Whitney Houston

Whole Song (Link) 

Vibrato:

Houston uses vibrato extensively in her rendition, with several intances lasting a few seconds in length. This vibrato is obvious in both the spectrogram and the vocal track. The red circles illustrate some prominent examples of vibrato, around 19 in total. There is not much straight singing; it’s fairly evident that Houston is heavily relying on vibrato.

Zooming into the first forty-five seconds further demonstrates the extensive vibrato.

Pitch:

The average pitch is 394.2 Hz, the maximum pitch is 1037.3 Hz, and the minimum pitch is 103.8 Hz. There is a large difference of 933.5 Hz between the maximum and minimum. This is mainly due to just how high of a pitch Houston reaches at certain points, such as the fifty second mark in which she sings “and the rockets’ red glare.” While the minimum pitch reached may seem low for a female singer, this is actually very close to Houston's lowest pitch reached, which was an A2 octave.

Autotune:

Although Houston’s rendition was pre-recorded and lip-synced, it does not seem that autotune was used.

Belting:

There are several instances of belting in Houston’s rendition, specifically around 8. This is signified by partials on the spectrogram that are stronger than the second partial (signified by the red arrow). Then, the partials gradually decrease to be at or under the strength of the second partial.

Rockets' Red Glare (Audio)

49.5 sec. – 55 sec.

Pitch:

Overall, the pitch is very smooth, with only one major deviation at the beginning, when Houston reaches a pitch over 1000 Hz then immediately travels back to the 561.9 Hz average of this segment.

Vibrato:

Around half of this segment is composed of vibrato, which occurs after the words “rockets” and “glare.” The vibrato is quite visible on the spectrogram, showing sets of regular and even hills. Below I included a more specific analysis of the "glare."

“Glare” vibrato details

Duration: 1.43s = 1430 ms

Num cycles: 10

Average vibrato rate: 10/1.43 Hz = 7.0 Hz

Average pitch: D#6

Consonant Intelligibility:

The consonants are fairly intelligible, with letters like “r,” “g,” “s” and “l” appearing prominently enough that they are easily discernible.

Singer's Formant:

The highest point (circled in blue) is at 53.4 dB and 1108 Hz. There appears to be quite a strong singers’ formant (circled in red) at around the 3287 Hz mark. The cluster sits at around 40.9 dB, which is less than 13 dB away from the peak.