“Convinced that qualified listeners would agree when singing is beautiful, Robison directed a social-science experiment in 1993 that recorded a group of classically trained baritones and a group of female pop-belt singers. A panel of internationally noted voice teachers and voice scientists and a control panel of classical-voice connoisseurs then reviewed the recordings, scoring each singer’s vocal beauty. The 13 judges were in substantial agreement on the singers’ relative beauty rankings. Returning to the recorded samples, Robison and research colleague Barry U. Bounous, ‘85, also a BYU voice instructor, were then able to confirm the qualities beautiful voices have in common—continuing presence and evenness of vibrato, balance of both bright and dark resonances, and cleanness (singing that has no out-of-tune overtones).”
The Science of Singing
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