An Acoustic-Phonetic Analysis of Lyra Voice

Abstract

Gentarou Yamanami, a poet and a spiritualist, claims that human voice can be divided into seven levels, that the level of voice one can produce depends on the so-called level of one's soul measured by the openings of the chakras, and higher levels of voice have higher levels of therapeutic powers. The Lyra Nature's Music Institute, which is part of the Gentarou Yamanami Cultural Foundation founded by Yamanami, investigates how these different levels of voice can be produced, and at present, has identified six of seven levels. The identifications have been made by investigators or practitioners, but so far no attempts have been made to investigate whether any acoustic-phonetic differences are observed among different levels. In this presentation the author examines whether or not acoustic-phonetic analysis using Praat may identify any differences among different levels of Lyra voice.