Helmholtz: The Beginning of Modern Voice Acoustics

Voice acoustics examines resonances, formants, spectral slopes and many other factors. The beginnings of this science date to the writings of visionary physicist Hermann Helmholtz (1821–1894). His research predated high-tech computer analysis but his contributions to the science of singing are unparalleled. When examined with modern tools, his work is astonishingly accurate and relevant to our contemporary understanding of the singing voice. In this article the authors examine singing voice acoustics according to Helmholtz, provide a modern tutorial of source-filter theory, and analyze Helmholtz’s vowel data with current tools.