Physical Models Producing Vowels with Pitch Variation

Physical models of the human vocal tract are useful for education in acoustics and speech science. To excite such vocal-tract models, different types of sound sources may be used. We have developed two new types of physical models which produce a glottal source with a variable fundamental frequency. Both types are based on a reed vibration, and the length of the vibratory portion can be varied manually. In the first type, the reed itself is curved, while the reed of the second type is straight but its support is curved. In each case, we can demonstrate vowel production with pitch variation by combining vocal-tract models with our proposed source models. Index Terms: physical model, vocal-tract model, sound source, fundamental (pitch) frequency, vowel production, education in speech science 1