Measurement of Characteristic Leap Interval Between Chest and Falsetto Registers

A markedly smaller time constant distinguishes a chest-falsetto leap from the more usual execution of a sung interval by muscular adjustments in the length and tension of the vocal folds. The features of such a chest-falsetto leap are examined in detail with respect to F0, peak-to-peak amplitude of the vocal-fold contact area signal (EGG), and the closed quotient. A method is proposed to standardize and quantify this chest-falsetto leap in the characteristic leap interval (CLI), a measure of the separation between the natural registers in a given singing voice. The measure is applied to a varied group of experienced singers. Preliminary results include a suggested dimorphic pattern with respect to sex, with female voices exhibiting smaller CLIs and less individual diversity than male voices.