Lowest timbre. What the timbre of a voice can tell about a person. Voiceovers for advertising and what is the most beautiful female voice for men

Each person's voice is unique in its sound and characteristics. If we talk about the characteristics of singing voices, here distinctive features such as: timbre, range, pitch and personality.

How to determine your voice type? The classification of male and female voices according to vocal characteristics that exists today was invented in the Italian opera school. It’s easy to find out what type of voice a performer has while listening. Experts pay attention to its timbre, tonality, features and tessitura, and then draw a conclusion.

Timbre

The timbre of a voice is its individual color and brightness. The voice may sound rich or soft, the color may be dark or light. Teachers distinguish between the following types of voice timbre: sharp and soft, chest, head, mixed.

A vocalist who has a soft and pleasant timbre to the ear will be more in demand than one who has a harsh and off-putting style of singing. In fact, the timbre of the voice determines whether a person can practice vocals.

Each of us has a unique timbre, so we can easily identify the sounding voice of one of our favorite singers thanks to its individual characteristics.

About tonality

It is worth considering that the voice may sound different in each piece, so it is better to sing in your working range. This, in turn, is what we call the range of notes to which the vocalist is able to give beautiful coloring and high-quality sound. This is not about the full range of notes that a person can hit with their voice. So, based on the working range, it is worth choosing the key for a certain piece.

What is range?

The range of each type of voice is determined during chanting, as well as during the performance of a song in a key that is convenient for the person. In most cases, singing voices have a specific range that makes it easy to determine their type. Particularly valued are performers who have a wide working range and can therefore replace one of their colleagues with a different voice.

About tessitura

Tessitura is the part of the range in which the singer is comfortable singing. That is, it can be comfortable or uncomfortable for a certain voice. It happens that a song may be comfortable for one performer, but not for another, although both have the same range. This means that the part of their range for comfortable singing is different. Therefore, the wider it is, the more convenient it is to sing.

Moreover, the performer must learn the correct singing technique. The wrong one distorts the voice. To make it sound beautiful and convincing, you need to pay attention to the following technical features:

• You should breathe with your diaphragm, that is, your stomach should rise when you inhale and fall when you exhale. This will provide greater control over
• Maintain proper posture while singing. It is better to keep your neck straight and relaxed. If you stand straight, it will be easier to breathe.
• The back of the throat should be open while singing, and sing the vowels clearly.

Anyone can submit their own singing technique. If we talk about vocal technique, development will depend on the concentration of memory and attention, lung capacity and characteristics of the vocal cords. In fact, no matter what physiological characteristics and vocal abilities a person has, it is possible to develop a singing voice.

For voice development

• Don't set too high standards for yourself in anticipation of progress, be patient and continue to train your voice.
• Sing simple songs first, and then take on more difficult ones.
• Cold and hot drinks damage the vocal cords. It is better to drink water at room temperature, and when singing, moisten your throat with warm water from time to time.
• Get into what you are performing, try to feel and convey the emotions of this song.
• It is important to determine which musical style is more native to you; to do this, practice singing different styles music.
• It is good for your ears to play notes on the piano and sing them.
• Avoid drinking orange juice and milk drinks as they coat your throat and make singing difficult.
• Speak in your normal intonation, since both whispering and shouting can damage the vocal cords.

Characteristics of female voice types

First, let's look at the types of female voices. Most women who practice vocals are sopranos. By the way, it is he who has greatest number varieties. It is distinguished by its sonorous and transparent character, as well as expressiveness; the sound is open and light.

There are dramatic, lyric and coloratura sopranos.

The mezzo-soprano is known for its rich sound and deep timbre. The sound of such a voice is lower than that of a soprano. This voice can also be dramatic or lyrical.

Main types of male voices

If we talk about baritone, then this is a heavier type of voice than tenor. It has a bright and strong sound at the top end of the range. Baritones can be lyrical or dramatic.

Some misconceptions about the classification of voices by type

Some researchers express the opinion that there are supposedly no types of voices at all, and they distinguish only female and male ones. They believe that the sound of a voice depends only on the specific features of techniques and productions; in other words, any woman can be a contralto, a mezzo-soprano, or a soprano.

