Is There Any Singer’s Formant? A Name Proposal for a Misconceptualized Phenomenon

Year 2017, Volume: 5 Issue: 2, 1535 - 1553, 15.09.2017

Şahin Saruhan

Abstract

The problem with so called "singer’s formant" is not only limited to the name itself.

But because terms determine the content of and set a limit to the practice of definition, to

tackle the problem of the name/concept of "singer’s formant" is the most urgent of these

problems. Although in studies on various non-operatic singing styles, no evidence of such

formant was found, this phenomenon has continued to be called singer’s formant, and in

literature there is no sign of disapproval in this regard. The act of singing is not unique to any

given musical genre. The person who sings in any genre is a singer. But, although it was

found only among the Western opera singers, to decorate this phenomenon with the prefix

’singer’, intentionally or unintentionally, restricts one to be a singer of only the Western opera

singers. What links music with science, or to put it another way, transforms music into

musicology, is the application of scientifically defined methods on every musical matter. In

this regard, in this study, an efford was made to offer a scientifically appropriate name to the

acoustical phenomenon that called "singer’s formant" until now. It was concluded that

instead of "singer’s formant", "Western opera singer’s formant cluster" (FCwos) must be used

for the peak found in the Western opera singer’s.

Keywords

Singer’s formant, Concept misformation, Scientific name, Misconceptualization, FCwos

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