Voice and Singing in
Popular Music in the U.S.A. (1900–1960)

Vocalmetrics 1.0 and Vocalmetrics 1.1 are two software applications, which have been developed in 2013 and 2014 as part of the DFG-funded research project Voice and Singing in Popular Music in the US (1900-1960).

While the online tool Vocalmetrics 1.0 is intended for the interactive exploration of pop voices, users can use and adjust the freeware Vocalmetrics 1.1 for different kinds of projects.

Vocalmetrics 1.0

Concept and Implementation:

Martin Pfleiderer, Tobias Marx, Tilo Hähnel, Inga Langhans (HfM Weimar), Rainer Groh, Axel Berndt, Felix Schönfeld, Huong Nguyen, Eva Brumme (TU Dresden)

Vocalmetrics 1.0 enables users to interactively explore exemplary recordings of singing from US-American popular music between 1900 and 1960. The online tool visualizes nine parameters of voice and singing as well as additional information on the respective recordings.

Vocalmetrics 1.0 has been devised and implemented by the staff of the DFG-funded research project Voice and Singing in Popular Music in the US (1900-1960) in cooperation with students at the Institut für Software- und Multimediatechnik of the TU Dresden. The tool is based on HTML5 and Javascript. It is optimized for Chrome and runs with small limitations in Firefox. A maximized browser window is recommended for best viewing experience. If you wish to change the window size while the application is running, press F5 (refresh) to restart. Please note, however, that all prior adjustments will be lost.

Vocalmetrics 1.1

Concept: Tilo Hähnel, Martin Pfleiderer, Felix Schönfeld
Implementation: Felix Schönfeld

Vocalmetrics 1.1 builds on the concept and functions of Vocalmetrics 1.0, but adds new options, such as rating audio samples and visualizing relations between the respective samples based on their rating and meta-data. Vocalmetrics 1.1 furthermore allows users to create new rating and visualization project with their own set of dimensions; it is available for download for free.

Vocalmetrics 1.1 has been devised and implemented by the staff of the DFG-funded research project Voice and Singing in Popular Music in the US (1900-1960) in cooperation with Felix Schönfeld.

Axel Berndt, Rainer Groh, Tilo Hähnel, Tobias Marx, Martin Pfleiderer und Felix Schönfeld: Vocalmetrics. Ein Software-Tool für das Visualisieren, das Rating und den Vergleich von Musik-Datensätzen, in: Musikpsychologie. Anwendungsorientierte Forschung, hrsg. von Wolfgang Auhagen, Claudia Bullerjahn und Richard von Georgi (= Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Musikpsychologie, Bd. 25), Göttingen: Hogrefe 2015, S. 254-262.

Axel Berndt, Rainer Groh, Tilo Hähnel, Martin Pfleiderer and Felix Schönfeld: Vocalmetrics. An interactive software for visualization and classification of music, in: Proceedings of the 9th Audio Mostly: A Conference on Interaction With Sound, October 1-3, Aalborg, Denmark.

Felix Schönfeld, Tilo Hähnel: »Vocalmetrics: exploring multiple dimensions of singing in early popular music recordings«, in: Proceedings of the Sempre MET 2014. Researching Music, Education, Technology: Critical Insights, ed. by Evangelos Himonides and Andrew King, London, 2014, pp. 145–147.