Evaluation of voice pitch control in songs with different melodies using tactile voice pitch feedback display

It is difficult for the deafblind or the hearing impaired to control the pitch of their voice, because they cannot perceive it. In particular, it is very difficult for them to control their voice pitch when singing, because they need to maintain a stable tone. We have developed a voice pitch control system to assist their singing by means of a tactile display. In a previous study, two deafblind subjects using this system could control their voice pitch with accuracy comparable to hearing children while singing “Frog Round,” even though successive notes in the song’s melody were adjacent in the musical scale. In the present study, pitch control accuracy is investigated for “Frog Round,” as well as another song in which successive notes are separated by wider intervals in the musical scale, for comparison. No differing tendencies were found in the interval deviations of the pitch for different musical notes or changes in the musical interval. This result shows that our voice pitch control system is effective to control voice pitch not only for songs with adjacent notes but also for songs with separated notes.