Resonant frequencies in the human vocal tract that give vowel sounds their distinctive character and help define the timbre of sung or spoken sounds. These frequency peaks are crucial for vocal intelligibility and expression.
From Latin formare 'to form,' referring to the frequencies that 'form' or shape vocal sounds. The term was adopted from phonetics and speech science into music theory and vocal pedagogy in the 20th century.
Formants are the reason we can instantly recognize different vowels and distinguish between voices - composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen used electronic manipulation of formants to make instruments 'speak' or to transform human voices into otherworldly sounds that blur the line between speech and music!
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