Test Results: Gibbons Use Same Singing Technique As Divas

It's an iconic image: a soprano dons a horned metal helmet while singing high notes, glass shattering all around. According to Reuters, the results of a recent study suggest that sopranos and gibbons, a species of ape common to southeast Asia, might have something in common: how they sing high notes. A team of researchers from Kyoto University's Primate Research Center studied how gibbons in what principal researcher Takeshi Nishizawa called "a helium environment" manipulated their vocal tracts to project their songs' higher, thinner pitch. The study, published in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, showed that the gibbons made the same types of adjustments to their vocal anatomy to project their songs over long distances, as they often must do in order to communicate in their native jungle habitats, as professional sopranos make to their voices to help their high notes carry through large opera houses. These results could offer clues for how human speech might have developed. The Reuters report states, "The fact that gibbons can do the same thing suggests the complexity of human speech may not have needed specific modifications in our vocal anatomy." Whether an opera house is like a jungle remains a question for future research. Read more: Gibbons on Helium Sing Like Opera Stars (Reuters)