Singer's Career Research Articles

An Overview of Premenstrual Voice Syndrome: Definition, Treatment, and Future Trajectories.

For classical singers, performing in peak condition is optimal at all times in an industry which demands excellence. The slightest variability in a singer's physiology can influence sound quality and production; in severe instances, a singer's career longevity may be compromised. Researchers have observed an effect of menstrual cycle hormone variability on the voice, compromising tone quality, agility, and stamina. For a subset of these singers, the effect of hormone variability on voice production is especially severe. This phenomenon has been termed premenstrual voice syndrome (PMVS) among singers, although there has been little empirical research on PMVS, which complicates matters related to defining, taxonomizing, and treating the condition. This article offers an overview of existing research related to PMVS, identifies gaps in definitional and categorical boundaries between PMVS and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and offers recommendations for symptom management as well as suggestions for pedagogues and teachers to better educate themselves and their students about PMVS.

Chinese Singing Contests as Sites of Negotiation Among Individuals and Traditions

This article explores the function of Chinese singing competitions as "mechanisms of traditionalization" where singers, judges, and other individuals interact with and reconfigure performance traditions. Focusing on case studies of professional folksingers from northern China who became famous after appearing on national singing competitions, I argue that participating in contests not only raises the status of individual performers, but also repositions songs, singing styles, and regions within particular performance traditions and the national mediascape as a whole. In addition, narratives of participation and success in contests sometimes connect singer-contestants to other more established singers in mutually beneficial ways. I urge us to view competitions in a singer's career as a series of liminal spaces—rather than as simple contests between individual artists—where the singer and other individuals negotiate choices between continuity and change in representing performance traditions.

Female Night Singers in Pubs and the Progress for Asean Community

The article “Female Night Singers in Pubs and the Progress for ASEAN Community” was originated from the academic research, called “Negotiation of the Meaning of Female Night Singers”, by collecting additional research data from key informants who are female night singers in pubs via the Interview and Participant Observation methods focusing on the career matters. The purpose of this research aims to study the patterns in career and influencing values of female night singers and to suggest solutions to female night singers in economic area in Hat Yai City, Song Khla Province. According to the study, it was found that female night singers were bound with some conditions in the context of working area, which is pub. Also, while female night singer career are under the social values, female night singers express their points of view that their career is right livelihood which has been widely accepted nowadays. They also define and introduce themselves in form of professional singers.

‘An activist can't become a politician’: social activism, leadership and the (un)making of a political career in an Indian state

This article explores the ambiguity inherent in the relationship between social activism and politics in West Bengal. I use a detailed account of the career of singer–activist turned politician Kabir Suman to examine the activist's view of himself and of politics, as well of how the porous boundary between activism and politics is both blurred and crossable. The fact that activists possess a kind of political capital useful within the framework of a political party may facilitate their entry into electoral politics. Yet as this article demonstrates, the activist may sometimes only be able to retain his activist credentials by sacrificing his political career. In addition, this article seeks to conceptualise the social activist as a particular type of political figure. I do so by locating the study of Kabir Suman within an emerging body of literature on political leadership in India. I argue that while the case of Kabir Suman may not be paradigmatic, his ‘activist’ style of leadership challenges certain contemporary classifications of political leadership in India.

`Look here, you bunch of basement noise': Bob Dylan plays underground <br>http://dx.doi.org/10.5429/2079-3871(2010)v1i1.2en

Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes lay in a critical phase of the singer's career, in the shift from a production strictly based on folk-revival models to a new way of songwriting, based on his new electric sound presented in the live and recordings of 1965. In this article a brief analytical survey on four song from that period gives some overall indication about how to look at this repertoire and about its place in the context of the singer’s career, as well as in the history of American popular song.

Emotional Fluctuations in Bob Dylan's Lyrics Measured by the Dictionary of Affect Accompany Events and Phases in his Life

Lyrics for Bob Dylan's songs between 1962 and 2001 (close to 100,000 words) were scored with the help of the Dictionary of Affect in Language (Whissell, 2006). Means for Pleasantness, Activation, and Imagery are reported for 22 Blocks characterizing this time span. Significant but weak differences across Blocks were found for all three measures at the level of individual words. Emotional fluctuations in words included in Bob Dylan's lyrics accompanied events and phases in his life, although they were not entirely dictated by these events. Dylan used more highly Imaged and more Active words at times when his work was critically acclaimed. More Passive word choices characterized times of prolonged stress, and more Pleasant choices times of experimentation. Dylan's three popularity peaks were used to divide the singer's career into three stages (rhetor, poet, sage) which differed in terms of pronouns used.

Mozart's Fiordiligi: Adriana Ferrarese del Bene

Mozart's ability to craft music closely suited to his singers took a remarkable turn with the soprano Adriana Ferrarese del Bene. This singer's career, from sporadic prominence in serious opera to notoriety as a prima donna in Viennese opera buffa in the late 1780s, was capped by her association with Mozart and Da Ponte in Così fan tutte (1790). Certain reports notwithstanding, Ferrarese seems to have been far from a great artist; her successes were modest and she never before or after attained the artistic triumph she achieved in the Mozart–Da Ponte opera. Reviews and contemporary comments suggest that her comic and dramatic skills were uneven, her vocal equipment impressive but incomplete and her performances less than inspiring. Mozart's achievement was to transform a particular set of vocal skills and limitations into something of exceptional artistic value; Fiordiligi was fashioned out of the temperament, vocal style and dramatic abilities – and limitations – of his soprano.

On the teaching of breathing for the singing voice

<h2>Summary</h2> Training the use of breath is the single most important component in the development of the singing voice. The voice teacher is responsible for the creation of imagery that will bring about the achievement of a singing technique based upon the efficient management of the muscles involved in breathing. This imagery can be varied and presented differently to singers depending upon their ages and particular point in training. The training is partially sequential, but must continue throughout a singer's career to meet the particular conditions under which the singer performs. Proper breath control is crucial to the minimalization of tension in the muscles of the throat and cannot be separated from the successful expression of the musical phrase. Breathing technique is capable of ongoing improvement and refinement.