Effect of Hydration and Vocal Rest on the Vocal Fatigue in Amateur Karaoke Singers

Karaoke singing is a very popular entertainment among young people in Asia. It is a leisure singing activity with the singer's voice amplified with special acoustic effects in the backdrop of music. Music video and song captions are shown on television screen to remind the singers during singing. It is not uncommon to find participants singing continuously for four to five hours each time. As most of the karaoke singers have no formal training in singing, these amateur singers are more vulnerable to developing voice problems under these intensive singing activities. This study reports the performance of 20 young amateur singers (10 males and 10 females, aged between 20-25 years) on a series of phonatory function tasks carried out during continuous karaoke singing. Half of the singers were given water to drink and short duration of vocal rests at regular intervals during singing and the other half sang continuously without taking any water or rest. The subjects who were given hydration and vocal rests sang significantly longer than those who did not take any water or rest. The voice quality, as measured by perceptual and acoustic measures, and vocal function, as measured by phonetogram, did not show any significant changes during singing in the subjects who were given water and rest during the singing. However, subjects who sang continuously without drinking water and taking rests showed significant changes in the jitter measure and the highest pitch they could produce during singing. These results suggest that hydration and vocal rests are useful strategies to preserve voice function and quality during karaoke singing. This information is useful educational information for karaoke singers.     

Communicative Suitability of Voice Following Radiotherapy for T1 Glottic Carcinoma: Testing the Reliability of a Rating Instrument

The objective of the study was to determine whether a communicative suitability rating instrument could be used in a meaningful way to assess functionality of voice following radiotherapy for T1 glottic cancer. Seventeen naive listeners judged the suitability of voice of a patient group with T1 glottic carcinoma (n = 20) just before treatment, a group of patients (n = 40) after radiotherapy, and a matched control group (n = 20) of normal speakers. Listeners rated suitability on a 10-point scale for 10 speaking situations, which supposedly make different demands. In order to validate scores on communicative suitability, ratings were related to perceptual voice quality evaluations and videolaryngostroboscopic evaluations. Results indicate that the concept of measuring listener judgments of communicative suitability of voice is basically sound. Raters are reliable and can discriminate between groups of normal and pathological voices. Patients with T1 glottic carcinoma (assessed before the start of treatment) have on average the least suitable voices. Following radiotherapy suitability is, on average, improved, but does not approach the suitability of normal voices. Ratings on communicative suitability were clearly related to perceptual voice quality aspects and videolaryngostroboscopic evaluations. A subset of three communicative suitability rating scales is recommended as part of the protocol for evaluating voice outcome after radiotherapy for early glottic cancer, besides perceptual evaluation of voice quality by trained and naive raters, videolaryngostroboscopy, acoustical analyses, and self-ratings of vocal performance.     

The Effectiveness of Group Therapy for Students With Mild Voice Disorders: A Controlled Clinical Trial

Previous studies of students studying to be teachers have indicated that these students commonly have voice disorders. Ideally, voice disorders should be treated before students start their work as teachers, but the resources for this treatment are often limited. This study examines whether group voice therapy is effective for teacher students. Accordingly, 20 teacher students with mild voice disorders received group voice therapy (in three small groups), whereas 20 students with similar voice disorders served as a control group and consequently did not receive voice therapy. Two out of three outcome measures (perceptual evaluation of voice quality and a questionnaire on the occurrence of vocal symptoms) indicated significant changes in the treatment group compared with the control group. No differences between groups were noted in the laryngeal status. The results suggest that group voice therapy seems to be an effective method to treat students with mild voice disorders.     

