software – Poetry and Sound

Praat is an open-source software package for speech analysis, used by linguists. It can be downloaded for free and works on Mac and PC. The interface takes a little getting used to, but here is a good series of tutorials, and the Praat tutorial (accessible via the help menu) is thorough. The sound object viewer allows you to visualize speech spectrographically as well as according to pitch, intensity, and formants. For anyone wanting a detailed account of these categories, Peter Ladefoged gives a good description in his Vowels and Consonants, chapters 2-4. Note that Praat requires .wav files and cannot process .mp4 or AAC files, so you’ll need a .wav recorder on your phone or a converter on your desktop to produce usable files.