The Emotional Characteristics of the Soprano Voice with Different Pitch, Dynamics, and Vowel

MPhil Thesis Defence


Title: "The Emotional Characteristics of the Soprano Voice with Different 
Pitch, Dynamics, and Vowel"

By

Mr. Bing Yen CHANG


Abstract

Recent studies have found that different musical instruments have strong and 
different emotional characteristics. This paper considers how the emotional 
characteristics of the soprano voice differ with Pitch, Dynamics, and Vowel, by 
conducting listening tests. Listeners compared the tones pairwise over ten 
Emotional Categories, and the results were derived using the Bradley-Terry-Luce 
(BTL) statistical model. The results showed that Angry, Comic, Happy, Heroic, 
and Scary were stronger for loud notes, while Calm, Mysterious, Romantic, Sad, 
and Shy were stronger for soft notes. In terms of Pitch, Calm, Comic, Happy, 
Heroic, Mysterious, Romantic, Sad, and Shy had an arching shape that peaked at 
A5. In contrast, Angry had a U-shape with a valley at A5. Scary generally 
increased with Pitch. Shy slightly decreased with Pitch overall, though the 
prominent Vowel I was arching with a peak at A5. Vowels A and U were each 
individually prominent across seven Categories, indicating a wide range of 
strong expression, whereas Vowel E was only prominent across three Categories. 
These results quantify emotional nuance in the voice, which perhaps would be of 
interest to composers, vocalists, and audio engineers in manipulating emotional 
nuance in compositions, performances, and recordings.


Date:			Tuesday, 15 May 2018

Time:			3:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:			Room 4472
 			Lifts 25/26

Committee Members:	Prof. Andrew Horner (Supervisor)
 			Dr. Raymond Wong (Chairperson)
 			Dr. Matthew Mckay (ECE)


**** ALL are Welcome ****