The interaction of formant frequency and pitch in the perception of voice category and jaw opening in female singers

This study represents a first step toward understanding the contribution formant frequency makes to the perception of female voice categories. The effects of formant frequency and pitch on the perception of voice category were examined by constructing a perceptual study that used two sets of synthetic stimuli at various pitches throughout the female singing range. The first set was designed to test the effects of systematically varying formants 1 through 4. The second set was designed to test the relative effects of lower frequency formants (F1 and F2) versus higher frequency formants (F3 and F4) through construction of mixed stimuli. Generally, as the frequencies of all four formants decreased, perception of soprano voice category decreased at all but the highest pitch, A5. However, perception of soprano voice category also increased as a function of pitch. Listeners appeared to need agreement between all four formants to perceive voice categories. When upper and lower formants are inconsistent in frequency, listeners were unable to judge voice category, but they could use the inconsistent patterns to form perceptions about degree of jaw opening.     

The Voice and Its Care: Survey Findings From Actors'' Perspectives

There is a need for research that would determine how the speech-language-voice pathologist could best be of service to actors who are experiencing vocal dysfunction or in furnishing preventive educational information. A questionnaire investigating interest and knowledge levels of vocal function and dysfunction was distributed to 543 subjects from the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. A total of 345 questionnaires, including those completed by 79 professional actors, 73 amateur actors, 124 acting students, and 69 controls, were analyzed. Professional actors and amateur actors indicated the highest levels of interest in gaining further knowledge regarding the role of the speech-language pathologist (SLP) and the voice and vocal hygiene. Professional actors and amateur actors also reported higher perceived knowledge levels than the other groups in these areas, although very few claimed to have a thorough knowledge in the areas under investigation. Professional actors answered more knowledge-based questions correctly than amateur actors, acting students, and controls in the areas regarding the role of the SLP and voice and vocal hygiene. However, the professional actors' scores were not significantly higher than amateur actors in either area and were only significantly higher than acting students on the vocal hygiene items. Implications for a preventive approach to vocal health are discussed.     

A ‘well‐balanced’ finite volume scheme for blood flow simulation

We are interested in simulating blood flow in arteries with a one‐dimensional model. Thanks to recent developments in the analysis of hyperbolic system of conservation laws (in the Saint‐Venant shallow water equations context) we will perform a simple finite volume scheme. We focus on conservation properties of this scheme, which were not previously considered. To emphasize the necessity of this scheme, we present how a too simple numerical scheme may induce spurious flows when the basic static shape of the radius changes. On the contrary, the proposed scheme is ‘well‐balanced’: it preserves equilibria of Q = 0. Then examples of analytical or linearized solutions with and without viscous damping are presented to validate the calculations. The influence of abrupt change of basic radius is emphasized in the case of an aneurism. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

G. Paul Moore lecture: Rational thought: The impact of voice science upon voice care

Recent evolution in scientific knowledge and technology has led to monumental improvement in the standard of care for patients with voice disorders. New concepts in anatomy, physiology, measurement, and analysis have provided voice care professionals with not merely better understanding, but moreover an extensive vocabulary with which to think about voice function and dysfunction. Previously, we had to depend too much upon anecdote and “the art of medicine.” Thanks to scientific advances, we now have the tools we need for rational thought about the human voice. This is the fundamental change responsible for recent great advances in voice care.     

A comparison of type I thyroplasty and arytenoid adduction

Glottal incompetence is a common laryngeal disorder causing impaired swallowing and phonation. The resultant voice has been characterized as weak and breathy with a restricted pitch range. Currently, medialization thyroplasty and arytenoid adduction are two of the surgical treatments for patients with glottal incompetence. However, few studies have evaluated the changes in objective measures of speech with type I thyroplasty and arytenoid adduction. In this study, 59 patients with glottal incompetence underwent either type I thyroplasty or arytenoid adduction. Acoustic (jitter, shimmer, and harmonics-to-noise ratio) and aerodynamic (airflow, subglottic pressure, and glottal resistance) measures were obtained both pre- and postoperatively. No significant differences were found among acoustic or aerodynamic measures for operation type. However, a significant pre/postsurgery effect was observed for translaryngeal airflow. In addition, no significant differences were found among the measures for patients with traditional compared with nontraditional operative indications. Patients who developed glottal insufficiency due to previous laryngeal surgery (e.g., vocal fold stripping) demonstrated no statistically significant improvement in acoustic or aerodynamic measures following thyroplasty or arytenoid adduction.