6.82 Hz and extent 0.28–0.59 ST for males; and 5.23–5.99 Hz and 0.29–0.54 ST for females. Lastly, singers’ formant was rarely present. An important step was accomplished with this pioneer study in obtaining the Fado’s singer voice profile. This knowledge can be generalized and applied on pedagogic, clinic and scientific level.