Vocal Hygiene Research Paper

Ever since a young age I have known I enjoy being the center of attention. I aspire and chase after the satisfaction of performing perfect pieces of choreography. Whether that is hitting the right note in a song, or dancing my heart out on a stage. It makes me feel as though nothing is wrong and ignites endorphins in my brain. I'm in love with the feeling of my heart pacing fast, and then slowly easing into comfort the more time I spend on the stage.This love fuels the months of endless practice leading up. I was born with a voice and at 5 years old I was put in vocal lessons, at the local ABC Music. The first song I sang and played on the piano was "Part of Your World" from the little mermaid. I still hear the claps of the audience at my vocal instructors house. Singing is very meaningful to me, in fact I cannot stop myself, all my favorite songs just blurt out of my mouth. Music has the ability to evoke such deep emotions and beautiful voices aspire me to keep practicing.

Notwithstanding Treasure’s use of vocal coach jargon, he does not go so far as to assume his audience fully understands their meaning as they relate to the topic. He therefore provides definitions and oral examples that connect listeners to the idea. As Treasure used lists, supporting points, and definitions, he does fail to provide much testimony regarding the success of these tactics – other than simply stating what is positive and negative. This is likely a sign of understanding his audience’s common knowledge. Clearly there is a tremendous amount of practice and awareness involved in aptly utilizing the tools Treasure discusses, far and beyond splattering them within one’s speaking. Treasure notes this perfectly, as he states: “First of all, I think absolute honesty may not be what we want. I mean, my goodness, you look ugly this morning. Perhaps that's not necessary. Tempered with love, of course, honesty is a great thing. But also, if you're really wishing somebody well, it's very hard to judge them at the same time. I'm not even sure you can do those two things simultaneously,” (2013). The same rings true with the use and understanding of register (depth), timbre (smoothness), prosody (melody of voice), pace, pitch, and

After moving to New York City to pursue an acting career, I continued to work on my singing voice through professional voice lessons. As I learned more about my own voice, I became very interested in the science behind singing and speaking. This led to an independent inquiry for knowledge that quickly took me beyond the scope of singing pedagogy, and I began to rely on vocal anatomy and speech pathology text

As I unlocked my jaw from my mouth, nothing came out. The director and the instructor stared at me with open jaws. They weren’t able to take me in because I had lost my voice. I was the quiet 14-year-old, who lost the ability to sing falsetto anymore. My only strength was my baritone voice, but the choir, at the time, did not start a boy choir in their choir yet. I auditioned yet again, but the same result happened; however, this time, they had troubadours for me to start my life in choir: The choir that is called the South Bay Children’s Choir (SBCC)

Describe the study’s procedure (a sentence each about IVs and DVs plus a paragraph or two about the design). (30 points)

Meister and colleagues (2017) completed an investigation to assess the subjective and objective voice results of Wendler’s glottoplasty. Meister and colleagues (2017) examined the effects of Wendler’s glottoplasty on 21 male-to-female transgendered individuals. Areas evaluated included fundamental frequency, vocal range, and voice satisfaction. All participants, except one, raised their fundamental frequency after surgery. The researchers saw a decrease in vocal range, but increase in lower frequencies

At the start of the semester I had become more aware and grounded in my voice. In my everyday life, I would notice if I was holding my breath. The reason for this was because over the summer I had to stand-up to one of my shut-up judges, my dad. The incident was extremely emotional, and I coped with it through the use of my actor training; instead of checking out and holding tension, I chose to breathe deeply and stay grounded. This allowed me to speak up even when I was told to shut-up. This awareness of breath was developed through necessity rather than choice. I had to be strong. My strength didn’t only come from being grounded in my breath, but it also came using breathe to stay present in the room. The use of breath also allowed me to go into my body and release the build-up of emotions. As a result of these experiences, my voice was able to drop more consistently to my lower resonator rather than my typical chest voice.

