Acoustic Characteristics of a Nagauta Vocalist and a Mezzo-soprano Vocalist

Visualization of Their Ways of Singing Nagauta Phrases

Abstract

We attempted to clarify the differences between the voices of a nagauta vocalist and a mezzo-soprano. The two vocalists were asked to individually sing the same part from a nagauta called “sambaso,” upon which their voices were analyzed using spectrogram representations. From the comparison of the spectrum, we can conclude that they differed in how they generated vowels for each syllable and how voiced and unvoiced consonants were handled. In other words, the expertise and personality of the performer arose depending on the timbre created in each syllable and the movement between syllables.