However, the vocal performance of many performers confirms the absurdity of these statements. Only in very rare cases can a person have special vocal abilities that allow him to sing different types votes. In most cases, the performer cannot overcome differences in tessitura, such as thirds. Moreover, a tessitura that is too high or low by just one tone can harm the voice.

Let us also mention other misconceptions regarding voice types. There is an opinion that pop performers do not need to determine their voice type, and that they are classified only for academic singing. But this opinion differs from reality, since human voice types are divided by nature into three female and three male.

In addition, some people confuse timbre and voice type, although these are completely different terms. Voice type refers to pitch features, and timbre varieties do not play a special role in such a delicate matter as determining voice type. Individual timbre indicators are important for choosing your singing style, and for noting the artistic characteristics of the voice. So, voice types are its pitch indicators, determined using a scale scale.

About voice features

The human voice cannot be replaced by anything known to us musical instruments, nor the voice of any other creatures, therefore the human soul reacts very subtly to living singing, receiving impulses for the heart and mind.

In the past, there was an opinion that phoniatrics was capable of determining the type of voice of the performer by examining the size and shape of the Adam's apple. It was believed that a tenor would have a less noticeable Adam's apple, while a bass would have a more prominent one. But after numerous examinations and scientific research it became clear that the structure of the Adam's apple and larynx does not in any way affect the type of voice. When it comes to ligaments, their structure can play a role, but you need to evaluate thickness, strength, size and elasticity.

So, there is a specific complex external signs and personal feelings that help determine the type of voice while singing. A person's vocal cords are very sensitive, they can be damaged quite easily, which will damage the voice or it may completely disappear.

Since teachers also sometimes make mistakes, it is better not to strain your voice too much during listening, for example, by singing a song in a not very comfortable tessitura. If you think someone's voice is brighter and more expressive than yours, do not forget that each of us has a unique voice, so sing only in your own manner.

I wonder what when law enforcement agencies They are looking for criminals, their voice features give them away. To search for offenders, intelligence agencies use specially developed speech identification methods. Thanks to the individual sound, which is called overtones, it is not difficult for us to recognize the voice of a particular person we know.

In essence, this is an indicator of the mental and emotional state of each individual, an expression of our inner strengths. It is thanks to the voice that you can hear fear of the public, depression, delight, hysteria, feel gratitude or hatred.

Timbre as a personality


No two voices are absolutely identical in timbre. Singing technology specialist Ivan Levidov says that “the main characteristic elements of the timbre of each voice are a constant value that does not change from the moment of voice mutation.” Sometimes, without seeing a person for a long time, we may not recognize him, but as soon as he speaks, we will immediately remember him. The timbre of a voice alone largely determines a person. French phoniatrist Jean Abitbol once even refused to perform an operation on a patient - he believed that changing her voice would change her personality.

What is timbre
The term comes from the French timbre (bell). This is a psychoacoustic characteristic of the voice. Its exclusive coloring. Therefore, when analyzing vocal mastery, definitions from the dictionary of painting are often used - “color”, “palette”, “paints”. And it is these “color” nuances that make it possible to distinguish people’s voices. Even if the pitch, volume and duration of their sound are the same. Phoniatricians say that the timbre of a voice is more difficult to tune than a musical instrument. It is completely impossible to radically “convert”, for example, a tenor into a bass. Even surgically.

What does voice timbre depend on?
From the density of the closure of the vocal cords, from their length, width, elasticity and tension. The latter is created by the plasticity of the cricothyroid muscle, which professor and imperial life-otiatrist N.P. Simanovsky called “musical”, since it acts like a violin peg. The timbre also depends on the volume of the trachea and the shape of the internal resonator. So Chaliapin had a dome-shaped palate, from which sound was repelled, like from a cathedral vault. And this palate became the subject of study not only by phoniatrists, but also by otolaryngologists, anthropologists and anatomists. Overtones are responsible for the “coloring” of the timbre. The more overtones, the “tastier” the voice.