Speech pathology focuses on aiding individuals who struggle with or cannot use their voice. Without a voice, individuals would not be able to communicate with one another face to face, or even talk on the phone. Within every field, controversy exists. In speech pathology, one such controversy is nonspeech oral motor exercises (NSOME), where a patient does different tasks involving their mouth or fingers. These exercises are believed to have no connection with actually assisting the speech pathological part of the brain, since they do not involve any sort of speech activity. Nonspeech oral motor exercises do not assist in the healing process of patients with actual disabilities, nor are they an efficient practice at a professional treatment center.

Another way to improve speech would be to practice slowing down the rate of speech as well as improving breathing while speaking. The therapist may continuously ask the patient to pause for breath, to over-articulate, or to pause before important words to make them stand out.

A fourth category of disorders treated by speech therapists is cognitive communication disorders, which involve thinking skills such as organizing thoughts, memory, attention, solving problems, and so on, and are often result of brain injury, or individuals can be born with them. Lastly, there are social communication disorders, which consist of issues with pragmatics (things like social cues, non-verbal communication, commenting, and so on) and can be caused by traumatic brain injury.

I sang the song through on a lip trill to work on consistent air. I sang it through “like a witch” and this opened by sinuses and raised my back pallet. By singing through the aria with my tongue out as Millan had suggested to Marlee, I noticed a more relaxed tongue. I worked to be conscious of my posture, especially in keeping the head aligned with the body. I practiced the habit of dropping the stomach when I run out of air, and hopefully this improved my breathing. I enjoyed Millan’s experiment in asking three students to turn around and have their backs to Becky as she sang Skeleton Song. She had to convince them to turn around as she was singing (this was the same tactic Millan would later use when working with Rachael, and it produced similar results). It heightened the intensity and emotion, gave Becky an objective, and forced her to reach her voice to the back of the room where they were standing. I worked on aiming my voice to the back of the room during my performance in front of school friends, who were purposefully standing on the opposite end of the orchestra room. I worked on intensifying my emotional investment towards the Countess, as well as connecting with my audience. A few years ago the audience terrified me, but now connecting with them and getting reactions is my favourite part of singing. Logan’s piece Smile was a great example of the performer-audience relationship because Logan’s goal to make the audience smile with

It is common for people with vocal fold nodules to improve without the need for surgery (Simpson B al., et 2008). Speech-Language Pathologists have to be mindful of using evidence-based practices

An interview was conducted in which the client’s mother stated that she feels that Tommy’s voice quality is becoming progressively worse. Tommy has also begun to perceive the difference compared to his peers. He stated, “I sound different from all of my friends at school. They say ‘Tommy, what’s wrong with you? Why do you sound like that?’” In response to his friends’ inquisitiveness about his voice, Mrs. Callahan stated that Tommy is becoming less talkative. During the interview, a connected speech sample was taken whereby Tommy was asked to read the Limpy standard reading passage aloud. Low pitch and hoarseness were evident during the

      As I lift my head up and open my mouth, my voice escalates with every tune that comes out. The soothing words bounce off of my tongue and release the tension held within. Even if the sounds aren’t perfect or correct, every little bit helps me get through the day. When stressed, nothing helps me more than singing. My passion for singing comes from deep within my soul, mind and heart. When I sing, I sing with all of me, putting everything I can into it. I have always had a great passion for singing, ever since I was young. Although I am shy and still get nervous and shaky in front of others, in my own time, singing is my cigarette, my alcoholic drink, my escape from all the anger and the pain.

The last option is surgical voice restoration which was introduced by Singer & Blom in 1980(Blom,1995) Not all patients are suitable for this however, It involves a tracheoesophageal speaking valve, a small fistula is surgically created through the tracheal wall into the oesophagus. A small, one way valve is inserted into the fistula and it allows air to be shunted from the trachea to the oesophagus and up through the pharyngo-oesophageal segment creating an acoustic wave form and voice. A longer flow of voice can be achieved as pulmonary air is used as the initiator for voice.