The Evolution of Stelios Kazantzidis' Voice from the 1950s to the 1970s

Abstract

Stelios Kazantzidis is one of the most prominent singers of popular Greek music with a career spanning from the 1950s till the end of the 20th century. His collaboration with the iconic composer Vassilis Tsitsanis, shaped the post-war Greek music scene and he later collaborated with most of the prominent Greek composers of popular music. One of his last recordings, before a long 12-year pause, was the album “Stin Anatoli” by Mikis Theodorakis in 1974. In this work we compare Kazantzidis’ timbral characteristics between his early ‘Tsitsanis period’ and his singing style featured in ‘Stin Anatoli’ album. The vocal part of a 16 of recorded compositions by Vasilis Tsitsanis made between 1956 and 1963 and the 11 songs included in ‘Stin Anatoli’ was extracted using the Demucs (v4) Music Source Separation (Défossez, 2021; Rouard et al., 2023) that is available in Github. Subsequently, musical phrases from each song were retained through manual editing and silent parts within the phrases were computationally eliminated. This resulted in 21 vocal phrases originating from the Tsitsanis collection and 11 vocal phrases originating from ‘Stin Anatoli’. Finally, a number of sustained vowels were manually extracted from the above musical phrases creating a collection of 80 vowels from the Tsitsanis collection and 60 vowels from ‘Stin Anatoli’ containing the phonemes /a/, /i/, /ε/, /u/ and /ɔ/. These sustained tones were used to acquire characteristics of the vibrato that is deemed important in providing identity to a singing voice (Herbst, et al., 2016). An updated version of the Timbre Toolbox (Kazazis et al., 2021) was used for extracting harmonic audio features from both musical phrases and isolated vowels. Comparison between the two collections showed that the earlier Kazantzidis’ voice featured significant timbral differences in comparison to his more mature delivery. In particular, the mature Kazantzidis’ voice features weaker high-frequency context, less inharmonicity together with stronger harmonic to noise energy and a faster, more regular but less deep vibrato compared to his younger self.

Full text

Stelios Kazantzidis
Timbral features Vibrato Formants
Discussion
THE EVOLUTION OF STELIOS KAZANTZIDIS’ VOICE
FROM THE 1950s TO THE 1970s
Asterios Zacharakis & Emilios Cambouropoulos
School of Music Studies
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
aszachar@mus.auth.gr
Anumber of sustained vowels were manually extracted creating agroup of 80 vowels from the Tsitsanis collection and another group of 60
vowels from ‘Stin Anatoli’ containing the phonemes /a/, /i/, /ε/, /u/ and /ɔ/.
Vocal parts extracted
using the Demucs (v4)
Music Source Separation
16 songs
CCM
Cognitive and Computational Musicology Group
http://ccm.web.auth.gr/
GROUP
1956-1963:
Vassilis Tsitsanis period
1974 ‘Stin Anatoli’:
Mikis Theodorakis
11 songs
Tsaousakis
Kazantzidis
Kazantzidis older
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
Inharmonicity
Tsaousakis
Kazantzidis
Kazantzidis older
150
200
250
300
Hz
Pitch
Tsaousakis
Kazantzidis
Kazantzidis older
2
4
6
8
10
12
Normalised Spectral Centroid
Tsaousakis
Kazantzidis
Kazantzidis older
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
Harm-noise energy
Tsaousakis
Kazantzidis
Kazantzidis older
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
10-3 Spectral Flux
Kazantzidis is one of the most prominent singers of popular Greek
music with a career spanning from the 1950s till the end of the 20th
century. His collaboration with the iconic Rebetiko composer Vassilis
Tsitsanis, shaped the post-war Greek music scene and he later
collaborated with most of the prominent Greek composers of popular
music. One of his last recordings, before a long 12-year pause, was the
album “Stin Anatoli” by Mikis Theodorakis in 1974.
Timbre Toolbox
Differences in the vocal quality between two separate phases of Kazantzidis’ career have been quantified through the extraction of timbral and
vibrato features. At the same time, differences in formant frequencies, which are important for vocal identity [1], appear to be small. Thus,
without losing its distinct identity, the mature Kazantzidis’ voice is characterised by statistically significant timbral changes:weaker high-
frequency context,less inharmonicity and stronger harmonic to noise energy.At the same time, his vibrato, which also constitutes an important
element of vocal identity [2], is significantly different at maturity:faster,more regular but less deep. Out of the above, only the loss of spectral
richness could be justified by ageing [3].
Although it is not impossible that some of the spectral differences might be the result of poorer recording equipment during the 1950s and
early 1960s, it is more likely that Kazantzidis has gradually developed higher control over his voice by eliminating noisy and inharmonic
components in favour of a smoother delivery. As a result, his voice drifted away from his role model, Prodromos Tsaousakis, with whom he
initially shared strong timbral similarities. The potential influence of the different composers (Tsitsanis vs Theodorakis) on his singing style may
also warrant further investigation from a musicological perspective.
Praat
References
[1] Baumann, O., & Belin, P. (2010). Perceptual scaling of voice identity:common dimensions for different vowels and speakers.Psychological Research PRPF, 74,110-120.
[2] Herbst, C. T., Hertegard, S., Zangger-Borch, D., & Lindestad, P. Å. (2016). Freddie Mercury—acoustic analysis of speaking fundamental frequency, vibrato, and
subharmonics.Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology, 42,29-38.
[3] Johnson, A. M., & Brunssen, K. (2018). The Senescent Singer, in Karen Brunssen The Evolving Singing Voice:Changes Across the Lifespan,(San Diego, CA:Plural, 2018),
228–229.
Can the audible differences between Kazantzidis' early and later
style be quantified through audio analysis?