What’s in a singer’s voice: The effect of attachment, emotions and trauma

Abstract

Research shows that negative experiences in childhood have a long-lasting impact on one's psychological outcomes and one's physiology. The voice is a crucial means of expression, and its complex physiology is believed to be reflective of emotional and mental states. Parenting practices (particularly those contributing to insecure attachment) and traumatic experiences in childhood may thus also influence vocal characteristics. Except for literature on psychogenic voice disorders, the relationship between such experiences and the 'normal' voice is generally unexplored; we propose that a potential relationship is most likely to emerge in singers, for whom the voice is a more central part of their sense of self. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that vocal characteristics relate to attachment and trauma history. Study 1: 25 singers (age 18-35) completed an attachment history questionnaire (ECR-R) and the Singing Voice Handicap Index. Voice range profile and perturbation measures were recorded and analyzed for voice quality assessment. Study 2: 26 singers (age 19-33) completed the attachment history questionnaire, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. They were also administered the Test of Self-Conscious Affect to assess shame and guilt proneness. Voice range profile, perturbation, and spectrogram measures were recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that anxious attachment, shame, and emotional neglect can predict vocal acoustic measures of intensity and, to some extent, perturbation. This suggests the need to address attachment, shame, and trauma history patterns in the aspiring performer.

Superagudos: análise perceptivo-auditiva da voz e autorrelato em sopranos profissionais

“…In the first question, each of the singers reported different aspects of bodily sensations, which emphasizes that there is no standard bodily sensation to recur amongst them. Each singer could refer to sensations to which she was most attentive while singing ad as being influenced by her non-musical background experiences/training (voice physiology, theater, dance) or by her physical state at the time of recording (indisposition, tiredness, anxiety) (17) . In the second question, on the perception of laryngeal movement, the singers reported feeling elevation of the larynx when emitting upper high notes.…”

Inclusión de la música tradicional colombiana en la especialidad de canto de conservatorios superiores de Bogotá: Experiencias docents

“…Debido a las características del instrumento, siendo en el canto el propio cuerpo, es vital el desarrollo de un conocimiento de las necesidades físicas y mentales propias para poder cuidar el instrumento, lo que se traduce en desarrollar hábitos de cuidado personal (Schwartz y otros, 2018). A nivel emocional, se dice que la voz muestra el estado emocional y mental de quien la usa (Monti y otros, 2016), de forma que el trabajo de conciencia debe ir más allá del conocimiento físico, además englobando el entendimiento emocional de uno mismo. En este sentido, se observan unas características concretas a nivel técnico-estético en la música vocal colombiana que implican un cambio con respecto a la técnica y la estética de la música denominada como académica o euro-céntrica.…”

Reentry Following COVID-19: Concerns for Singers

“…The vocal instrument is biological and physiological, and singers' voices are sensitive to the effects of stress. Psychologically, the voice is central to many singers' sense of self, 92 and many find it difficult to decouple "who I am" from "what I do." This point was clearly described by Stohrer.…”

“…103 Monti et al noted that emotional and psychological elements can have a profound effect on a singer's voice, and they encourage singing teachers to be mindful that technical difficulties may have deeply rooted emotional etiologies. 104 Trauma can also have a profound neurophysiological effect on singers. When the brain perceives a threat to survival (e.g., COVID-19 peritraumatic distress), a "fight/flight/freeze" response may engage that shuts down Broca's area in the left frontal lobe of the cortex.…”