NaMu 2025

Spectral characteristics of affective timbre in the singing voice: a preliminary study

☀︎ Adléta Hanžlová

Institute of Phonetics, Charles University in Prague

Background & Aims. The voice is a fundamental form of human communication. While speech comprises the majority of our vocal production, voice is also central in musical expression. In both contexts, our ability to recognize affective meaning relies on the perception of timbre, shaped by spectral properties of the voice. This pilot study aims to identify potential spectral correlates of arousal and valence in the singing voice to better understand how affective states are communicated vocally.

Methods. Four female singers were recorded performing a simple 3-bar melody in six versions, corresponding to six affective states based on adjectives used to describe voices. The arousal and valence of used adjectives were then correlated with spectral measures. Acoustic analysis included calculation of index alpha, spectral centroid (SC), singing power ratio (SPR), and the position of the singing power peak (SPP).

Results. From preliminary measurements, index alpha seems to align with arousal, which is in line with its relationship with SPL (Sundberg & Nordenberg, 2006), it was also slightly higher with negative valence. Both arousal and valence suggest a correlation with SC, the variation of which is significant in timbre differentiation (Caclin et al., 2005). SPR seems to be lower with higher arousal and with positive valence. Higher SPP values are linked to "ringing" timbre (Omori et al., 1996), however, SPP seems to vary more with higher arousal and with positive valence.

Conclusion. This preliminary study suggests spectral measures may serve as indicators of affective expression in singing. The findings provide some insight into strategies singers might employ to convey affective information, however, more analysis is necessary for conclusive results

Keywords: timbre, singing voice, spectral analysis, affective expression

Cite the abstract:

APA: Hanžlová, A. (2025). Spectral characteristics of affective timbre in the singing voice: a preliminary study. In O. T. Bellmann, M. Witt (Eds.), The Nature of Music. Inter- and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on a Human Universal, 73–74. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SYT83

bibtex:
@inproceedings{hanzlova_namu_2025,
title = {Spectral characteristics of affective timbre in the singing voice: a preliminary study},
booktitle = {The Nature of Music. Inter- and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on a Human Universal},
author = {Hanžlová, Adléta},
editor = {Bellmann, Oliver Tab and Witt, Melina},
year = {2025},
pages = {73--74},
doi = {10.17605/OSF.IO/SYT83}
}