Discriminating Mizo Hunting and War Chants using Acoustic Features

This study explores the acoustic characteristics of expressive Hunting chants and War chants of Mizoram, a northeastern state in India. It employs parameters such as fundamental frequency (F0), strength of excitation (SoE), and signal energy (E). Unique features of these songs are identified by isolating the impulse sequence of excitation sources using zero frequency filtering (ZFF) and comparing these findings with results from the autocorrelation function (ACF). Additionally, the study contrasts SoE with E to assess the strength of impulse sequences and overall signal energy. The analysis also examines specific segments of the chants to identify subharmonic components for possible signs of aperiodicity and creaky sounding phonation. Observations show that expressivity may be highly correlated with subharmonics and/or aperiodicity in expressive singing voices.