Overtones

These are sounds above sounds. A trained throat produces two sounds simultaneously - a tone and an overtone. Overtones are high-frequency and ranged according to the laws of the “golden ratio”. What it is? When we look at a person’s face and find it attractive, this means that it is “tailored” by nature in proportion to the proportion of its parts. In the same way, overtones harmonize the timbre of the voice using intervals. The voice seems to climb up an overtone ladder - from one step to another. There are pauses between them. “The first overtone is an octave away from the tone. The second one is less. This is a fifth." And in the same way - by “steps” of overtones - the ordinary human ear gradually adjusts, which initially may not distinguish overtones.

How a response to a sound wave is generated.
The average person consists of 60% liquid substance, which responds to sound with vibration. German sound researcher and photographer (cymatic - from “kyma” - wave) Alexander Lauterwasser conducted a series of experiments - he played sounds of different frequencies near a reservoir - the clanging of train rolling stock, the cries of seagulls, phrases from Bach toccatas. And he recorded the wave “response” of the water with a camera. Each sound gave birth to its own pattern. So a person vibrates following the timbre of his voice.

What are we talking about
“Mouth”, “throat”, “chest” and even “stomach”. The latter is responsible for the increased corpulence of the vast majority of opera singers - they “put their voice on their belly.” And they involve the whole body in the sound process. Like a baby. When he cries, he resonates from head to toe. With age, a person becomes “squeezed.” The voice loses its ability to turn on the entire body. And its vibrations “get stuck” at the level of the throat. But we are created by nature as a single resonator.

How timbre reveals the speaker

Just by timbre, each of us is able to assess the psychophysical parameters of a person. Viennese linguophysiologists experimentally confirmed that people can judge only by their voice - A tall man or short, plump or thin. True, with age it can misfire, because the timbre of a happy person makes the voice 10 years younger. Anger and fear “age”. It will show the timbre and level of intelligence of the interlocutor, his occupation, and temperament. Just like his condition - happy or not, sick or healthy, tired or cheerful. The timbre of the voice will reflect who is speaking - a leader or a follower, a liar or a champion of the truth, an envious person or a generous soul, whether he is capable of betrayal or will be faithful to the grave. It was precisely the connection between timbre and trust in a partner that interested specialists at the Canadian research university McMaster University. Participants in the experiment were given the opportunity to listen to the voices of 20 men and women. One man - a short, insinuating man - was marked by everyone as “dangerous”. “From the point of view of sexual strategy,” stated the author of the project, Gillian O’Connor, “both sexes regard this timbre as a warning about future betrayals.” Trust was aroused - the taller male and the shorter female. They were considered "reliable".

About it

British researchers from the Universities of Liverpool and Stirling, working among the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, discovered that those with lower voice timbres have more children. Thus, Tanzanian “baritones” were ahead of “tenors” by an average of two children. Scientists State University State of New York found a relationship between the sexual attractiveness of women's timbre and fertility. Psychologists at the University of South Carolina, having analyzed telephone conversations, identified differences in timbres in the process of communicating with indifferent and loved ones. The latter even copied each other's intonations, as if putting their voices on the same tone wave. Anthropologists at the University of Pennsylvania - Sarah Wolf and David Poots - first tried to understand "how signs of masculinity influence a person's opinion about his ability to dominate." Experiments have shown that men with voices of deep timbre are perceived by other individuals of the same sex as “leaders of the pride.”

Timbre in the service of politics

In 2012, correspondents for the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, in collaboration with PR technologists and neuropsychologists, conducted surveys of Americans who answered the question: “What timbre of voice makes them most trustworthy in a politician?” The authors of the publication recorded 17 women and 10 men who utter one phrase - “I urge you to vote for me in November.” The recordings were digitally corrected. They created pairs - one voice was raised, the other was lowered. “Voters” chose deep low timbres. Moreover, both male and female. Scientists have long come to the conclusion that the secret of a person’s success/failure is in the timbre of his voice. Professor Sophia Scott, a communication sociologist at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, noted that “we use our voices to tell others what we think about ourselves and to create a positive image in their minds.” But the timbre also reveals what a person might want to hide.

