Are Singing Straws a Scam? The Truth About SOVTEs and Vocal Training

Singing Straws have gained enormous popularity over the last several years. For those of you that have not come across the wonder of these straws. They can provide you a healthier, stronger, and more balanced voice instantly; at least according to the companies that sell them.

Welcome to The Voice Science Podcast, where we dive into the science behind all things singing and teaching. Here, you’ll learn how the voice works and discover practical tips to train it more efficiently. I’m Drew and I’ll be your guide for this episode about singing straws. What are they for? And who should or shouldn’t consider using them?

The general idea of singing straws is that the straw provides resistance, a lot like resistance bands at the gym, this resistance helps balance the vocal mechanism. You can even customize your experience by using different lengths or diameters of straw and even by partially submerging the straw in water.

This sounds incredible! For disclosure, our founder Josh was on team straw for a while after seeing a great presentation by Ingo Titze and several others on the benefits of a few minutes of phonation. However, like most things that promise instant amazing results the truth is a bit more muddy. So let’s take a look at what the research actually has to say about singing straws and the larger group of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, which is way too long so they are normally just called S-O-V-T-E’s.

SOVTe’s are any exercise where the vocal tract is more closed than it would be during ‘normal’ phonation. This includes common exercises such as: humming, lip-trills, tongue trills, hand-over-mouth, and of course, straws. Each exercise has a bit of its own flavor and provides a different amount of occlusion. This occlusion of the vocal tract increases supraglottal pressure, the air pressure above the vocal folds, this air pressure can increase up to nearly equally balanced with subglottal air pressure. While supraglottal air pressure is increased different amounts by different SOVTe’s this supraglottal pressure always exists during phonation. It is increased or decreased by the shape, or geometry, of your vocal tract. Lip and tongue trills increase supraglottal pressure a little where long, thin straws submerged in water significantly increase supraglottal pressure. This balancing of supra- and subglottal pressure is thought to be beneficial for training the vocal mechanism to function more effectively, but it has not panned out quite that way in the vocal research and phonation with a straw especially is not the same as normal phonation.

That being said, straw phonation adds a few exciting additional properties to the use of SOVTe’s when done well. Because you can select different lengths and diameters of straw you can have a consistent amount of occlusion. The added length of the straw also lengthens the vocal tract, lowering the first formant. This lowering of the first formant may also aid in singing by bring the first formant closer to the fundamental frequency.

All of this is amazing, incredible, wonderful. But here’s the problem, the research doesn’t necessarily back the claims. A review of fourteen studies representing a wide range of SOVTe’s shows an astounding variety of results.

So what does the research actually say? 

Andrade et al. found a decreased closed quotient, the percentage of time the true vocal folds are closed during each cycle, for participants after doing lip-trills. 

Duke et al. found no statistically significant difference between singers that completed no warm ups, a traditional classical warm up, or an SOVTe warm up. 

Clifford Dargin et al. noted that the laryngeal and pharyngeal adjustments were highly variable between participants and that “singing teachers and Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) may need to more carefully assess the impact of specific SOVTe’s when decided which one(s) to prescribe as a teaching or therapeutic exercise”.

In the fourteen studies we read, only Kang et al. studied the effects after a period of time. They found that phonatory threshold pressure returned to the baseline measurement within five minutes, and only increased airflow remained after twenty minutes. Unfortunately, no longer duration studies have yet been published.

A few other effects have been documented using x-rays, ct scans, and MRIs. Completing SOVTe’s temporarily lowers the larynx and widens the vocal tract. As with the majority of other studies no long term effects have been documented.

The final benefit that is cited in most advertising but also in the research are self-reported changes to the difficulty of phonating. Singers that use singing straws in particular report that after using the straw it is easier to sing. Let’s take a moment to look at this claim. Straw phonation and the larger group of SOVTe’s are used in voice rehabilitation to increase the strength of vocal fold adduction, in particular they are used with individuals that are choking risks. So we know that increasing the strength of the adduction will necessitate an increase in subglottal air pressure. Continued use of these SOVTe’s will habituate an increase in adduction and subglottal air pressure which would make it harder for a healthy singer to move from a thyroarytenoid dominant vocal production (commonly chest voice) to a cricothyroid dominant vocal production (head voice).

