In this article we introduce some novel methods of formant analysis and synthesis. The latter is performed by the implementation of a technique known as Modified FM synthesis, while the former use an unscented Kalman filter algorithm. The proposed techniques provide a good alternative to the existing time and frequency domain methods that is both flexible and elegant. The synthesis technique, based on an extension of FM, allows for an efficient means of generating an easily-describable spectrum.The Kalman filter analysis provides precise and finely-grained tracking of formant parameters. After a detailed discussion of the methods, we present a number of possible musical applications for them,. Sound examples are provided online, illustrating the techniques and their use.