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Table of contents

Glossary

Glossary

Below is a list of voice related words and the concepts relating to them, links and definitions where available.

Glottal Behaviour

covers all behaviours to do with phonation / sound production
vocal weight, pitch, closure, FVF, subglottal pressure, onsets, and even some microbehaviours are all under this umbrella
a catch all term for how the voice is produced and how ‘cleanly’ it is produced
has a lot to do with clarity and tone purity or HNR

Vocal Weight

how ‘heavy’ the voice sounds
doesn’t take into account volume, pressed phonation, breathiness
Vocal Fold Vibratory Mass is likely the underlying cause of the sound

Vocal Fold Vibratory Mass (VFVM)

how much of the vocal folds are actually vibrating during phonation
when more vibratory mass is involved, we get more surface area creating sound waves, and likely this will increase closed quotient

Volume

the loudness of a voice
usually from airflow-closure more than vocal weight or pressed phonation

Quotient

measurement of how long it takes for the vocal folds to open vs how long it takes for them to close
used in research because it’s objective and it’s a good but not perfect correlation to vocal fold vibratory mass / vocal weight
usually measured using EGG / electroglottography

Open Quotient

related to low vocal weight
how long in each glottal cycle (each flap of the folds) the folds are opening

Closed Quotient

related to high vocal weight
how long in each glottal cycle (each flap of the folds) the folds are closing

Pitch

the fundamental (F0) frequency of the voice

Base Pitch

the pitch a voice naturally returns to after intonation
defined by vocal weight / fold mass due to the connection between fold mass and pitch
the common return to point or anchor or home position for a voice

Phonate

verb: to produce a tone / pitch by making the vocal folds vibrate
requires both closure (adduction) and airflow

Register

see below

Laryngeal Vibratory Mechanism

describes how and how much of the vocal folds vibrates

M0 - Vocal Fry

also known as
- pulse
- strohbass
- fry
is at the bottom of your range
sounds like an idling motorcycle

your normal speaking register

M2 - Falsetto / Head Voice

high pitch, often hollow register
can be made less hollow with with slightly adding vocal weight

M3

whistle register

TA Muscles

The following is assuming TA muscle is the thing responsible for what we see, but it could be something else in which case replace TA with whatever is actually doing the work. TA seems to be involved though and it’s unlikely to be anything else.

thyroarytenoid muscles, running the length of the vocal folds
more activation ~= more weight
can make M2 sound more full and be more stable and bright rather than the “too thin” or hollow quality M2 often has, when used with sufficient closure
can help with more general (not breath specifically) support to the voice to make it more robust
can blend m1 and M2 to avoid breaks and more reliably come back into m1 from a slide
a component of “shouting posture”

Resonance

is a filter, which highlights frequencies in the voice
changes the timbre or non-pitch qualities of a voice
is dependent on the size and shape of the vocal tract
the size of a container is its external volume, space is the internal volume and resonance is how sound is affected by the volume and shape of that space

Vocal Size

do not try to change the size of your voice intuitively or without proper exercises / guidance unless you know not to constrict or use extraneous muscles!
a perceptual quality of voice, which describes the total effect of all resonance modifications

Brightness

the amount of high frequency harmonic information in the voice
- a perceptual quality caused by the amount of high frequency harmonic information
- a high resonance voice can sound dark due to muting effects like nasality and breathiness
- clarity, vocal weight and twang are the main factors that allow resonance to highlight upper frequencies, allowing for brighter tone
the frequency of formants, particularly F1, essentially resonance (outdated)

Larynx

houses the vocal folds
can be raised to get a brighter sound
the ‘adam’s apple’ is outside of the thyroid cartilage, part of the larynx

Embouchure

loosely describes how resonance changes in the mouth
affected by macrovowel

Macrovowel

the use of a vowel shape to color speech
keeping the mouth in the same position / posture as a certain vowel when speaking

Microvowel

to modify individual vowels to be darker or brighter without changing how the vowel is interpreted

OPC, Oropharyngeal Closure

raises resonance by decreasing the width of the back of the mouth
affects formants F1 and F2
associated with loli voice and some “anime” voices, hyperfem, “small” voices

Twang, AES constriction

at the cost of buzziness (not vocal weight), adds the impression of high resonance
increases the impression of brightness
seen in some country singers, some Australian accents
often induces hypernasality

