On the Benefit of Larynx-Microphone Field Recordings for the Documentation and Analysis of Polyphonic Vocal Music

In a previous study Scherbaum et al. (2015) have demonstrated that recordings of body vibrations during singing contain all the essential information of a singer ́s voice regarding pitch, intonation, and voice intensity, but are practically unaffected by the voices of other singers (except for extreme situations). This allows the recording of the contribution of each singer while they are singing together. Because of these characteristics, Scherbaum et al. (2015) proposed the utilization of body vibrations recorded as an additional source of information for the documentation and analysis of traditional polyphonic vocal music. Questions remained, however, regarding the applicability of this approach under field recording conditions and if it indeed provides useful information not obtainable by other means. These questions were at the focus of an exploratory field trip to Upper Svaneti/Georgia during the summer of 2015. Here I report on selected results of the analysis of recordings (larynx microphone and audio) of 20 Svan songs sung by two different trios in Lakhushdi and Ushguli in Svaneti/Georgia recorded during this pilot study