Student Singers Research Articles

Vocal Dose and Vocal Demands in Contemporary Musical Theatre.

To document and quantify vocal dose and student-singers' self-assessment during rehearsals for a contemporary musical theater production. Six student singers fastened the sensor from the KayPentax APM 3200 dosimeter to the lower neck to capture neck vibration data during their preparation for the musical Wonderland by Frank Wildhorn. Data were collected during 8-hour periods, at four different stages throughout the rehearsal process: beginning (music and choreography learning phase), middle (staging phase), and end (running the entire show/dress rehearsal phase), plus a post-production day once the production had concluded to establish a baseline vocal load. Students concurrently completed the EASE questionnaire1 after each data collection day. The EASE score (Appendix1) and demographics/perceptual questionnaire (Appendix2) revealed that all subjects (three males and three females) found the singing role vocally and physically demanding but only two found the roles to be emotionally challenging. The musical score demanded a higher usage of chest register (judged perceptually) than mixed register from lead singers. All subjects' maximum fundamental frequency range exceeded the pitch range required by the score. The mean daily vibration dose (distance dose, as computed with Kay Pentax Software) of the three individual female singers' during rehearsals, 5,203 meters, was higher than the mean daily dose of the three male singers, 3,766 meters. The subjects' self-ratings on the EASE were not correlated with the distance dose. A review of Wonderland's score and perceptual judgment of the singers' performances revealed extensive use of chest register, with belting and mix vocal strategies being the predominant stylistic choices. Students described the singing roles' vocal and physical requirements as more challenging than the character's emotional components. This pilot study provides information on the vocal dose for lead and ensemble singers in rehearsal for a Contemporary Musical Theatre production. Singers and voice professionals may find dosimetry a valuable tool for monitoring the vocal dose during rehearsals and performances.

Vocal Demands of Musical Theatre Rehearsals: A Dosimetry Study

To investigate singers' vocal load by documenting three types of vocal doses (time, cycle, and distance doses) and sound pressure levels during the four phases of rehearsal and how the vocal doses vary between singers across rehearsals in the musical Nine, written by Maury Yeston. Five student-singers participating in the musical Nine gave informed consent to participate in the study. All five participants were assigned female at birth and female-identifying individuals. They attached a KayPENTAX APM 3300 dosimeter sensor to their lower neck and wore the accelerometer during four three-hour rehearsals throughout the rehearsal process (the music learning phase, the choreography learning phase, the blocking learning phase, and the dress rehearsal) of the musical. The dosimeter records neck vibrations at a rate of 20 samples per second. but it does not record linguistic content. A dosimetric analysis of five student singers identified variability in voice production throughout the rehearsal process. According to the dosimetry findings, singers employed extensive low-frequency voicing below the first passaggio, with belting and mixed vocal strategies as the predominant stylistic choices when performing in Nine. Additionally, the singers used an occasional head voice effect at specific moments. The roles of Carla, Saraghina, La Fleur, and Ensemble One and Two required specific vocal ranges due to the musical score. Researchers have yet to establish a safe baseline vocal dose for singers. The vocal dose is affected by many factors, such as duration of phonation, frequency range, SPL, and styles of vocalism required by the score. Louder and heavier vocalization produces larger distance doses, representing the cumulative load placed on vibrating tissue. The cycle dose, distance dose, and SPL reported in this study varied within and between singers. The phonation density graphs show this variability and the low tessitura required by the score. Time doses ranged from 4% to 7% of rehearsal time; this short dose suggests that the rehearsals provided healthy conditions for the successful rehearsal process with efficient attention to the vocalization of a score that requires heavy vocal styles, including belting. While the rehearsal pace was not alarming, the demands of the score alone may prove to be much greater than the vocal dose reported through the rehearsal. Further studies are needed to establish the overall dose of each Broadway role to serve as parameters for vocal pacing and voice care.

Why do singers use imagery?