Timbre in the service of special services

Timbre is one of the objective collations that intelligence agencies take into account when compiling psychoportraits of criminals. FBI and CIA profilers pay attention to how the voice rattles and seems to “stumble.” When he fusses and doesn’t say anything, the timbre becomes jumpy and indistinct. Anxiety will make him “get cocky,” raising his tone. The cognitive dissonance will be expressed in sharp vocal fluctuations and demonstrate a precarious position and uncertainty. Intense timbre - control over every step. Metallic notes - conviction. Increased volume - the desire to suppress. But the basic timbre pattern remains unchanged forever.

Uniqueness

Previously, Italians' passports included the timbre of their voice along with their date of birth, height, hair and eye color. Nowadays, US and UK courts accept voice recordings as evidence of guilt/innocence. Why? Because timbre is as unique as the genetic code in a DNA molecule, the papillary pattern on the fingertips or the structure of the auricle. The timbre is so unique that the world's largest banks are not afraid to encode safes with the voices of their owners.

The first word “hello” can make an impression. Nice female voice influences human perception. Therefore, not only professional opera singers should own it. Those who are lucky enough to have a pleasant female voice will find success in any field. This applies to working as a telephone operator or negotiation manager, and in personal life: victories over men’s hearts.

Let's talk about what a beautiful female voice is like, what its classification is, how singers prepare to perform a song, and why they look for a pleasant female voice to voice an advertisement.

The phrases imply the ability to sing. The sound here has a certain pitch and the ability to last for a long time. Singing a song is manifested in vowels, is realized by breathing with a sigh, without noise, a large volume of air and slow exhalation.

• household;
• professional.

Every aspiring singer says “hello” to the profession through the production of his voice. In this case, the following voice characteristics are developed:

• range width;
• brightness;
• force;
• flexibility;
• beauty;
• not fatigue;
• other qualities.

The timbre and duration of sounds play a special role. Opera voices are characterized by flight so that they can be heard far away. Metallic “notes” and flight are characteristic of high overtones. And the softness of the sound is achieved in the low-frequency range. Singing voice- strong. He fills the entire hall.

For boys and girls, the following types are distinguished:

• soprano;
• treble (boys only);
• alto (meaning a low female or child's voice).

• tenor (high pitch);
• baritone (medium);
• bass (low).

• soprano (high) - opera roles of the Snow Maiden from the work of Rimsky-Korsakov;
• mezzo-soprano (middle) - opera roles of Lady Macbeth from Verdi's Macbeth;
• contralto (low) - Olga’s opera roles from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”.

Beautiful female voice - singing

• Chest, possessing great strength sound, but poor in timbre.
• Mixed or medium, where chest and head sounds are combined.
• The head one is open and bright.

Transitional notes and registers have different lengths.

• lyrical;
• dramatic;
• lyrical - dramatic.

In contrast to the high soprano, the beautiful female voice of the mezzo-soprano is accompanied by greater beauty of timbre, strength and chest resonance. It is divided into high (lyrical) and low (dramatic - contralto). The woman's voice in the first case is mobile and soft. The second is less mobile, with more chest notes. It's called contralto. This beautiful female voice has a large range in the chest register and thick notes in the small octave.

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish two low voices from each other. To do this, listen to chest notes in a small octave. Full-sounding notes here are determined by the mezzo-soprano. True, if a beautiful female contralto voice is well-produced, then the notes are almost the same. Then they evaluate by the tessitura and transitional notes to the head register how easily it is possible to raise and lower the voice.

Chants

The singer says "Hello" to her voice before performing songs, through preparation for the upcoming load. If this is not done, the woman’s voice risks breaking. Let's look at some types of exercises suitable for chanting for experienced singers and novice performers.

A key is selected that corresponds to the lower limit of the student’s voice range. The parts are repeated a semitone higher. And when the high limit is reached, the next part should be lowered by a semitone, and so gradually reach the lower range.

Each subsequent chanting exercise becomes more difficult. To achieve success, pay attention to the following points:

• correct breathing;
• staging of the organs involved;
• direction of sound flow;
• strict implementation of recommendations.

Let's look at some basic exercises.