In short, it would actually be expected for singers to find singing harder over time rather than easier. One explanation that we like to explain the discrepancy is that the singing straw exercises are being done at too difficult of a level by using too long or too narrow of a straw, by submerging it in too much depth of water, or all of the above. Singing straws are often marketed as a way to up the difficulty. By doing that when the straw is removed singing feels easier, much like walking after taking off a weighted vest, or putting down heavy bags of groceries.

Alternatives for singing straws are plentiful but will depend on what your goals actually are. If you are one of the rare singers that struggles with a weak adduction of the vocal folds. Please note, in our decades of teaching experience we can collectively count the number of singers where this is likely the case on our hands. This is not a common problem, at least in the United States. But getting back to it, if you are one of these rare singers, SOVTe’s are potentially a really great tool for you, but hold off on buying singing straws; they have not been found to be more effective than other SOVTe’s, so you can stick to the free exercise: lip trills, tongue trills, or hand-over-mouth.

If you were hoping that singing straws would improve your head or mix voice, probably not. They will absolutely cause you to keep a greater adduction of your true vocal folds higher, but it will also make it harder to switch to a cricothyroid dominant vocal production, especially seamlessly. The best bet for most singers is to work on singing as lightly-think light, thin, floaty; but not breathy. Exercises like vocal function exercises, also known as Stemple exercises, can be really helpful; we will discuss the Stemple exercises in a later episode. But just starting your exercises way up in your head voice, spending time there and slowly working your way down keeping it nice and light. The vast majority of everyone speaks in the bottom part of their vocal range. According to Holmberg et al. in their 1989 study the average speaking pitch for men is 116 Hz, that’s about A#2; and for women it is 205 Hz, just flat of G#3! So we really do need to give a lot more love to our cricothyroid muscles to have that beautiful head and mix range.

If you wanted a stronger voice. As long as you don’t take this too far, SOVTe’s could be the right choice if your challenge is that you have a strong cricothyroid production. If your voice naturally goes to a cricothyroid dominant production, not a breathy production like after a voice crack, below around B4, the B above middle C. It could be useful to do some SOVTe’s up to B4 or C5. They will help you maintain the more thyroarytenoid dominant production higher. There may be some limited benefits above C5 but remember that the vocal folds need to lengthen and thin at this point. If you are experiencing voice cracks check out our episode on Phonatory Threshold Pressure.

And finally, you wanted to make singing easier. We need to have a quick level setting discussion. Singing should never be physically painful, but singing well is also not easy. It is a physical act that requires the engagement of a huge number of muscles to do highly precise and rapid movements for an extended period of time. It can be highly mentally and physically taxing. That said, in our experience most singers that find singing requires too much effort are likely pushing too hard, attempting to sing with too much air pressure and/or too much adduction, a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario on that one, another time. Best thing to do here is find an excellent teacher or a speech language pathologist that specializes in singers and work through the process with them.

Let’s recap.

Singing straws are part of a larger family of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, or SOVTe’s, which can potentially provide temporary benefits for some singers. And they’re especially useful in voice therapy settings and for singers with unusually weak vocal fold closure—which is actually pretty rare.

But when it comes to the flashy claims of stronger, easier, healthier singing for everyone? The research just doesn’t hold up. In fact, overuse or using too much resistance can actually make singing harder, especially in the upper range where lighter vocal fold coordination is key.

As always, the key is knowing what your voice needs and choosing tools that support—not sabotage—your goals.

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Thanks for tuning in to The Voice Science Podcast. If today’s episode got you rethinking that shiny new straw on your wishlist—or helped clarify why your mix voice has been giving you trouble—be sure to share it with a fellow singer or teacher.

And if you’ve got questions about today’s topic or want us to dig into something else on a future episode, head over to voicescience.org and send us a message.

Until next time, keep singing smart!

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