Perceptual and Acoustic Study of Voice Quality in High-Pitched Heavy Metal Singing

This paper studies high registers of heavy metal singing based on the voice profile analysis scheme (VPAS) and acoustic correlates. The f0 range varied from 366 to 666 Hz. The application of VPAS for singing is unique in the phonetic literature. Two professional and two amateur singers sang Iron Maiden’s Aces High with instrumental playback through headphones. Two very high-register excerpts were selected from this song to verify the vocal strategies used by experienced singers while singing at extreme registers of vocal extension. Experienced judges (vocal coaches, speech therapists, phoneticians) analyzed their vocal productions by perceptual analysis of voice quality and voice dynamics with VPAS. The acoustic analyses were run with the software VoiceSauce that automatically extracted thirteen parameters of long-term measures (H1, H1H2, H1A3, CPP, Energy, HNR05, HNR15, HNR25, HNR35, F1, F2, B1, B2). Results indicate that the two groups of singers use distinctive articulatory strategies in singing at high registers and that settings strategies are factors that influence these measures. Although both groups of singers used tense vocal tract and larynx settings, open jaw and raised larynx settings were only found in the professional voices. These different articulatory settings were statistically corroborated by the acoustic analysis.