Introduction
What this guide is, who it's for, and how emotion works.
About chirpthebird
A few paragraphs about me and this project - coming soon.
[placeholder - add personal introduction here]
🎵 What This Guide Is
Not a song recommendation. Not for you to imitate. This guide is homework for a vocalist. Give each performance a listen with headphones and consider the exercises and analytical frameworks as a vocalist.
Emotion is a personal experience. Your emotional landscape is unique to you.
Listening to the same source, one person may describe feeling "joyful", another "playful", another may describe only a "positive" feeling or have no emotional reaction at all.
Emotions may be felt as distinct feelings (joy, anger, desire, sadness), or they may be felt as "multi-dimensional" - multiple feelings of varying degrees.
Emotions are better thought of as multiple spectrums. Example ranges: pleasant to unpleasant, calm to activated, positive to negative, friendly to unfriendly, uplifting to depressing, etc.
In math, emotions might be considered "n-dimensional" - where n could represent every human emotion, each with its own "degree" of feeling.
⇄ Encoding and Decoding Emotions
A singer attempts to encode emotions on their vocals, and each listener decodes them, resulting in their own physiological, cognitive, or expressive responses.
Singer - Encoding
- Physiological
-
Body states that automatically shape the sound.
- Heart rate, breathing, muscle tension
- Vocal tract shape, mouth shape
- Cognitive
-
Mental processes that guide expressive decisions (beyond conscious feelings).
- Appraisal - What am I expressing?
- Intention - I'm pleading / longing / triumphant
- Imagery / memory - What am I picturing?
- Emotional arc - changing emotions
- Expressive
-
The audible emotional cues produced by the voice.
- Tone color, pitch contour, vibrato shape
- Breathiness, dynamics, timing and phrasing
- Non-verbal sounds: sigh, whine, crack, gasp, growl
Listener - Decoding
- Physiological
-
Automatic bodily reactions to the sound.
- Heart rate, breathing, muscle tension
- Goosebumps, euphoria
- Cognitive
-
Mental processes that interpret the sound.
- Recognition - I know this
- Labeling - This sounds sad / yearning / joyful
- Memory activation - This reminds me of…
- Prediction - I know what is coming
- Expressive
-
The emotional, internal, or behavioral reaction to the sound.
- Inference - This feels like…
- Affective resonance - actually feeling the emotion
- Behavioral impulses - smiling, closing eyes, tearing up
- Understanding context - They are vulnerable / powerful / afraid