Science & Pedagogy Articles

Normative Voice Range Profile of the Young Female Voice by Andersen, Egsgaard, Ringside, Grøntved, and Printz from the July 2023 edition of the Journal of Voice. The team set out to build normative data for healthy 18 to 28-year-old female singers due to the increased stress this group’s vocal folds may experience due to a higher fundamental frequency resulting in more vocal fold collisions per second, the probability of a posterior triangular chink preventing full closure, potentially causing further compression of the vocal folds to compensate, and less hyaluronic acid in their lamina propria than male counterparts, providing less shock-absorption. Normative data exists for female singers in a more extensive age range; however, fundamental frequency usually descends as female singers mature.

Music is a language, and I’m not talking about the words we use to discuss music; music itself is a language. To learn any language most effectively, five steps have to be completed in order: Listen, Imitate, Speak, Read, Write. The same is true for singing, though we are particularly interested in the first three. In an attempt to progress faster, we frequently try to skip directly to Speak, when we need to start at the beginning with listening and imitation.So let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the room. Interval training can be boring, and no one really has any idea how to do it—endlessly singing triads and scales, typically mindlessly, hoping that something will stick. Oh, and don’t forget that many, or most, students don’t have sufficient skills on an instrument to play or even check the notes they are singing for accuracy. How can we expect improvement to happen? Sadly, we really can’t; if improvement happens, it’s an accident with these conditions.

Everyone knows that the proper way to breathe while singing is diaphragmatic, belly breathing. Except is it really? If you are a classical singer singing opera or art songs, yeah, it really probably is. If you are singing modern musical theatre, rock, pop, folk, or anything else, the answer gets much more vague. To understand this, we need to look at the costs and benefits of how we can breathe. In addition to diaphragmatic breathing, there is also thoracic, clavicular, and balanced breathing.

According to various writings the rate and extent of vibrato has changed in opera singers over the last hundred and twenty years. However, the extent of the change may be effected by the historic audio recording technology. Glasner and Aaron set out to document this effect by recording twenty professional opera singers using modern recording technology and a Edison Home Phonograph using an accurately manufactured wax cylinder simultaneously. All twenty singers sang into the phonograph horn and microphone from 40 cm, singing messa di voce three times on the vowel /a/ at C4 for male singers and C5 for female sings.

Mode 0, Mode 1, Mode 2, Chest Voice, Head Voice, Mix Voice, Chest Register, Head Register, Mix Register, Fry, Whistle, Cricothyroid Dominant, Thyroarytenoid Dominant, Breathy, Stiff, Thick, and Thin. Exhausting, right? Don’t worry I didn’t forget about: Speech, Cry, Sob, Neutral, Over Drive, Edge, Yelling, Calling, Belting, Twang, etc. They just describe parts of the vocal technique that extend beyond the true vocal folds. I’m confident you have heard at least a few of these words thrown around in relation to singing. But what are they really?

Welcome to Voice Science Abridged! We will periodically be looking at recent papers and research in voice science and singing pedagogy and presenting an abridged version of the research. To start off we are looking at Maximum Phonation Time Normative Values Among Malaysians and Its Relation to Body Mass Index. This study was written by Al-Yahya, Akram, Kumar, Amin, Malik, Zawawi, Mahmoud, Mustafa, Azman, and Baki. It was published in the July 2022 edition of the Journal of Voice.

I like to think that online lessons are good; I have been teaching students online for years. However, many students and teachers believe that online lessons are somehow less successful than in-person lessons. Let’s take a look together at the pros and cons of taking and teaching singing lessons online. The most important part of a singing lesson is the quality of the instruction that you are receiving. Looking at an individual teacher or student, there is no difference in their quality, whether they are in person or online. The only exception can be that some students are particularly distractible and do not have a quiet space for lessons. A change in time or location at home can usually correct this.

You did it! You just sang through a whole show, it was amazing, you were amazing.But now what? Well, looking at our elite athletes it is now time to cool down and stretch. The verdict is still out on this one, some research is suggesting that a cool down routine can help alleviate vocal fatigue, tension, and swelling the next day; conversely, if you are young, fit, and singing with good technique you likely are not experiencing these symptoms. But despite our best efforts none of us are perfect all of the time, so maybe we should just get in the habit now.

Practice, practice, practice. One of the most important things a vocal athlete does is practice; consistent, focused, and planned practice. This is one of the areas where the correlation between athlete and singer makes the most sense. Elite athletes are always training through strength and cardio training as well as mental training. This is all without the time spent practicing their specific sport. There are no parts of this that singers do not engage in, in some way. Let’s look at each part a little closer to see how it’s the same or different.

Over the past decade or two, this concept of a vocal athlete has become increasingly mainstream for many reasons. There are many ways in which being a singer, and especially training to be a singer, is similar to being a baseball player, football player, or any other athlete. There are, unfortunately, also many ways where this comparison falls short, which can lead singers down the wrong path. So prevalent is the concept of a vocal athlete that even some voice teachers can be led astray.Over the next few weeks, we will look at precisely what or who is a vocal athlete, what comparisons between singing and sports we can draw, and what differences exist between training and living as an athlete and as a singer.