Synchronization of musical acoustics and articulatory movements in Russian classical romance

Abstract

The given paper is aimed at investigating synchronization of musical acoustics (pitch, frequencies, durations) and articulatory movements in Russian classical romance. The study employs the method of electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to observe and compare objective data on articulatory characteristics in singing and reading. The genre of romance was chosen as it does not normally employ vocal techniques specific to opera singing (vibrato and etc.) which affect vowel intelligibility significantly. The romance chosen for the experiment is often performed by Russian singers being a part of canonic repertoire at conservatoires. We obtained the samples of singing and read speech and registered the objective data in both types of articulation activities. The recordings can be considered parallel as they were made in succession during one experiment. The calibration and attachment of the sensors was performed once in the beginning of the experiment. That means that the sensor positions were the same for the both recordings which makes them comparable in terms of articulatory data. The obtained material (both singing and reading) is annotated and analyzed in terms of the synchronisation of articulatory movements and pitch in singing as opposed to that in speech.