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letra de 14. black vocal survey - luke davis

a survey was conducted to see whether a singer’s race could identified purely from the sound of their voice. a total of ten partic-p-nts took part in the survey, each listening to small 30-second clips and asked to identify what race they thought the singer was and why. they were also asked what they perceived “black music” to be and whether they thought the term should be used in industry today

from the data obtained, the following results were found:

• 40% of the partic-p-nts were between 18-25, 40% were 26-35 and the remaining 20% were 36 or over
• 60% were of white ethnicity, 20% black, 10% asian and 10% mixed black and white
• around 90% cl-ssified black music as “music of black origin” or “music created by black people”
• for the first track, 70% correctly identified the singer as white, while 20% could not distinguish the voice and 10% thought the singer was black. one of the main reasons for guessing “white” was a likeness to sinatra. they also remarked on a “black” vocal style due to the timbre

• for the second track, 80% incorrectly identified the singer as black, while the remaining 20% could not distinguish the voice. the main reasons for guessing “black” was due more to the style of music (“motown-y”, “soul” and “funk” were mentioned) than the vocals, although one person remarked upon the singer’s timbre and “husky” voice
• for the third track, 80% incorrectly identified the singer as white, 10% could not distinguish the voice and 10% correctly guessed the singer was black. the main reason for guessing “white” was because of the style of music (country). one person, however, guessed “black” because of the vocal timbre
• when asked if the term “black music” should still be used in the industry today, most people said no due to a difficultly in categorisation and the breadth of music

overall, it can be surmised from these results that there may be a perceived idea of what a “black vocal style” is. only the first singer, a white man, was correctly identified as white, possibly because jazz music is no longer seen as a “black genre”. interestingly, that was the only track that was -n-lysed by the partic-p-nts for vocals alone. the remaining two were incorrectly identified because of the style of music not immediately -ssociated with their corresponding races (soul/funk not synonymous with white and country to black). however, these opinions may be based on socially influenced ideals as opposed to an innate ability to cl-ssify vocal characteristics purely from sound. as a small example, this is a helpful indicator but more research would be needed to prove anything substantial

- luke davis

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