The Effect of Training on the Voice of Carnatic Classical Singers

Abstract

There is a need to know the effect of training on the various parameters of voice in Carnatic singers. In this context, the present study was undertaken. The objective of the study was to compare the voice of trained Camatic and Beginning Carnatic singers. Two groups of subjects participated in the study. Group I consisted of 20 female trained singers and group II consisted of 20 female beginning singers. Subjects in group I had at least I 0 years of training in Carnatic classical singing and subjects in group II had less than 2 years of training in Carnatic classical singing. The age range of subjects in group I was 12-40 years (mean = 16.46 years and SD= 7. 93) and those in group II was 16-40 years (mean = 27.5 years and SD = 8.56). Specifically, the acoustic parameters maximum phonation duration, habitual frequency, frequency of the base note, frequency range in singing, speaking, and phonation, vibratos, presence I absence of singer's formant and voice projection (through measures of skewness and kurtosis) were measured. The results revealed a significant difference between the two groups for maximum phonation duration, difference between the habitual frequency and base note, range of frequencies in phonation, number of vibrato and Skewness and Kurtosis in singing and speech. This indicates that the trained singers did have an edge over the beginning singers over some acoustic features as a result of practice.