• Singing with a closed mouth (lips compressed, teeth unclenched). This is a real “hello” chant.
• Playing on the lips (similar to the sound of a child repeating the sounds of a car: the lips are not pinched, but closed). It starts with a lower limit, which should first be raised and then lowered.
• Glissando has two variations of the chant. In the first case, the second exercise is repeated, but not with individual notes, but with sliding. In the second case, the mouth is opened, but a nasal sound is produced, creating an obstruction to the air.
• Vieni, vigini, vyani (Italian "vieni" means "where"). It is performed in three variations, each of which is based on 5 sounds.
• The last chanting exercise, “Staccato,” is performed with abrupt notes. It resembles laughter. Everywhere you need to raise and lower the scale the same way.

Voiceovers for advertising and what is the most beautiful female voice for men?

A pleasant female voice in advertising is associated with attention and care. Manufacturers of perfumes, cosmetics, and household appliances use a woman’s voice for voiceovers. Gifts, vacations, cafes, restaurants, and even cars - women are interested in all this.

A beautiful woman's voice is a direct path to a man's heart. But such voiceover also creates trust among female listeners. Thus, a skillfully used woman's voice encourages the fairer sex to make unplanned purchases. It affects them on an emotional level.

But men react differently after listening to the voiceover. A beautiful female voice sounding on the air makes them perplexed as to how they didn’t think of this purchase themselves. As you can see, the voice is professionally used not only to sing a song, but also, at least, for voice acting.

Only someone who has a beautiful female voice and knows how to use it can say “Hello” as “I love you.” But what do men think “handsome” means? Contralto - this velvety, chest-like, pleasant female voice evokes sympathy among men. It’s hard to imagine how even a pretty-looking woman, saying “hello” shrilly, will please a man. A beautiful female voice for men - sedate, “wet”, sometimes aspirated. It evokes the hunter's instinct in the strong half of humanity.

This is how this mysterious and enigmatic voice works. Surely readers have a desire to train their vocal cords. Well, the Internet will help with this! Practice chanting by turning on audio or video recording, and soon you will notice how you will control your voice consciously.

One of the important elements of the sound content of commercials is the timbre of the voice of the announcer (actor) who voices them. Moreover, if some types of sound content (noise, sound effects, musical accompaniment) are used to choose from, then the timbre, like other features of the voice, is inseparable from the text spoken aloud. And it has a significant impact on the perception of information contained in words. Therefore, the choice of announcer for voicing an advertisement must be approached thoughtfully, taking into account its topic and target audience.

What is timbre

Timbre is one of the important characteristics of sound, its color. This concept applies to both the sounds of musical instruments and the human voice. When it comes to the voice, timbre is the totality of its individual characteristics - height, brightness, warmth, expressiveness.

Timbre is an individual characteristic, unique almost to the same extent as fingerprints. Finding two absolutely identical voices is extremely difficult. But for convenience, several types of timbres are distinguished, combining voices with similar characteristics. The basis of this classification is the pitch of the voice, with all timbres divided into male, female and children's:

• male - tenor, baritone, bass;
• female – soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto;
• children's - treble, alto (treble is comparable to soprano, and alto is lower than soprano, but higher than tenor).

Timbre depends on the structure of the vocal cords and the vocal apparatus as a whole, the shape of the lips and the position of the tongue. The sound of the voice is also affected by hypothermia, overwork, bad habits, state of the nervous system, posture. Professional singers, actors, speakers, and announcers usually become people who naturally have good inclinations, but timbre can be improved by performing speech technique exercises. Staging your voice requires working on your breathing and diction.

Features of different tones

Timbre is formed as a result of a combination of the fundamental tone of the voice with overtones: the richer they are, the more expressive the voice. Voices with correct modulations (smooth transitions from high to low sounds and vice versa) are considered attractive. For any speaker, clear articulation, the absence of diction defects, the ability to highlight main ideas with intonation, and pause are important. But when choosing a speaker for voicing an advertisement, you should take into account that different timbres have different effects on the subconscious and evoke different associations.

Perception of high voice

A high, ringing voice is associated with youth and energy - these are positive associations. But excessively shrill, sharp, shrill sounds cause a feeling of discomfort and are associated with hysteria or an alarm signal. Therefore, on a subconscious level, people are not inclined to trust advertising voiced in such a voice.

