Music Composition
Last week I wrote a choral piece. (It was more like an exercise to see how well I'm understanding my speech science class actually.) My music class performed it today and I think it was pretty successful. Here's what I did:
Background information first: So when you record your voice and look at it in an analysis program you discover that there's a ton a frequencies all combined together. There's obviously the fundamental frequency (the loudest and most noticeable one that is the actual frequency your vocal folds are resonating at) and the harmonics of the fundamental frequency are more prominent too. But then when all of that sound moves through your vocal tract some frequencies are amplified and others are attenuated. The ones that are made big are called formants.
(more background info)Formants are very important. They carry the information that allows us to distinguish an /a/ from /u/. Trust me, its important. So I looked at the fundamental frequency and first formants for every english vowel (the average) from a chart in my speech science text book. That was the first step. There was actually a range, not just an average for each frequency.
So I took those frequencies and looked up an equivalence chart for pitch and frequency (e.g. 440 Hz = A in the fourth octave on a piano).
I played around within the specified range of each fundamental and first formant frequency and created chords that I thought sounded cool.
Before I forgot, I wrote down the corresponding vowel for each "chord." So for example, the fundamental frequency for the /a/ in lake is about 440Hz and the first formant frequency is 2500Hz, give or take about 75 Hz. They correspond to A and D# (roughly). So I made a chord using D and A# since it sounded better and was within the range. It is represents the vowel in lake.
So that's what I did! I rearranged the order of the chords and added a few things.. and whalah--I've got my first choral piece.
One problem with my song is that there is no melody. There are only chords... I think it sounds okay, but next time I think I'd like to start with something musical, like a melodic phrase or motif to build off of.
Background information first: So when you record your voice and look at it in an analysis program you discover that there's a ton a frequencies all combined together. There's obviously the fundamental frequency (the loudest and most noticeable one that is the actual frequency your vocal folds are resonating at) and the harmonics of the fundamental frequency are more prominent too. But then when all of that sound moves through your vocal tract some frequencies are amplified and others are attenuated. The ones that are made big are called formants.
(more background info)Formants are very important. They carry the information that allows us to distinguish an /a/ from /u/. Trust me, its important. So I looked at the fundamental frequency and first formants for every english vowel (the average) from a chart in my speech science text book. That was the first step. There was actually a range, not just an average for each frequency.
So I took those frequencies and looked up an equivalence chart for pitch and frequency (e.g. 440 Hz = A in the fourth octave on a piano).
I played around within the specified range of each fundamental and first formant frequency and created chords that I thought sounded cool.
Before I forgot, I wrote down the corresponding vowel for each "chord." So for example, the fundamental frequency for the /a/ in lake is about 440Hz and the first formant frequency is 2500Hz, give or take about 75 Hz. They correspond to A and D# (roughly). So I made a chord using D and A# since it sounded better and was within the range. It is represents the vowel in lake.
So that's what I did! I rearranged the order of the chords and added a few things.. and whalah--I've got my first choral piece.
One problem with my song is that there is no melody. There are only chords... I think it sounds okay, but next time I think I'd like to start with something musical, like a melodic phrase or motif to build off of.
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