Formant, F1 F2 or R1 R2 etc

these are resonance peaks in the voice, caused by the shape of your vocal tract
the ratio between F1 and F2 largely determines vowel
F1 is the first formant and is often altered through larynx height and OPC
F2 is the second formant and often altered through mouth space
F3 is from the difference in size between the mouth and the space between the teeth, mostly between the teeth and tongue
F4 is from the same but lips

FVF, False Vocal Folds and constriction

“white noise” quality in background is louder and may be present even when not breathy
increased subharmonics
sometimes a “rattle” like quality is heard, which is essentially really high frequency harmonics up around 10kHz
bad for vocal health in the long term

Subharmonics

rough quality similar to creak/fry
extra harmonics appear; one in between each harmonic, essentially making it as if the pitch was halved
this is due to every 2nd cycle of the vocal folds being interrupted
it’s also possible for it to cancel out every 3rd cycle instead, leading to two extra harmonics instead of just one
theoretically there’s no limit to the fraction of cycles interrupted as long as it’s consistent
can be a sign of slight FVF constriction interfering
on subharmonics

Harmonic to Noise Ratio (HNR)

HNR is the description of essentially how noisy a voice is. We have harmonics - which are the horizontal lines in the image - and then there’s noise in between, either from constriction, breathiness or a combination. You can see in the image how there is a clean looking pattern on the left, and a noisy one on the right. This could be called the ‘clarity’ of the voice, though it refers specifically to noise and not things like nasality or knodel effects which might make a voice sound ‘out of place’.

HNR

Primary sources of low Harmonic to Noise ratio: ・abduction (breathiness) ・FVF constriction ・vocal fry and creak

SOVTEs, VFEs

Semi Occluded Vocal Tract Exercise and Vocal Function Exercises
helps give a baseline for airflow and glottal behaviour to an extent
helps warmup and warmdown the voice to help with vocal health and fatigue
can show if there are any voice related problems

Breath Support

low support voices are typically unstable and fluctuate in pitch uncontrollably, may flip between m1 and M2 unpredictably
high support voices are more robust
putting a fair bit of pressure into the /s/ sound can induce better support
M2 and quiet voices tend to be low in support without training

Cover

hides or restricts a certain aspect of voice, usually fullness or resonance

Tongue Root Retraction

has a goofy, dark sound
associated with Meatwad, Stitch
can sometimes happen unintentionally when doing OPC

Hypernasality / Nasality

too much passage of air through the nose when phonating
darkens the sound and works as an antiformant
makes F1 and F2 almost nonexistant
can make vocal weight less prominent at higher pitches
nasal sounds should be the only muffled sounds when the nose is pinched, so you can read ?non-nasal passages to test for it

Hyponasality

too little passage of air through the nose when phonating

Intonation

the changing of pitch to add color to speech
intonation range is how far we intonate / change pitch in speech
intonation frequency is how often we change pitch in speech

Tempo

how much we change the speed of speech where some words are slowly spoken and some are rushed past
how fast in general the speech is

Emphasis

making a single sound or word stand out in speech
this usually relates to the use of volume for emphasis but can also be used in other ways
emphasis can be from volume, intonation, tempo

Resonance Fluctuation

how much the resonance changes through speech, or how much it is linked to pitch
some resonance fluctuation is normal
more resonance fluctuation is more dynamic and sometimes sounds out of place
no resonance fluctuation can sound unnatural

Articulation

how and how much the mouth moves in order to form vowel sounds
under vs overarticulated can sound like the difference between “uh muh guhd” and “ouw maiy gaud”
this can be used to emphasize things, or for generally making the voice more expressive
since it deals with how the mouth moving, a subset of this is mouth space as a resonance and brightness modifier

Vocal Tract

the mouth, nose, larynx and pharynx; everything from the larynx up

Thyroarytenoid muscles

lowers pitch
adds weight (probably)
can be used to make M2 more full sounding
if deactivated, results in a hollow, M2-like, dark sound

Cricothyroid muscles

raises pitch

Thyrohyoid muscles

raises the larynx to the hyoid bone
usually activates when raising pitch, resulting in pitch/resonance conflation

Stylohyoid muscles

raise the hyoid bone (and therefore larynx) toward the base of the tongue
can be activated when consciously raising the larynx

Vocal Ligament

the vocal folds, without the muscles

Vocalis muscle

thyroarytenoid muscle
[needs disambiguation]

AES/Aryepiglottic Sphincter

associated with twang
when the epiglottis is moved to make the passage in the throat smaller and cause a high frequency filter
it being responsible for twang is contested, but generally high closure plus AES constriction does result in the twang sound quality