Objective: This study investigates the distinct vocal characteristics of five music genres – blues, country, folk, Italian opera, and rock – by applying nonlinear acoustic analysis. Each genre is also compared to healthy speech phonation. The aim is to determine Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP) and Correlation Dimension (D2) values and develop a comprehensive Voice Type Component Profile (VTCP) for each genre. This research seeks to quantify the levels of chaos and aperiodicity in singing voices across these genres, providing insights into the acoustic makeups unique to each singing style.

Methods: 50 voice samples of the vowel /i/ from the Saarbrucken Voice Database were collected and analyzed. 29 voice samples from blues song “Call It Stormy Monday”, 29 samples from country song “Jolene”, 24 samples from folk song “City of New Orleans”, 23 samples from Italian Opera song “Nessun Dorma”, and 29 samples from a rock song “Man in the Box” were randomly selected from YouTube and analyzed for CPP, D2, and VTCP.

Results: Preliminary results show that rock singing exhibited significantly higher D2 values and lower CPP values compared to blues, country, and folk singing. Blues had significantly lower CPP values than the other genres. VTCP analysis revealed that rock singing had the lowest proportion of periodic Type 1 signals and the highest proportion of chaotic Type 3 signals. Folk singing contained the highest amount of VTC1 signals. Blues singing contained the greatest proportion of Type 4 signals, whereas rock singing displayed the smallest proportion of such signals.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the unique vocal demands and potential dysphonia associated with each genre. The results show rock singing displays greater levels of aperiodicity and low levels of stochastic noise. The high VTC4 proportion in blues singing may be attributed to its use of expressive techniques like growling or rasps to achieve its soulful and emotional sound. Folk singing appears to be the most similar to healthy speech phonation, likely due to the storytelling characteristics of the genre. Understanding acoustic differences can inform vocal training and health strategies, particularly for genres sharing similar traits with rock singing that exhibit higher levels of chaos.

First Author: Grayson J. Bienhold, Department of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI

Second Author: Owen P. Wischhoff, B.S., Department of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI

Third Author: Taylor Chumley, Department of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI

Fourth Author: Elise Moreira, Department of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI

Corresponding Author: Jack J. Jiang, MD, PhD, Department of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI