By ESTHER YU
How the sound of voice is created, how singing can be more complex than speech and its effects on personal relationships will be addressed by a professor of speech pathology and audiology at Tuesday Forum.
Ingo R. Titze, director of the National Center for Voice and Speech, professor at the University of Iowa and a 1972 alumnus of BYU with a doctorate in physics, will speak on, 'Discover Your Voice: Investigations with Pavarobotti, a Singing Robot.'
Titze's main focus will be on 'how important the voice is as a means of communication ... what you say is not all the counts, but how you say it,' Titze said.
According to a news release, Titze will show how the voice can make or break a relationship.
The voice carries a lot of information about a person, Titze said. It shows 'whether a person is happy, sad, angry ... it shows a person's social status ... it's a bit of a mirror of who we are,' Titze said.
Titze will also demonstrate how the larynx and speech articulators work to create sound, according to the news release. In addition, he will discuss how singing can be more simple and more complex than speech.
To better demonstrate singing voices versus speaking voices, Titze has created a singing robot, called Pavarobotti.
'I spend a lot of time simulating voices with computer... you can explore one variable at a time,' Titze said.
Pavarobotti will be shown in a 15 minute video clip at the end of the forum. The video clip will contrast the robot voice with real voices by having two real tenors performing with Pavarobotti in the video clip.
Titze's focus is combining physics, physiology, anatomy and music in research on voice production, said a news release. His interests include biomechanics of human tissues, computer simulation of speech and song, voice disorders and professional voice production, according to a news release.
'He is recognized nationally and internationally as a premiere voice scientist,' said William Strong, the associate chair of the physics and astronomy department.
The forum will be rebroadcast on March 8 at 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Channel 11 and on KBYU-FM at 8 p.m.