Measurement of the glottal waveform.

The glottal volume flow is usually estimated by inverse−filtering the speech wave, by taking a motion picture of the vocal−cord vibration, or by a variety of other methods that estimate the size of the glottal opening. We present a much simpler alternative based on the following idea: The effect of the vocal−tract resonances on the glottal pulse is considerably reduced by speaking into a reflectionless uniform tube. If, in addition, the tract is held in a neutral position, the effect is almost entirely eliminated and the glottal waveform may be recorded by a microphone in the uniform tube. Some examples are presented of glottal pulses recorded in this manner. The new method is compared to the ones available heretofore, and some potential uses of the method are suggested.Subject Classification: 70.60.