Previous sport research has demonstrated that athletes of higher levels employ imagery more than low-level athletes. Because there is currently little research on imagery’s application in singers, the purpose of the present study was to investigate whether this finding is reflected in low-level and high-level singers. A study-specific questionnaire was developed that examined singers’ imagery use. The questionnaire consisted of four subscales that assessed vocal technique, performance anxiety regulation, goals, and characterization. It was found that singers used imagery most for characterization (i.e., portraying a character or feeling), followed by goals, vocal technique, and performance anxiety regulation. No differences existed between professional and student singers’ imagery use. There was a significant difference between males and females on the characterization subscale, suggesting that female singers may use imagery for characterization more so than males. Introducing this approach to imagery to singers and teachers of singing has the potential to influence music education in school settings and impact curriculum development.

Voice and Lifestyle Behaviors of Student Singers: Impact of History Gathering Method on Self-Reported Data

This study described voice use and lifestyle information about student singers with a focus on describing differences in self-reported information at study intake compared to data from 21 consecutive days of a voice Log. Twenty-seven student singers estimated voice and lifestyle behaviors at study initiation including daily speaking time, singing/performance time, vocal warm-up, and cool-down minutes; fluid intake; perceived effort when talking, and when singing, among other items. These same parameters were tracked for 21 consecutive days in a voice log kept by the singer at home. Study intake data was compared to the median estimates from the 21-day voice log on each variable using nonparametric statistics. Student singers reported warming up the voice regularly at study intake (100%), but several logged ≥ 7 days out of 21 without warming up even though all days had singing minutes. Less than half reported voice cool downs at intake, and even fewer logged minutes of cool down in the daily tracking. High occupational voice demands not involving singing were reported by 37%. Large percentages of students reported frustration (63%), worry/anxiety (41%), and depression (26%) regarding their voice in the prior 2 weeks. Estimates at study intake statistically overestimated daily speaking minutes, effort during singing and number of nights eating within 2 hours of sleep compared to the 3-week log. Student singers reported several voice use and behavior items that could impact vocal health. Additionally, how the information was obtained (intake estimate vs. daily log) did alter what was reported for some parameters.

Amount and Characteristics of Speaking and Singing Voice Use in Vocally Healthy Female College Student Singers During a Typical Week

Singers, college students, and females are groups known to be at an elevated risk of developing functional/hyperfunctional voice disorders; therefore, female college students majoring in vocal performance may be at an even higher risk. To mitigate this risk, it would be helpful to know the "safe limits" for voice use that would help maintain vocal health in this vulnerable group, but there is a paucity of high-quality objective information upon which to base such limits. This study employed weeklong ambulatory voice monitoring in a large group of vocally healthy female college student singers to begin providing the types of objective data that could be used to help develop improved vocal health guidelines. Participants included 64 vocally healthy females currently enrolled in a vocal performance or similar program at a college or university. An ambulatory voice monitor recorded neck-surface acceleration throughout a typical week. A singing classifier was applied to the data to separate singing from speech. Weeklong vocal dose measures and distributional characteristics for standard voice measures were computed separately for singing and speech, and for both types of phonation combined. Participants spent 6.2% of the total monitoring time speaking and 2.1% singing (with total phonation time being 8.4%). Singing had a higher fo mode, more pitch variability, higher average sound pressure level (SPL), negatively skewed SPL distributions, lower average CPP, and higher H1-H2 values than speaking. These results provide a basis for beginning to establish vocal health guidelines for female students enrolled in college-level vocal performance programs and for future studies of the types of voice disorders that are common in this group. Results also demonstrate the potential value that ambulatory voice monitoring may have in helping to objectively identify vocal behaviors that could contribute to voice problems in this population.

Applicability of the Arabic version of Vocal Tract Discomfort Scale (VTDS) with student singers as professional voice users

