Vowel identity and intelligibility at three different pitch levels in Indian classical singing

Abstract

Singing is ubiquitous in human society, and it is unique among music performance as being the only form to combine music with language. Intelligibility is an important aspect of communication during singing performance. Listener, Environment, Music and pitch are related factors that have been reported to affect the perception of song. Present study was aimed to determine differences in vowel identification and intelligibility scores obtained for speech and singing samples sung across different pitches of Hindustani and Carnatic singers. The target words were recorded in speaking and singing (low, mid and high pitches) conditions, followed by preparation of target stimuli. Twenty Speech Language Pathologists carried out identification task and intelligibility rating of the vowels and the scores were subjected to statistical analysis. The findings from the study indicated that in vowel identification task, the listeners did not show much difference in identifying vowels sung by two groups (Hindustani and Carnatic). On perceptual analysis of intelligibility of these vowels sung and spoken, all the spoken vowels obtained rating of good in both groups whereas the intelligibility was rated as poor for sung vowels especially at high and low pitches which could be due to the elevated laryngeal level and depression of the larynx during high and low pitches. Overall Vowel identification scores were poor for Carnatic singers when compared to Hindustani singers. This difference could be attributed to the use of different vocal tract configuration for their respective style of singing and rhythmical pattern