This week we continue our series discussing the importance of having a vocal health team for yourself or any other vocal athletes in your life.
In the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring what happens in a voice evaluation with a medical voice care team. Last VFF, we covered stroboscopy, which allows the clinicians to see your vocal folds and analyze how well they vibrate. Stroboscopy is the most important and indispensable component of the voice evaluation.
There are other (less invasive) components of the comprehensive voice evaluation that may be part of your visit, such as acoustic and aerodynamic testing. These tests are done by the speech-language pathologist (SLP). Not every clinic completes these measures, and some clinics complete them at a separate appointment after the stroboscopy.
Acoustic testing provides objective measurements of your voice. In this non-invasive procedure the SLP will position a microphone in front of you at an exact distance from your mouth. They will ask you to make vowel sounds, glide your voice up and down, make loud and soft sounds, say short sentences, and read a paragraph or so. The sounds you make are recorded and analyzed by a computer program to obtain various acoustic measurements such as pitch and loudness range and voice quality. The voice quality assessments are called “cepstral measures” and they show whether your voice sounds clear, or whether it sounds rough, gravelly, breathy, etc. This provides the clinician with objective information to back up what their ears hear.
Aerodynamic testing measures the amount of airflow and air pressure you use when making sounds with your voice. The SLP will have you hold a mask over your mouth and nose that has a little tube in it. You will hold the tube between your lips and the SLP will have you make sounds at different loudness levels. The machine analyzes the results to provide information about airflow and air pressure, which are important components of how efficiently the voice works.
Acoustic and aerodynamic testing provide a base-line for how your voice is doing at the time of your evaluation. The testing can be repeated over time for comparison to see if your voice gets better or worse.
Part of the reason not all clinics complete acoustic and aerodynamic testing is because the equipment is expensive and cumbersome, and the results are not always detailed enough to be useful for assessing the type of subtle voice changes many singers experience. SonoVoice, Inc. is working on developing better non-invasive voice assessment tools.
Next week, we’ll wrap up this series with an exploration of what happens after you’ve had your evaluation.
Until next Friday,
Your SonoVoice Team
Next Week: A Vocal Athlete Needs a Vocal Health Team Finale
Athletes put superhuman demands on the human body. They practice to stay in shape, get better and prepare for the event. No athlete expects to perform at their best without working on their technique, practicing skills, and preparing for the game.
The same goes for you as a vocal athlete. Practice will help you be prepared for your event: performance. Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut! If you want to be at your best as a singer, you’ll need to establish a regular vocal exercise and practice regimen.
In our weekly Vocal Fitness Friday email, SonoVoice's team of experts in science-based voice training will be sharing information about how the voice works, tips on keeping your voice healthy, and ideas for vocal exercises for peak vocal fitness.