• sports, active recreation, travel;
• youth clubs, entertainment events;
• concerts, cultural events;
• children's goods, educational services for children;
• youth products;
• Internet services;
• set in educational establishments, for training courses;
• social advertising, which focuses on the need for reforms and changes.

At the same time, many people associate a high voice, especially a man’s, with immaturity, passivity, and inexperience. So for advertising a company that works with finance, securities, provides legal, accounting services, this is not the best option. A company whose services are advertised in a youthful voice will be subconsciously perceived as not reputable enough.

Perception of low voice

A low voice is associated with maturity, self-confidence, and is considered an attribute of a respectable, reliable person. Men and women with a deep voice are more attractive to members of the opposite sex. The main thing is that the low voice should be rich in modulations, otherwise it sounds monotonous and causes boredom. In this case, the listener simply does not perceive the information that they are trying to convey to him.

• banks, legal, notary, auditing offices and generally commercials on business topics;
• health products, medical services;
• funeral services;
• real estate agencies, builders, developers;
• premium segment goods and services.

To record audiobooks, which are practical guides to building a business, it is also better to use low tones. Summery ‒ summaries best books on business theory - you can listen to it in the "Ideas" section. These books will serve as excellent textbooks for aspiring businessmen who want to educate themselves for free.

• social advertising, which talks about guarantees, laws, responsibility, the dangers of alcohol and smoking;
• appeals from utility structures and credit organizations to debtors;
• audio clips for broadcasting shopping centers, containing information about restrictions on the sale of alcohol and tobacco products.

But if the commercial is designed in an informal style, is addressed to a youth audience, is dedicated to the possibilities of exciting leisure time, and should evoke a feeling of lightness and ease, a low timbre may be inappropriate.

It’s not enough to write a good text for an advertising video; you need to voice it correctly. The timbre of the announcer's voice can cause unwanted associations and enter into dissonance with the words he speaks. In this case, advertising will not only not bring the expected effect, but may also alienate potential customers. The automatic service constructor Audio+ allows you to create a short audio clip based on a ready-made text with minimal time and money, choosing the appropriate voice of the announcer and musical accompaniment.

Material prepared
Use of all text or its fragments is permitted only with a link to this page.

Overtones are the root cause of the meaningfulness of tone; they contain the aesthetic reasons for vocal miracles, they are the heart and pulse of the human voice.
P. Bruns.

If in ordinary colloquial speech the nature of timbre is not something particularly significant, then in the art of singing it is the most important property of the voice, constituting its main wealth. To agree with this, it is enough to recall, for example, the voice of our outstanding singer F. Chaliapin with its amazingly diverse, each time uniquely colorful timbre.

Voice timbre is often called “sound color,” “color,” or simply “voice color.” () By timbre, we can easily distinguish the voices of friends. () By the “color” of the voice, vocal teachers determine the type of voice of the singer (baritone, bass, tenor, etc.) .d.). The statements about the timbre colors of the voice of the famous baritone Titta Ruffo (1966) are interesting: “I tried to create an authentic palette of colors using a specific vocal technique. With the help of certain changes I created a white voice sound; then, darkening it with a more saturated sound, I brought it to a color that I called blue; amplifying the same sound and rounding it, I strove for a color that I called red, then for black, that is, for the darkest possible” (p. 302).

What does the timbre of the voice depend on? As you know, speech sounds are complex: they consist of a fundamental tone and numerous overtones, that is, sounds of a higher frequency than the fundamental tone. If the pitch of a person’s voice is determined by the frequency of the fundamental tone, then the timbre of the voice and whether it belongs to a particular vowel or consonant is determined by the degree of expression of certain overtones in the sound.

Anatomy of timbre

A hundred years ago, the famous German physicist Hermann Helmholtz used a very simple device to determine the overtones of a voice: it was a glass or metal ball with two holes (Helmholz, 1913). The ball was inserted into the ear with a narrow hole, and if the ball resonated, this meant that the voice contained overtones close to the resonant tone of the ball. The own resonant tone of this ball (f0) is determined by the formula: f0 = k vs/lv, where s is the area of ​​the hole, v is the volume of the resonator, l is the length of the resonator throat, k is the proportionality coefficient, depending on the air density. It is easy to see that the smaller the volume of the ball and the larger area its holes, the higher the natural resonant frequency of such a resonator. To highlight overtones of different heights, there were balls different sizes, whose own resonant tones were known to Helmholtz.