Aim: This pilot study aimed to evaluate the internal consistency, convergent construct validity and criterion validity of Arabic version of the Vocal Tract Discomfort Scale (VTDS), and to investigate the correlation between the scores of the VTDS, the VHI and the acoustic measures of fundamental frequency (F0), shimmer, jitter and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).Methodology: A cross-sectional study where 97 participants participated (47 males and 50 females) (mean age 20.5 ± 2.1 years) (31 student singers and 66 other non-professional voice user students). Participants were without self-perceived voice disorders who completed the VTDS-Arab scale and the Voice Handicap Index (VHI-Arab), and recorded a vocal sample of/a:/at a comfortable level.Results: A positive internal consistency that signifies reliability was confirmed by Cronbach’s α = .884 and 0.874 for the VTDS-Arab frequency and severity subscales, respectively. A moderate positive correlation was found between the VTDS-Arab (frequency, severity, total) and the VHI-Arab total where values of Pearson’s correlation coefficient were r= 0.459, 0.430 and 0.451, respectively. Weak correlations were found between all of the acoustic measures and the scores of the VTDS-Arab and VHI-Arab (total and subscales). The area under curve for the VTDS was AUC= 0.824, 0.804 and 0.817 for the VTDS frequency, VTDS severity and VTDS total, respectively.Conclusions: The VTDS-Arab is a valid and reliable tool in measuring vocal tract sensations and predicting the perception of vocal handicap in student singers and can be used to predict the vocal load among professional voice users.

A Survey of Equipment in the Singing Voice Studio and Its Perceived Effectiveness by Vocologists and Student Singers

Speech-language pathologists have long used technology for the clinical measurement of the speaking voice, but present research shows that vocal pedagogues and voice students are becoming more accepting of technology in the studio. As a result, the equipment and technology used in singing voice studios by speech-language pathologists and vocal pedagogues are changing. Although guides exist regarding equipment and technology necessary for developing a voice laboratory and private voice studio, there are no data documenting the current implementation of these items and their perceived effectiveness. This study seeks to document current trends in equipment used in voice laboratories and studios. Two separate surveys were distributed to 60 vocologists and approximately 300 student singers representative of the general singing student population. The surveys contained questions about the inventory of items found in voice studios and perceived effectiveness of these items. Data were analyzed using descriptive analyses and statistical analyses when applicable. Twenty-six of 60 potential vocologists responded, and 66 student singers responded. The vocologists reported highly uniform inventories and ratings of studio items. There were wide-ranging differences between the inventories reported by the vocologist and student singer groups. Statistically significant differences between ratings of effectiveness of studio items were found for 11 of the 17 items. In all significant cases, vocologists rated usefulness to be higher than student singers. Although the order of rankings of vocologists and student singers was similar, a much higher percentage of vocologists report the items as being efficient and effective than students. The historically typical studio items, including the keyboard and mirror, were ranked as most effective by both vocologists and student singers.

Effects of Vocal Demands on Voice Performance of Student Singers

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of cumulative vocal demands on the voices of music students majoring in voice throughout an academic semester. Acoustic and aerodynamic voice parameters captured across an academic semester were analyzed. This study was designed as a time-course investigation, in which all participants were tested individually at three separate times distributed equally over an academic semester. General effects were verified with the application of one-way within-participants analysis of variances with repeated measures. The equipment used for monitoring vocal behavior consisted of the Computerized Speech Lab, the Phonatory Aerodynamic System, and the Ambulatory Phonation Monitor, computer-based systems for the assessment of voice. Self-reported data regarding voice usage were also collected. In this study, comparisons of voice parameters of student singers repeatedly measured throughout an extended period of time did not lead to statistically significant differences. Self-reported information suggested a reasonable level of knowledge and awareness regarding voice concerns in this population. The results of this study indicated consistent stability of voice acoustic and aerodynamic parameters in this group throughout an academic semester.

The Effects of Emotional Expression on Vibrato

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional expression on several acoustic measures of vibrato, including its rate, extent, and steadiness. We hypothesized that singing a passage with emotional content would influence these variables. This study used a within-subjects, repeated-measures design. Singer performance under different conditions was analyzed. Ten graduate student singers (eight women, two men) completed a series of tasks including sustained sung vowels at several pitch and loudness levels, an assigned song that was judged to have relatively neutral emotion, and a personal selection that included passages of intense emotion. Vowel tokens were extracted from the recordings and averaged for each task. Dependent measures included the mean fundamental frequency (F0), mean intensity, frequency modulation (FM) rate, FM extent, and measures of FM rate and extent variability. The FM rate and extent were higher and the modulation variability was lower for the more emotional song than for the sustained vowels. Mean F0 and intensity were higher for the emotional song than for the neutral song. Singing an emotional passage influences acoustic features of vibrato when compared with isolated, sustained vowels. The wider dynamic and pitch ranges for emotional passages only partly explain vibrato differences between emotional and neutral singing.

Recordings, Technology, and Discourse in Collegiate A Cappella

Collegiate a cappella is an American musical genre and practice in which self-directed groups of college student singers arrange, perform, and record popular songs without accompaniment. One of its stylistic goals is emulation: its songs should sound like the original artists' recordings, even though they are now a cappella, that is, limited only to voices (Duchan 2007).1 Group lineups (which may be all-male, all-female, or mixed) are transient, so their recordings comprise particular collections of voices singing particular songs at a particular time, as well as historical records of musical and cultural practice.Vocal ensembles have existed at American colleges since the colonial and early Federalist eras (Buechner 2003, Kegerreis 1986) and continued throughout the nineteenth century in cases both well documented (e.g., the Fisk Jubilee Singers) and undocumented (e.g., the Cecilias, Owls, and Beethoven Bummers at Yale University).2 college glee club, an ancestor of contemporary collegiate a cappella groups, began at Harvard University in 18583 and continues today, along with the barbershop quartet tradition, which began in the late 1800s and has included college groups (Averill 2003). Despite these predecessors, some consider the Yale University Whiffenpoofs the collegiate a cappella group: a prominent online timeline of the genre begins in 1909 with the Whiffenpoofs, claiming that year as the birth of collegiate a cappella (A Century of A Cappella, n.d). Founded at Mory's Temple Bar, a New Haven pub, the Whiffenpoofs are the oldest a cappella group still active today (see Gould 2004), and their signature song, The Whiffenpoof Song, has been famously covered by crooners Rudy Vallee ([1937] 1993), Bing Crosby (1947), and others. A cappella grew slowly during the twentieth century, but exploded in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s for several reasons, including a long history of a cappella singing in American education, the gradual coeducational integration of American higher education, several prominent a cappella pop hits (e.g., Billy Joel's The Longest Time in 1983 and Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy in 1988), the rise of the Internet and its faster communicative powers, and the institutionalization of a cappella itself through websites, a professional society, and annual competitions (Duchan 2012:45-63).With this growth and development, collegiate a cappella recordings saw considerable changes in both process and product, some of which met stiffresistance from members of the a cappella community. This review essay highlights several of those changes, considers their causes and effects, and discusses their reception in a cappella circles. Collegiate a cappella groups remain the primary focus, since they represent an American genre and practice on which scholarship has been virtually nonexistent.4Despite the lengthy examination of a cappella recordings offered here, it is worth noting that few singers join a cappella groups for the express purpose of recording. Instead, my ethnographic research found that most singers had participated in some kind of musical activity in high school (often a school- or church-sponsored choir) and sought opportunities to continue singing in college. But a cappella groups also serve a larger purpose, often made plain to singers in retrospect: they create a sense of community. College has long been a time of transition in the lives of young adults; for some it is their first experience at a distance from home and family. As they form their new identities in this context, student groups replace family, at least partially, as systems of support (Karp, Holmstrom, and Gray 1998). It is understandable, then, that a cappella singers frequently de- scribed their groups in terms of fraternity, sorority, and family.The process of recording an album can become a common goal around which group members bond socially, spending hours huddled together in a studio, perfecting their parts and (hopefully) creating something of which they can be proud, a material emblem of both their efforts and their inclusion in the group. …

