Emily C., Listening Assignment 3, Vowel Formation, 2/7/14

Emily C., Listening Assignment 3, Vowel formation, 2/7/14

Anna Netrebko

Her mouth has a very distinct oblong shape with hardly any lip spreading. For her closed vowels, she simply closes her mouth, maintaining the same basic shape. There is a little more spreading for the vowel [e], but for the vowel [i], she hardly has any spreading.  When the pitch goes up, so does her mouth opening, especially when it’s accompanied by a growth in dynamic level. The opposite happens for when she goes down in pitch/dynamic level, with her mouth closing more, but keeping the same shape. I think she uses her drastic changes in her mouth “tallness” in order to adjust the first formant. 

Simon Keenly

His lips tend to maintain a protruding appearance, sort of like a “duck face,” but not as extreme. He has slightly more freedom in terms of spreading than Anna Netrebko, but there is no extreme deviation from lips with pulled in corners. His mouth maintains a more circular shape in contrast to Netrebko’s oblong shape. With his brighter vowels, he lifts the corners of his mouth upward, not out, giving it the appearance that the sound’s coming from his mask. He doesn’t seem to change the shape/size of his mouth opening with the changing of pitches. The more I watch, the more I realize that his [a, o, u] vowels are more open than his [i, e] vowels, but not as extreme as Netrebko. 

Jonas Kauffman

The first thing that I noticed is that he doesn’t open his mouth as freely as the two previous singers. His mouth movement is more conservative, with no protruding lips. I can see more of the upper surface area of his tongue than with the other two, which I’m guess is to increase the pitch of formant 2. The corners of his lips stay generally in the same place, and it looks like he’s not pulling it in or outward, and it’s just sitting there. His closed vowels are more closed, and his open vowels are more open, just like the other singers. The only vowel that’s drastically different is the [u] vowel with its more closed lip rounding. As his dynamic level went up, there was more lip movement and protruding as well as a greater space opening up in his mouth. 

Cecilia Bartoli

Her mouth is the most closed of all of the singers so far. There is some lip spreading. She shows more teeth than the other singers, and has more of a smiling appearance. Most of the movement in her mouth occurs in the bottom lip. As the notes go higher, she opens up her mouth more, regardless of the vowel. Her lip shape changes with the pitch, even if she’s sustaining the same vowel. I’m guessing that she keeps her mouth more closed than the others in order to create a warmer tone; I noticed that it’s slightly less “cutting” than the voice of Anna Netrebko. The quieter her dynamics, the more closed her mouth becomes.