In this tutorial, the insights gained in Tutorial: Spectral Representation with the Sonic Visualiser are continued and deepened using a vocal recording. The focus is on the analysis of the melodic design, the sound characteristics and the rhythm.

 Please download Audio02.mp3 to your computer. 
 Listen to the recording at your leisure. What stands out?

Audio02.mp3

This is a recording of the song „Come Back, Baby“ (1954) by soul singer Ray Charles. In this mono recording, Charles' vocals take center stage; the backing band (rhythm section, horns) can be heard relatively quietly in the background. This is advantageous for the analysis of the vocals, whose spectral representation is clearly visible in the spectrogram and not „covered up“ by the accompanying band.

 Please make a spectral representation of the recording in the Sonic Visualiser. 
 Look at the spectral representation when you listen to it again (follow playback: scroll). 
 Compare your hearing impression with what you see in the spectrogram.
 What else do you notice?    

The following sections are devoted to conspicuous features of the melodic, tonal and rhythmic design of the recording as observed in the spectrogram.

The fundamental (F0) and harmonics can be seen as parallel lines in the spectrogram.

 What stands out when you look at the vocal line?
 In comparison, how do the wind chords in the background look like?
 
 Look for passages in the recording with
 - a strong glide of the voice
 - vibrato
 - various ornamentations 

Various aspects overlap in the sound of the singing voice:

• peculiarities of speech (vowel formants, consonants),
• the anatomically determined personal sound of a voice,
• special melodic means of expression (sliders, ornaments, etc.),
• use of different vocal registers (chest voice, falsetto, etc.),
• use of different types of voicing and vocal techniques (shouting, belting, crooning,; roughness, breathy, twang, etc.).

With a little practice, some of these peculiarities can be detected in the spectrogram - but unfortunately not all and not in every vocal recording.

 Listen to the recording again. 
 Make a note of Ray Charles' sonic idiosyncrasies.
 How does his voice sound - in general and in certain passages?

Overtone structure and formants (formant ranges) of vowels:
The fundamental vibration of the vocal folds (F0) generally corresponds to the perceived fundamental pitch. The first two formants F1 (pharyngeal area) and F2 (labial area) are important for the comprehensibility of the vowels. The position of these two formant areas characterizes the spoken or sung vowel. Here is a table with orientation values for the position of F1 and F2.

 Vowel          F1      F2
 U 	​u​ 	320 Hz 	800 Hz
 O 	​o​ 	500 Hz 	1000 Hz
 å   	​ɑ​ 	700 Hz 	1150 Hz
 A 	​a​ 	1000 Hz 1400 Hz
 ö   	​ø​ 	500 Hz 	1500 Hz
 ü 	​y​ 	320 Hz 	1650 Hz
 ä 	​ɛ​ 	700 Hz 	1800 Hz
 E 	​e​ 	500 Hz 	2300 Hz
 I 	​i​ 	320 Hz 	3200 Hz