{{Short description, Microsoft software for singing trainingWinSingad is a Microsoft Windows based

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

for

singing Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or with ...

training.

Description

WinSingad is software for singing training. It started life as SINGAD, which stands for "SINGing Assessment and Development", running on a

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

and it was designed for use in

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

s to develop and assess children's singing pitching skills. It was later ported to the Atari range of computers to take advantage of

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

and more recently to Windows. SINGAD enabled the pitching strategies used by children to be explored and compared with adult singers and its use for real-time visual feedback in singing training was beneficial.Welch, G.F., Howard, D.M., and Rush, C. (1989). "Real-time visual feedback in the development of vocal pitch accuracy in singing", ''Psychology of Music'', 17, 146-157

WinSingad displays

WinSingad offers displays of: * Input

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...

waveform In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its graph as a function of time, independent of its time and magnitude scales and of any displacement in time.David Crecraft, David Gorham, ''Electro ...

against

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

Fundamental frequency The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the ''fundamental'', is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. I ...

against time * Short-term

spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

* Narrow band

spectrogram A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of a signal as it varies with time. When applied to an audio signal, spectrograms are sometimes called sonographs, voiceprints, or voicegrams. When the data are represen ...

* Spectral ratio against time *

Vocal tract The vocal tract is the cavity in human bodies and in animals where the sound produced at the sound source ( larynx in mammals; syrinx in birds) is filtered. In birds it consists of the trachea, the syrinx, the oral cavity, the upper part of th ...

area * Mean/min vocal tract area against time. In addition, a

web camera A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...

window is often placed on screen with the

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

positioned at the singer's side to provide a side view to enable

posture Posture or posturing may refer to: Medicine * Human position ** Abnormal posturing, in neurotrauma ** Spinal posture ** List of human positions * Posturography Posturography is the technique used to quantify postural control in upright stance in ...

to be viewed. In effect, this is a 90 degree

mirror A mirror or looking glass is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the im ...

which gives a clear indication of spine alignment.

Notes

References

# Howard, D.M., and Welch, G.F. (1989). "Microcomputer-based singing ability assessment and development", ''Applied Acoustics'', 27, (2), 89-102. # Howard, D.M., and Welch, G.F. (1993). "Visual displays for the assessment of vocal pitch matching development", ''Applied Acoustics'', 39, 235-252. # Howard, D.M., Brereton, J., Welch, G.F., Himonides, E., DeCosta, M., Williams, J., and Howard, A.W. (2007). "Are Real-Time Displays of Benefit in the Singing Studio? An Exploratory Study", ''Journal of Voice'', 21, (1), 20-34. # Howard, D.M., and Angus, J.A.S. (1998). "A comparison between singing pitching strategies of 8 to 11 year olds and trained adult singers", ''Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology'', 22, (4), 169-176. # Welch, G.F., Howard, D.M., and Rush, C. (1989). "Real-time visual feedback in the development of vocal pitch accuracy in singing", ''Psychology of Music'', 17, 146-157.

External links

Official WebsiteLondon Singing Academy
Windows multimedia software Singing