Winsingad

WinSingad is software for singing training. It started life as SINGAD, which stands for "SINGing Assessment and Development", running on a BBC Micro[1] and it was designed for use in primary schools to develop and assess children's singing pitching skills.

It was later ported to the Atari range of computers [2] to take advantage of MIDI and more recently to Windows.[3] SINGAD enabled the pitching strategies used by children to be explored and compared with adult singers [4] and its use for real-time visual feedback in singing training was beneficial.[5]

WinSingad offers displays of:

• Input sound waveform against time
• Fundamental frequency against time
• Short-term spectrum
• Narrow band spectrogram
• Spectral ratio against time
• Vocal tract area
• Mean/min vocal tract area against time.

In addition, a web camera window is often placed on screen with the camera positioned at the singer's side to provide a side view to enable posture to be viewed. In effect, this is a 90 degree mirror which gives a clear indication of spine alignment.

1. Howard, D.M., and Welch, G.F. (1989). "Microcomputer-based singing ability assessment and development", Applied Acoustics, 27, (2), 89-102.
2. Howard, D.M., and Welch, G.F. (1993). "Visual displays for the assessment of vocal pitch matching development", Applied Acoustics, 39, 235-252.
3. Howard, D.M., Brereton, J., Welch, G.F., Himonides, E., DeCosta, M., Williams, J., and Howard, A.W. (2007). "Are Real-Time Displays of Benefit in the Singing Studio? An Exploratory Study", Journal of Voice, 21, (1), 20-34.
4. Howard, D.M., and Angus, J.A.S. (1998). "A comparison between singing pitching strategies of 8 to 11 year olds and trained adult singers", Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology, 22, (4), 169-176.
5. Welch, G.F., Howard, D.M., and Rush, C. (1989). "Real-time visual feedback in the development of vocal pitch accuracy in singing", Psychology of Music, 17, 146-157.

• Official Website
• London Singing Academy