Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2021 October 31

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October 31

If I mimic some person's voice, am I matching his frequency of sound wave or wavelength of sound wave?

If I mimic some person's voice, am I matching his frequency of sound wave or wavelength of sound wave? What exactly am I mimicking here in terms of a wave? Rizosome (talk) 03:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

The two are directly linked. wavelength (m)*frequency(Hz)=speed of sound(m/s). Greglocock (talk) 05:54, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not asking the relation between wavelength and frequency. I am asking about physics behind vocal mimicry. Rizosome (talk) 05:59, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

OK, to put it another way, wavelength and frequency are inextricably linked (different ways of expressing the same thing), so the answer is, both.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:28, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

It's also unlikely that you would be precisely matching it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:21, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

A human voice is far too complex to be reduced to a single sound wave. It is a complex mixture of sound waves, both fundamentals and harmonics created by the physical characteristics of that person's entire vocal tract and by resonances in their sinuses and other head and neck anatomy, plus the unique way they use their voice in terms of volume and pitch variations, speech rhythms and pauses, their idiosyncratic, social class and regional accents, and the register they consciously or unconsciously employ.

Just to allow an estimation on effort for any response: Have you got the basic answers to your recent question? --91.47.21.246 (talk) 15:22, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

And many others before that. Rizo almost never follows up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

See also the article Spectrogram. The spectrogram of a person speaking is also called a voiceprint. They are used in speaker recognition, but also in forensic analysis much like fingerprints.^[1][2][3] If someone can produce intelligible speech while matching another person's voiceprint, the timbre of their voice will sound like that other person's.  --Lambiam 20:50, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs I am following every response to my questions. This is the line I am waiting for: If someone can produce intelligible speech while matching another person's voiceprint, the timbre of their voice will sound like that other person's. Rizosome (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say "follow", I said "follow up". It would be nice if, once you get an answer, you could follow up by saying something, such as "I understand" or "Thank you." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:34, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, in order for me to speak in such a way that I can be mistaken for you, I must match your timbre. Whether I can do that is much more complex than matching pitch (frequency/wavelength), which normally fluctuates within every sentence. —Tamfang (talk) 02:55, 2 November 2021 (UTC)