Synthetic voice when playing a pitch extract

[zaba]

when I play a pitch extract from praat (i.e. a .pitch file) I hear this funny tone, which I suppose is a synthetic vocalization of the f0.

Is this true or is there more to it?

[jkpate]

Do you have an example file? It's hard to identify from just this description.

[MalFet]

I'm not completely sure on what you're doing either, but if you "extract visible pitch contour" (in the pitch drop-down menu) from an audio clip and then play that as audio, what you get is indeed a synthesized tone. Praat calls it "humming", if I recall correctly.

[zaba]

I'm not completely sure on what you're doing either, but if you "extract visible pitch contour" (in the pitch drop-down menu) from an audio clip and then play that as audio, what you get is indeed a synthesized tone. Praat calls it "humming", if I recall correctly.

Yes, humming. What is it for? Does it mean something? Or is it for impressionistic research?

[MalFet]

It's the pitch contour of the audio segment you're working with, abstracted from all other acoustic information. I'm not sure what you mean by impressionistic research, but it is often very useful to be able compare pitch contours across phrases if you're (for example) trying to make claims about contrastive tone.

[zaba]

it is often very useful to be able compare pitch contours across phrases

I can imagine how useful that is! But isn't the extracted f0 sufficient for such purposes? What's the added value of the hum?

[MalFet]

it is often very useful to be able compare pitch contours across phrases

I can imagine how useful that is! But isn't the extracted f0 sufficient for such purposes? What's the added value of the hum?

I suspect it was an easy feature to add. Some probably find it more intuitive than the visual graph, and many (including myself) have used it to communicate pitch contour to an audience during a presentation.