ACOUSTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF KOREAN TRADITIONAL SINGING VOICE: A PRELIMINARY REPORT

Most Koreans agree that Korean traditional singing voice has a very peculiar sound comparing to Western singing voice. The goal of this paper is to investigate the acoustic characteristics of Korean traditional singing voice called 'Pansori' Materials are analyzed from 3male professional singers and 4 female professional singers. Their singing was compared with their own conversation and other non-singers' conversation. Long term average spectra indicated that all the singers showed a much less spectral tilt than non-singers. The phenomenon was prevailing for professional singers not only in their singing, but also in their conversation. This suggests that it is not the result of a temporary effort but it may involve a certain permanent change in their physiological configuration. (To assess this hypothesis, voice source should be looked at directly. Therefore, in further research, using Rothenberg mask (Rothenberg, 1973) is strongly recommended.) In addition to LTA, individual vowel formants will be studied later.