Recordings, Technology, and Discourse in Collegiate A Cappella

Collegiate a cappella is an American musical genre and practice in which self-directed groups of college student singers arrange, perform, and record popular songs without accompaniment. One of its stylistic goals is emulation: its songs should sound like the original artists' recordings, even though they are now a cappella, that is, limited only to voices (Duchan 2007).1 Group lineups (which may be all-male, all-female, or mixed) are transient, so their recordings comprise particular collections of voices singing particular songs at a particular time, as well as historical records of musical and cultural practice.Vocal ensembles have existed at American colleges since the colonial and early Federalist eras (Buechner 2003, Kegerreis 1986) and continued throughout the nineteenth century in cases both well documented (e.g., the Fisk Jubilee Singers) and undocumented (e.g., the Cecilias, Owls, and Beethoven Bummers at Yale University).2 The college glee club, an ancestor of contemporary collegiate a cappella groups, began at Harvard University in 18583 and continues today, along with the barbershop quartet tradition, which began in the late 1800s and has included college groups (Averill 2003). Despite these predecessors, some consider the Yale University Whiffenpoofs the "first" collegiate a cappella group: a prominent online timeline of the genre begins in 1909 with the Whiffenpoofs, claiming that year as the birth of collegiate a cappella ("A Century of A Cappella," n.d). Founded at Mory's Temple Bar, a New Haven pub, the Whiffenpoofs are the oldest a cappella group still active today (see Gould 2004), and their signature song, "The Whiffenpoof Song," has been famously covered by crooners Rudy Vallee ([1937] 1993), Bing Crosby (1947), and others. A cappella grew slowly during the twentieth century, but exploded in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s for several reasons, including a long history of a cappella singing in American education, the gradual coeducational integration of American higher education, several prominent a cappella pop hits (e.g., Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" in 1983 and Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" in 1988), the rise of the Internet and its faster communicative powers, and the institutionalization of a cappella itself through websites, a professional society, and annual competitions (Duchan 2012:45-63).With this growth and development, collegiate a cappella recordings saw considerable changes in both process and product, some of which met stiffresistance from members of the a cappella community. This review essay highlights several of those changes, considers their causes and effects, and discusses their reception in a cappella circles. Collegiate a cappella groups remain the primary focus, since they represent an American genre and practice on which scholarship has been virtually nonexistent.4Despite the lengthy examination of a cappella recordings offered here, it is worth noting that few singers join a cappella groups for the express purpose of recording. Instead, my ethnographic research found that most singers had participated in some kind of musical activity in high school (often a school- or church-sponsored choir) and sought opportunities to continue singing in college. But a cappella groups also serve a larger purpose, often made plain to singers in retrospect: they create a sense of community. College has long been a time of transition in the lives of young adults; for some it is their first experience at a distance from home and family. As they form their new identities in this context, student groups replace family, at least partially, as systems of support (Karp, Holmstrom, and Gray 1998). It is understandable, then, that a cappella singers frequently de- scribed their groups in terms of fraternity, sorority, and family.The process of recording an album can become a common goal around which group members bond socially, spending hours huddled together in a studio, perfecting their parts and (hopefully) creating something of which they can be proud, a material emblem of both their efforts and their inclusion in the group. …

Change in Vibrato Rate and Extent During Tertiary Training in Classical Singing Students

Vibrato is an integral and desirable feature of the classical singing voice. For elite singing students, achieving and developing vibrato may constitute one of the essential elements of their vocal training, although it is not necessarily a focus of that training. In this longitudinal study, we measured vibrato rate (VR) and vibrato extent (VE) and regularity (SD) of VR and VE in student singers over the course of four semesters of tertiary level voice training at a conservatorium of music to determine how these parameters changed during training. Fifteen singers completed four semesters (2 years) of training. Singers performed four sustained pitches across their vocal range. Peaks and troughs of vibrato were isolated from the fundamental frequency trace to calculate VR in hertz and VE in semitones. Analysis using linear mixed models revealed significant increases in VE and decreases in VRSD over time. VR was within expected limits for classical singers in all semesters, and small VR reductions were not statistically significant between semesters over 2 years of training. VE showed significant increases between the start of year 1 and year 2. Periodicity of singers' VR (SD) improved over training, with significant decreases to VRSD over time. There was no significant change to VESD. Future studies will ascertain whether further changes to VR and VE occur over longer training periods, or whether the major changes occur early in tertiary training.

Consequences From Emotional Stimulus on Breathing for Singing

This study aimed to investigate the effect from emotional stimulus on the correlation between intercostal (INT)/abdominal (rectus abdominis [RC], lateral abdomen [OBL], and lower lateral abdomen [LOBL]) muscle activity and trunk wall (upper thorax [UTX], lower thorax [LTX], and abdomen [ABD]) movement. An electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded from the INT, RC, OBL, and LOBL sites. UTX, LTX, and ABD movement were traced with three strain gauge sensors. Recordings were compared between singing with emotional stimulus (ES) and without emotional stimulus (NES). Muscle activity was recorded by use of an ambulatory four-channel monitoring system (Physiometer PHY 400, Premed, Norway). Seven advanced student singers (three males and four females) participated as subjects. Four sample performances were performed: (1) extreme tones, (2) swell tones, (3) arpeggio, and (4) glissando. All sample performances were sung on the vowel /a:/. We conclude that classical singers change their breathing pattern when they vocalize using ES compared with using NES. The results imply that vocalizing using ES facilitates a more prominent role for LOBL activity in the positioning of the abdominal wall and thorax than observed when vocalizing using NES.

Muscular Patterns and Activation Levels of Auxiliary Breathing Muscles and Thorax Movement in Classical Singing

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the findings in seven studies exploring muscular patterns and muscle activation levels in selected muscles by classical singers. In addition, the relationship of these muscles to thorax (TX) movement was investigated. Loading levels and respiratory phasing of upper trapezius (TR), sternocleidomastoideus (STM) and the scalenes (SC) were investigated in vocalization tasks with variation in vocal loudness and pitch. Further, muscle activity in the posterior neck (PN) was investigated in inhalation and phonation and, finally, TR, intercostal (INT), lateral abdominal (OBL) and anterior abdominal (RC) muscle loading in student and professional singers was examined. Muscle activity was recorded by use of an ambulatory four-channel monitoring system (Physiometer PHY 400, Premed, Norway). TX movement was traced with two strain gauge sensors (RES-117) placed around the upper TX and lower TX. A phasing of upper TR activity to INT and OBL activity was discovered, all muscles supporting the expiration phase. During phonation, TR contributes in the compression of the upper TX, thus serving as an accessory muscle of expiration. TR activity is reduced with short breathing cycles and is mostly inactive in simplified speaking tasks. During phonation, professional opera singers activate the expiratory-phased TR, INT, OBL and RC muscles to higher levels than student singers do. STM and SC show correlated activity patterns during inhalation and phonation by classical singers. During demanding singing, expiratory-phased STM and SC activity peaks produce a counterforce to the compression of upper TX at high pitches. As breathing demands are lowered, STM and SC activity are reduced and attain inspiratory phasing. Substantial muscle activity is observed in PN during inhalation and phonation. EMG biofeedback performed on TR and STM have a secondary effect of lowering EMG activity in PN.

The association between upper trapezius activity and thorax movement in classical singing

Summary This study aimed to examine in classical singing the phasing of the activity in upper trapezius (TR) to upper and lower thorax movement and to the phasing of activity in the intercostals (INT) and in the lateral abdominal (OBL) muscles. Electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded from the TR, INT, and OBL muscles on the right side. Thorax movement (TX) was traced with two strain gauge sensors placed around the upper and lower thorax. Four professional opera singers (soprano, mezzo, tenor, and baritone) and four advanced student classical singers (three sopranos and one mezzo) participated. Three of the professional singers were 33 years, and one was 40 years. The students were between 23 and 30 years. Different arias, freely chosen by the singers from their professional repertoire, served as the singing task for the opera singers. All students sang “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess. All subjects performed their task three times with variation in vocal loudness (normal, forte, piano). Thereafter, for all subjects, a biofeedback (BF) procedure was performed on TR to lower TR activity and a repeat performance of the singing tasks was carried out. EMG activity from the three recording sites and upper and lower TX circumference were compared before and after BF. A phasing of upper TR activity to INT and OBL activity was discovered, all muscles supporting the expiration phase. During phonation, the upper TR contributes in the compression of upper TX, thus serving as an accessory muscle of expiration. Group results from both opera singers and student singers showed that EMG activity was significantly lowered after BF. The lowered TR activity resulted in an expanded upper TX circumference and less TX respiratory movement after BF.

