Male or non-treble voices speak at around 90-120 vibrations per second. When we talk, treble voices or female voices speak at around 165-250 vibrations per second, depending on the speaker’s age. A Fitbit might tell you that you burned 400 calories at the gym, while the accelerometer machine I used for the study tells you how many vibrations your voice produces per day and at what intensity-volume-and which pitches-frequencies-were produced with greater frequency throughout the day. This study does for the voice what a Fitbit does for the body. Belters use a vocal technique that requires a lot of what is known as chest voice, rather than head voice. There's a lot of misunderstanding about belting and Broadway and the vocal impact of singing a demanding role for eight shows a week. Why is it important to measure what performing in musical theater shows does to singers’ voices? NYU News spoke with Ana Flavia Zuim about what she’s learned about performance demands young artists face today and the changes she hopes to see in the industry moving forward. While there are no hard-and-fast rules about how much singing is too much, this kind of data collection is paving the way for future research into the relationship between muscle fatigue and recovery time, and can empower performers to create healthy practices that minimize harm to the voice. Today’s shows are more vocally and stylistically demanding than ever before, which can have an impact on a singer’s vocal anatomy over time, even potentially changing the underlying tissues. Vocal health professionals typically rely on a singer’s self-assessment of vocal discomfort to assess the likelihood of injury, but more definitive measurements with this kind of “vocal Fitbit” can help establish a threshold of vocal use that is sustainable for singers, as well as illustrate the vocal range required for each specific role in a production.įor example, the study illustrated how the student-performers used more of their “chest voice,” -meaning the lower range that uses thicker vocal folds and produces belting-like tone qualities through the speak-singing approach typical of contemporary musical theater. The data helped researchers measure the baseline “vocal dose” required for lead and ensemble roles in the show and compare it with the actual vocal output from student performers. Students fastened the dosimeter device-equipped with an accelerometer sensor-to their necks to capture vocal fold vibration data while singing in rehearsals. The most recent of these studies, published in the Journal of Voice and led by Ana Flavia Zuim, associate d irector of vocal performance at NYU Steinhardt and rehearsal pianist for Hamilton on Broadway, drew data from six student performers rehearsing for a production of Frank Wildhorn’s Wonderland, a theatrical spin on Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, a new wave of research is offering insight into the vocal demands of contemporary musical theater by employing a dosimeter device that monitors vocal vibrations the way a Fitbit tracks steps. Singers there take on challenging roles, belting out show stopping numbers eight or more times a week, and the heavy workload can take a toll. But nowhere are vocal demands greater, perhaps, than on Broadway. Sam Smith, Lionel Richie, Bono, Cher, and Michael Bublé are among the many stars who have repaired their vocal cords with surgical intervention. Vocal burnout in the performing arts isn’t rare. Likening vocal injury to athletic injury, he says that singing is a “profoundly athletic endeavor.” Paul Kwak, a vocal expert and otolaryngologist at NYU Langone, published a defense of Adele to dispel the myth that a vocal cord injury must be the result of bad technique. The backlash was swift: Legions of online commenters blamed Adele’s problems on her powerful style of vocalizing, while some vocal coaches took the opportunity to suggest that demanding performance schedules create lifelong cycles of vocal pathology. The then-29-year-old megastar wrote an online letter to her fans explaining that she damaged her vocal folds-an unfortunate relapse from six years earlier when she suffered a vocal fold hemorrhage and underwent risky microsurgery to laser the damaged tissue. When Adele was forced to cancel her sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium in 2016, it sparked a fiery debate among vocal health professionals.
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