HMM-Based singing voice synthesis and its application to Japanese and English

The present paper describes Japanese and English singing voice synthesis systems based on hidden Markov models (HMMs). In this approach, the spectrum, excitation, and vibrato of the singing voice are simultaneously modeled by context-dependent HMMs, and waveforms are generated by the HMMs themselves. Japanese singing voice synthesis systems have already been developed and used to create variable musical contents. To extend this system to English, language independent contexts are designed. Furthermore, methods for matching musical notes and pronunciation of English lyrics are presented and evaluated in subjective experiments. Then, Japanese and English singing voice synthesis systems are compared.