Comparison of young adult singers and nonsingers with vocal nodules

It is commonly known that occupational voice users suffer from voice symptoms to varying extents. The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of a short (2-day) vocal training course on professional speakers’ voice. The subjects were 38 female and 10 male customer advisors, who mainly use the telephone during their working hours at a call centre. The findings showed that although the subjects did not suffer from severe voice problems, they reported that the short vocal training course had an effect of some of the vocal symptoms they had experienced. More than 50% of the females and males reported a decrease in the feeling of mucus and the consequent need to clear the throat, and diminished worsening of their voice. Over 60% thought that voice training had improved their vocal habits and none reported a negative influence of the course on their voice. Females also reported a reduction of vocal fatigue. The subjects were further asked to respond to 23 statements on how they experienced the voice training in general. The statements ‘I learned things that I didn’t know about the use of voice in general’ and ‘I got useful and important knowledge concerning my work’ were highly assessed by both females and males. The results suggest that even a short vocal training course might affect positively the self-reported well-being of persons working in a vocally loading occupation. However, to find out the long-term effects of a short training course, a follow-up study would need to be carried out.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is the most prevalent closure pattern during phonation for females with normal speech [32][33][34] and can be considered to be typical of female vocal folds and within normal variance [35]. Two women also had oedema (both smokers) and 5 had erythema of vocal folds (all smokers).…”

Section: Background Factors and Their Relation With The Experienced Smentioning

confidence: 95%

Experiences of a Short Vocal Training Course for Call-Centre Customer Service Advisors

Lehto

Rantala

Vilkman

et al. 2003

“…Vocal nodules are among the most frequent laryngeal pathologies, their incidence and form vary with age and sex, and they are most common in younger patients [4,11,12] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laryngeal Microweb and Vocal Nodules

Ruiz

Pontes²,

Behlau³

et al. 2006

The etiology and pathogenesis of laryngeal microwebs are heterogeneous, and in most cases they are an incidental finding. It has also been suggested that microwebs could be a familial trait, representing a postblastogenic embryonic vestigial structure that might alter the biomechanical and vibratory properties of the vocal fold. Vocal nodules are small benign swellings along the margins of the vocal cords, with preferential location at the junction of the anterior and middle thirds, and usually resulting from mechanical trauma. The authors studied a sample of 107 patients with vocal nodules, looking for a possible correlation with microwebs due to the predicted involvement in the vibration of vocal cord margins. Glottic proportion, type of glottic closure, nodule location and the main complaints in patients with microwebs were compared with those in a sample of patients without microwebs. In the present study, microwebs were found in 9.4% of the patients, who showed much smaller glottic proportion than patients with micronodules only. Furthermore, vocal nodule location was not related to the presence and/or absence of laryngeal microwebs.

“…Singers with formal training have outperformed their untrained counterparts through superior control of respiratory, laryngeal and articulatory dynamics during singing, even if their speaking voices are not significantly different [3,6,7], suggesting the robustness of the singers' voice mechanisms over non-singers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Analysis of Madhya and Taar Saptak/Sthayi in Indian Classical Singers

Gunjawate

Aithal

Guddattu

et al. 2015

Objectives: We aimed to compare the acoustic parameters of voice between Madhya Saptak/Sthayi (MS) and Taar Saptak/Sthayi (TS) in trained Indian classical singers and between males and females. Participants and Method: Sixty-five adult trained Indian classical singers were instructed to produce MS and TS; the acoustic parameters were analyzed with the Multidimensional Voice Program. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis across tasks and gender. Two-way random-effects ANOVA was used to test the effect of gender and task. Results: Male participants had a restricted range of fundamental frequency (F0), especially at high pitches. The acoustic analysis showed a statistically significant difference for F0 measures, range of F0, jitter and pitch perturbation quotient between males and females during MS and TS. Conclusion: The use of TS, that is, high-pitch phonation, during the clinical evaluation of singers enables an understanding of their vocal behavior in the higher scales of singing.