Rice. 20. Helmholtz resonator. Explanation in the text.

By “anatomizing” the vowels in this way, Helmholtz was able to establish the presence in each of them of one or two areas of special enhanced overtones, which he called “characteristic tones of vowels.” Helmholtz showed that it is precisely thanks to these “characteristic tops” that vowels differ from each other in hearing.

Nowadays, incomparably more complex, accurate and objective equipment is used to study sound overtones. One of these devices, called a sound spectrometer, is shown in Fig. 21. If Helmholtz, with the help of his resonator ball, could only listen to overtones, then this device, in addition, allows you to see them on the screen. Just as a sunbeam, passing through a prism, is decomposed into its constituent colors of the rainbow, so the complex sound of a voice, passing through a spectrometer, turns out to be divided into its individual overtones. The sound receiver in this device is a microphone. Next, the sound in the form of an electrical signal from the microphone enters the amplifier, and from the amplifier passes through a system of electroacoustic filters, which separate it into its component parts. As a result of a series of transformations, a series of luminous columns appear on the device screen, each of which corresponds to a certain frequency of the overtone, and the height of the column corresponds to its intensity. These columns are outlined by the inertia-free beam of the cathode ray tube of the spectrometer. Thus, using the scale of the device, we can determine not only the frequency of the overtones that make up the sound of the voice, but also the strength of each of the overtones. The spectrometer shown in Fig. 21, allows you to detect overtones with frequencies from 40 to 27,000 Hz in a complex sound, i.e., almost the entire frequency range audible to the human ear.() Low components are located on the left side of the device screen, high ones are located on the right side.

The picture resulting from the decomposition of sound on the spectrometer screen is called the sound spectrum, and individual strongly prominent peaks, consisting of a group of overtones and influencing the recognition of speech sounds, were called formants. Thus, speech formants inherently correspond to Helmholtz's characteristic tones.

Detailed studies of the formant composition of speech sounds made it possible to establish that there are not one or two formants in each vowel, as Helmholtz thought, but much more - three, four and even five. Although all of these speech formants influence the recognition of sounds, the most important are the first two or three, the average frequencies of which are given in Table. 5.

For different people, formants, even in the same vowel sounds, vary somewhat in their frequency position, width and intensity (in a child’s and woman’s voice all formants are slightly higher than in a man’s). In addition, even for the same speaker, the formants of the same sound, for example A, differ noticeably depending on in which word the sound is pronounced, whether it is stressed or unstressed, high or low, etc. (Artyomov, 1960 ; Zinder, 1960). Individual characteristics The formant, as well as the presence in the voice of other overtones specific to each person, give the voice of each person a unique timbre, inherent only to him alone.

Now we see that teaching a machine to understand all these features of overtones, i.e., solving the problem of “speech capture,” is not an easy task. So far, the machine has learned to perform sound analysis well, i.e., the “anatomy” of overtones, as, for example, a spectrometer does. But in order to identify a sound, it is necessary to essentially carry out its synthesis, that is, to find formants among the overtones, compare all their features and classify the sound into a certain category, despite a number of random signs interfering with this operation. So, for example, when classification of speech sounds, the machine should not “pay attention” to different pitches of the voice, its strength and differences in timbre. Since essentially the same mechanism is involved in the formation of timbre as in the formation of vowels, it is very difficult to distinguish between these two phenomena. It is easy to imagine that for a person who does not know a foreign language, different vowels of that language sound like sounds of different timbres. Thus, the problem of classifying sounds in speech is closely related to the study of timbre. Advances in science, however, allow us to hope that in the near future, when we pick up the telephone, we will no longer need to perform the monotonous and boring operation of dialing a number with our finger; All we have to do is say the number in a clear voice, and the machine will immediately connect us to the subscriber. Of course, this will happen when the secret of the prophetic words “sim-sim, open the door!” from the famous fairy tale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” will be fully revealed and transformed from fantasy into reality.

Table 5
Average frequencies of vowel formants (in gr) (according to Fant, 1964)