Demo 10-16 Vocal Formants

Vocal formants are responsible for the differences between the various steady state vowel sounds. This demonstration illustrates the difference in the spectrum of the vocal sounds oo, as in "moo," and ee, as in "knee." Following an introduction to the computer based 1/3 octave real time spectrum analyzer, the spectra of the above vowel sounds are displayed for a male voice singing the same pitch for each. The difference between the formant structure of the two vowels is clearly visible. The frequency at which the vowel is sung is then varied, illustrating that the frequency of the formant remains the same for any pitch sung. The spectrum obtained for the vowel ee is shown in Figure 1