Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/29107
Title: Voices Within Voices: Developing a New Analytical Approach to Vocal Timbre by Examining the Interplay of Emotionally Valenced Vocal Timbres and Emotionally Valenced Lyrics
Contributor(s): Spreadborough, Kristal  (author)orcid ; Hewitt, Donna  (supervisor)orcid ; Antón-Méndez, Inés  (supervisor)orcid 
Conferred Date: 2018-11-13
Copyright Date: 2018-03-23
Open Access: Yes
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/29107
Related DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.7636886.v1
Related Research Outputs: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/27670
Abstract: Aims/Goals
This thesis presents a new analytical technique for vocal timbre based on the hypothesis that emotion expressed in vocal timbre impacts emotional perception of lyrics.
Background information
Vocal timbre is a highly salient musical feature that, arguably, contributes significantly to our emotional experience of a song. Despite this, analytical techniques for vocal timbre remain in their infancy. Today, this is changing as technological developments increasingly allow for vocal timbre to be preserved and studied in a systematic way. The present research capitalises on these developments, using them to facilitate the examination of how emotional vocal timbres impact emotional perception of lyrics.
Methodology
Since there exists little empirical research on the hypothesis which underlies this analytical technique, and since the experience of vocal timbre could be considered highly subjective, it was necessary to first experimentally test if/how vocal timbre impacts lyric perception. To this end, a reception test was conducted to examine whether vocal timbre on its own has emotional valence, and whether this emotional valence is salient enough to impact emotional perception of words. Results from this test supported the hypothesis, showing that participants were significantly less accurate at identifying the emotional valence of words when these words were sung with a mismatched emotional vocal timbre.
The analytical technique itself is multilayered. First, the recording is taken as the basis of analysis. Then, the vocal timbre is described, and its emotional valence is assessed, through Vocal Timbre Features (a system, inspired by the work of van Leeuwen (1999) defined and developed to aid in describing vocal timbre and, potentially, categorising its emotional valence). Observations made by aurally detecting and annotating the Vocal Timbre Features can be confirmed visually through spectrographs. The synergies between emotions identified in the vocal timbre and that conveyed through lyrics can then be assessed using adapted diagrammatic vocabulary sets (inspired by the work of Dennis Smalley (1986, 1997)).
Conclusions
In summary, this thesis presents a new analytical technique that allows one to analyse vocal timbre in terms of its emotional meaning, and in terms of how this emotional meaning impacts emotional perception of lyrics. It also offers a framework through which one may conduct efficient, aurally based, analyses of vocal timbre more generally. This thesis has also shown that the experience of emotion in vocal timbre, and its impact on lyric perception, may be similar across listeners (i.e., intersubjective).
Publication Type: Thesis Doctoral
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 190409 Musicology and Ethnomusicology
190407 Music Performance
170299 Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 360303 Music education
360304 Music performance
520401 Cognition
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950201 Communication Across Languages and Culture
950101 Music
970117 Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 130201 Communication across languages and culture
130102 Music
280121 Expanding knowledge in psychology
HERDC Category Description: T2 Thesis - Doctorate by Research
Description: The dataset associated with this thesis is available here: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/27670.
Appears in Collections:School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Thesis Doctoral

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