Singer Voice
Date: June 2011 ~ Aug 2011
Role: Ideator, Designer
Range: Ideation
Outcomes:
Air Force Startup Education session (2015)
Chief of Staff Award in Korean Air Force Idea Contest (2015)
BACKGROUND
​
The inspiration for this service is rooted in a bittersweet tale from my high school days. There was a girl in my class whom I had a secret crush on. With the help of my friends, I managed to arrange a karaoke outing with her and a few others. My plan was to impress her with my singing prowess and then confess my feelings. However, the real challenge was selecting the right song to sing. In a hasty decision, I picked a random popular song from the chart list, thinking I could do it well. But, as I later learned from my friends, my performance was painfully off-key and hard to listen to. After my song ended, an awkward silence filled the room. Her expression was far from impressed, and thus, my confession plan ended in a dismal failure, without even getting a chance to reveal my feelings.
IDEATION PROCESS
​
I reflected on the reasons behind the awkward situation I faced. There were two main issues: first, I chose a ballad theming breakups, completely unsuitable for a confession. Second, the song's high pitch didn't match my lower vocal range. Everyone has a unique voice with an ideal vocal range and sound intensity. However, like many others, I lacked an objective understanding of my own voice. Furthermore, People just often remember the melody of a song, but unless they are fans of the artist, they may not fully grasp the theme of the lyrics. In a country like South Korea, with its vibrant karaoke culture, people frequently sing at various events such as weddings, office dinners, and some kinds of parties. Finding a song that suits the occasion and one's voice can be challenging. Professional assistance is especially valuable in crucial moments like mine, but it's not always accessible. This realization led me to the idea of designing an app that could easily help in such situations.
DESIGN PROCESS
​
Every person has unique vocal characteristics, influenced by factors such as pitch, timbre, vocal range, breath control and et cetera. To find the matching points between a user's voice data and various singers and songs, I focused on pitch and timbre. Pitch is represented by the frequency of sound waves, measured in Hertz (Hz), which indicates how many vibrations occur in a unit of time. Higher frequencies correspond to higher pitches, while lower frequencies indicate lower pitches. Timbre, on the other hand, is determined by the fundamental frequency and its harmonics, the latter being multiples of the fundamental frequency. It's influenced by the relative strength and distribution of these harmonics and the shape of the waveforms. My plan was to analyze and compare the digital audio data of songs with user-recorded voice data to identify the singer and songs that best match the user's voice. This would involve assessing which songs are suitable for different situations and labeling them accordingly. The user would simply sing into their iPhone's microphone and select the type of event or situation they are singing for. The algorithm I envisioned would then recommend the best-suited singer and song for that particular context.
REFLECTION
​
This idea, inspired by my personal experience, was submitted to the Air Force Design Idea Contest during my military service. Unfortunately, due to the constraints of military life, I was unable to actualize it into a finished product. However, it achieved first place among all submissions from Air Force soldiers and won the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Award. Additionally, I received technical advice and patent consultation from the Air Force Intellectual Property Management Team and the Daejeon Creative Economy Innovation Center at KAIST. Although I couldn't fully develop this idea into a reality due to my immediate enrollment in university after military service, transforming my challenging experience into a technological concept that resonated with and garnered support from the Air Force community and beyond was deeply gratifying. This experience showed how personal challenges can inspire creative, technical solutions that resonate with others.