Muscle activity in professional classical singing: a study on muscles in the shoulder, neck and trunk

This study aimed to examine whether changes in the activity of shoulder and neck muscles have consequences for the activation of primary breathing muscles. It further aimed to compare muscle loading levels of professional and student singers. Four professional opera singers participated in the study. Previous unpublished recordings of 4 to 16 student singers and one opera singer were included to allow comparison of EMG loading levels between student and professional singers. Electromyographic (EMG) recordings of trapezius (TR), sternocleidomastoideus (STM), intercostals (INT), rectus abdominis (RC) and the lateral abdominal muscles (OBL) were performed. EMG biofeedback (BF) was performed on TR and STM to lower the activity in these two muscles and the potential change in EMG activity of INT, RC and OBL were examined. Three singing tasks were performed: aria, sustained tones and extreme tones. Each task was performed three times with variation in volume or pitch. Following the first performance of the singing tasks, the BF session was carried out and muscle activity recorded in a repeat performance of the same tasks. The EMG activity levels of all muscles were compared before and after BF. We found no significant effect of reduced TR/STM activity on the activation of INT, RC and OBL. Professional opera singers activated the TR, INT, RC and OBL muscles to higher levels than the student singers did. Another finding was large inter-subject variation in muscle usage, showing an idiosyncratic composition of the muscle contribution to subglottal pressure.

A Comparison of the Singing Formant in the Voices of Professional and Student Singers

Quality singing has a characteristic “ring” identified as a harmonic strength centering around 2.8 kHz. This timbral quality is relatively independant of other factors, and has been labeled the singing formant (SF). This investigation dealt with whether the SF is a significant aspect of all singing voices, and the comparisons of SF strength in the performances of trained professionals and relatively untrained students. Nine vowel-tasks were recorded and analyzed using a fast Fourier spectral analyzer. Resulting plots were analyzed and SF values assigned to 198 tasks performed by nine students and thirteen professionals from all major voice categories. The results indicated that the SF in males and females is a significant factor in all vocal categories, and 222 percent greater SF strength occurred in professional groups compared to student groups. Implications for further study and future use of SF information for singing teachers and students were discussed.

Experimental data on “singer's formant”

Confusion exists relative to the presence or absence of a singing‐related “formant” in the phonatory output of individuals classified as artistic or premier singers. It has been suggested that this special formant occurs in the 3‐kHz region and that it accounts for the “ring” reportedly perceived when such professionals sing. Four groups of ten males and ten females were studied in order to test this notion. They were equally divided into the groups as follows: (1) artistic level singers, (2) student singers, (3) nonsinger musicians, and (4) nonsingers. All subjects produced the vowel /u/ at nine intensity/frequency combinations. Two evaluation procedures were applied: long term spectral analysis (energy in the 2700–3400‐Hz range as a function of total energy) and wave analysis (difference in dB between maximum peak and greatest peak in the 2850–3150‐Hz range). Both sets of data resulted in similar trends with all results statistically significant. Evidence of a singer's formant was most pronounced in the phonatory output of the singers and to a lesser extent in the vocalizations by students; the effect was more apparent in males than in females. The presence of a “singer's formant” appeared to be functionally related to the higher frequencies and especially to conditions requiring greater amounts of vocal intensity.

Perceptual Studies of Female Chest and Middle Registers in Singing

A critical portion of a research program into the nature of vocal registers in singing is to establish their perceptual entity. Selected for study were the chest and middle registers as produced by female student singers. The singer-subjects were trained to produce sustained phonation in one register and, while holding constant the parameters of vowel, voice frequency, and over-all intensity, transit to the adjacent register. These recorded stimuli were presented for register judgment to several groups of student singer-judges in order to obtain samples on which there was unanimous agreement as to the register produced by the singer-subjects. These stimuli were subsequently altered to remove the most obvious possible perceptual cues: by splicing out the interregister transition and by low-pass filtering at 1400 Hz. Another group of student singers was presented with the altered stimuli for judgment. The results suggested that the acoustic information during the transition period contributed little to register identification; whereas the low-pass filtering condition had a marked effect on register identification. [This investigation was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health.]