Preferred self-to-other ratios in choir singing

Choir singers need to hear their own voice in an adequate self-to-other ratio (SOR) over the rest of the choir. Knowing singers’ preferences for SOR could facilitate the design of stages and of choral formations. In an experiment to study the preferred SOR, subjects sang sustained vowels together with synthesized choir sounds, whose loudness tracked that of their own voice. They could control the SOR simply by changing their distance to the microphone. At the most comfortable location, the SOR was measured. Experimental factors included unison and four-part tasks, three vowels and two levels of phonation frequency. The same experiment was run four times, using sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses, with stimulus tones adapted for each category. The preferred self-to-other ratios were found to be similar to SORs measured previously in actual performance, if a little higher. Preferences were quite narrow, typically ±2 dB for each singer, but very different from singer to singer, with intrasubject means ranging from −1 to +15 dB. There was no significant difference between the unison and the four-part tasks, although this might have been caused by systematic differences in the stimulus sounds. Some effects of phonation frequency and vowel were significant, but interdependent and difficult to interpret. The results and their relevance to live choir singing are discussed.