The Estill Voice Model: A paradigm for voice training and treatment

Abstract

For over 40 years, the Estill Voice Model (EVM) has defined voice quality according to movement of anatomy and physiology. EVM addresses the daunting degrees of freedom issue in voice motor control by isolating Craft of voice production from Artistry and Performance Metaphysics. The EVM proposes an integrated implicit-explicit approach for voice motor learning that flows through all training and therapy protocols. Implicit instructions include auditory-perceptual prompts (e.g., quack like a duck to produce “twang”) and explicit prompts train physiologic conditions of the vocal anatomy correlated with the voice quality (e.g., narrow your aryepiglottic sphincter to produce “twang”). Estill exercises address power, source, and filter properties of voice production, and include narrowing the aryepiglottic sphincter for “ring” in opera and belt and for increased power in hypofunctional voices, and varying vocal fold mass for register shifts and optimizing contact for hyperfunctional voices. Patients learn to feel, see, and hear the voice via multiple feedback modes including hand gestures, magnitude estimation of bodily kinesthetic effort, visual acoustic cues in real-time spectral analysis programs. This presentation will highlight objective measurement science and clinical evidence for using Estill exercises in treatment for all voices, from the novice speaker to the expert performer.