THE HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC SPEECH
How Phoneme Synthesis Works
An interactive journey from the human voice to electronic speech. Change the sounds, move the controls, and listen as a voice takes shape.
STEP 01 / 05
First, give the air a voice
The human voice begins with airflow. Vibrating vocal folds create a repeating excitation; turbulent airflow supplies noise. The throat and mouth shape that sound. Mechanical speaking machines recreated parts of this process with physical air paths, vibrating reeds, and resonating cavities.
THE PHYSICAL FUNCTIONVibration + air + a resonating cavity
ITS ELECTRONIC COUNTERPARTThe functions that circuitry must reproduce
TRY THE HUMAN MODEL
Change the shape of a mouth
Move from “ee” to “ah” to explore how changing the mouth shapes a vowel.
Loading the interactive mouth…