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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2020

Beatboxing, is it talking?

Résumé

Plosive consonants /p, t, k/ are among the most commonly-found phonemes in the phonologicalinventory of the world’s languages [Maddieson & Disner, 1984]. In addition to their linguistic role,they also fulfil an extralinguistic role. Syllables with plosive consonants are used in instrumentalpractice, for playing wind instruments and percussion. They also support vocal practice, as is the casewith scat or Indian konnakol. The linguistic origin of these sounds impacts their articulation evenwhen they are used in an extralinguistic way. Some studies have highlighted articulatory differencesin the plosives used in instrumental practice depending on the player’s first language [Lamkin, 2005,Heyne et al., 2019].This study focuses on Human Beatboxing (HBB) production. HBB is an emerging vocal art thatrelies on the human vocal instrument to produce all kinds of sound for the purpose of music making.Plosive sounds are highly exploited. HBB learning frequently begins with training on speech plosives,syllables or sentences. For instance, kicks, the sounds used to imitate the bass drum, are learned froma [p] or [b] consonant, hi-hats, which reproduce the sound of the hi-hat, stem from a [t] or [ts], orthe rimshot technique, is based on a [k]. An open research question is that of the similarities anddifferences in the articulatory dynamics between speech and HBB. In the present study, we examinearticulatory trajectories and ventilatory volumes, and compare the production of plosive consonantsin speech and plosive sounds in HBB with same places of articulation.Four French speaking beatboxers were recorded. Electromagnetic articulography (EMA) wascombined with acoustic, electroglottographic and ventilatory measurements. The spoken plosives/p, t, k/ were compared to their HBB equivalent in terms of place of articulation: kick, hi-hat andrimshot. The bursts of the plosives were manually segmented and annotated from the audio recordingsusing Praat software [Boersma, 2006]. 3D trajectories of three flesh points of the tongue (apex/blade,middle and dorsum) and four flesh points of the lips (upper and lower, median and lateral) wereextracted from the EMA recordings.Although common features are observed especially regarding place of articulation and trajectory,the detailed analysis of acoustic, articulatory and ventilatory data shows that the production ofplosive sounds in HBB is clearly different from that of plosive sounds in speech. Ventilatory volumesare engaged differently in HBB and speech sound production. The articulatory dynamics ofHBB plosive sound production desplays aspects that are specific to HBB and different from that ofspeech. In the case of the kick compared to a bilabial voiceless plosive, the occlusion can be lateralized.This lateralization of the bilabial occlusion release is observed in some beatboxers, but notsystematically. The side (left or right) of lateralization depends on the beatboxer. This labial gestureis presumably intended to better control lip tension at the occlusion release. The tongue is alsovery active even though the occlusion involves the lips. Articulatory speeds are often higher in HBBthan in speech, especially before the burst. The lingual dynamics of the HBB plosive sounds seemsto be consistent with the use of an ejective mechanism. The very active and reproducible lingual dynamics during articulation of the bilabial plosive sounds of HBB cannot be fully explained by coarticulation.Further, all three tongue coils are recruited in almost the same way, indicating an overallmovement of the tongue. Therefore, this seems to suggest a movement of the tongue in relationto the laryngeal upward movement specific to the ejective mechanism already observed in previousstudies [Proctor et al., 2013, De Torcy et al., 2014, Sapthavee et al., 2014, Blaylock et al., 2017,Patil et al., 2017, Dehais Underdown et al., 2019] and used to increase the acoustic efficiency of thesound. The complex articulatory dynamics and a widespread use of the ejective mechanism make thestudy of HBB plosive sound production a promising research field, which may contribute to a broaderunderstanding of articulatory phenomena at the lingual level.

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Dates et versions

hal-03080931 , version 1 (18-12-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03080931 , version 1

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Annalisa Paroni, Nathalie Henrich Bernardoni, Christophe Savariaux, Pierre Baraduc, Pascale Calabrese, et al.. Beatboxing, is it talking?. ISSP 2020 - 12th International Seminar on Speech Production, Haskins Laboratories, Dec 2020, Providence (virtual), United States. ⟨hal-03080931⟩
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