RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of vocal loading and the immediate effects of straw phonation in water exercises on parameters of vocal loading in Carnatic classical singers. STUDY DESIGN: A within-subject pretest-posttest design. METHODS: Twelve healthy Carnatic classical singers participated in the vocal loading experiment for 2 days, referred to as no-treatment and treatment conditions. The vocal loading task consisted of 1 hour of continuous singing in the presence of background noise. For the treatment condition, the participants followed a 10-minute straw phonation in water exercises before the vocal loading task. Acoustic, electroglottographic, and self-rated perceptual voice measures were recorded before and after the vocal loading task on both days. RESULTS: Pretest and posttest comparison of various outcome measures during no-treatment day suggested a significant increase in shimmer percent, decrease in maximum phonation duration of vowel /a/, and increase in perceived phonatory effort, perceived vocal effort, and Evaluation of Ability to Sing Easily scores. Pretest and posttest comparisons during treatment day showed a significant increase in Mean F0, Highest F0, and Lowest F0, perceived phonatory effort, and perceived vocal effort scores. However, changes in Mean F0, Highest F0, and Lowest F0 measures were small in the posttest condition compared to pretest. CONCLUSION: The present results suggest that vocal loading did induce changes in Carnatic classical singers' voices. However, there is no substantial evidence that straw phonation is effective in reducing the vocal loading in Carnatic classical singers. Further studies are required to corroborate the current findings.
Asunto(s)
Canto , Voz , Humanos , Agua , Calidad de la Voz , Fonación , Entrenamiento de la VozRESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to cross-culturally adapt and validate the Evaluation of the Ability to Sing Easily (EASE) into Kannada for the benefit of Carnatic classical singers. METHODS: Following a standard translation procedure, the original English version was translated to develop a prefinal EASE-K version. This was further field-tested on 12 Carnatic singers to obtain the final EASE-K version. Upon validating the same on 104 Carnatic singers, intercorrelation between EASE-K subscales- Vocal Fatigue (VF) and Pathologic Risk Indicators (PRI) were assessed using the Spearman correlation coefficient. The internal consistency of the subscales was obtained based on the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Nonparametric tests were carried out to study the effect of age and gender on EASE-K subscales. Further, the raw scores of the English version were compared to the EASE-K. RESULTS: Spearman correlation coefficient indicated a statistically significant positive correlation (P < .01) between the two subscales (r = .745). Each scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha was .84). Test-retest reliability carried on 12 singers indicated an excellent reliability for the subscales. Nonparametric tests indicated no significant effect of age and gender on the subscales of EASE-K (P > .05). Comparison across the original and EASE-K revealed significant differences for both VF (P = .02) and PRI (P = .00) subscales. CONCLUSIONS: Current findings indicate that EASE-K is a reliable and valid tool that can be used to document the subtle changes in voice in healthy Carnatic classical singers. Further, the current tool can be used to study the effect of vocal loading across different singing styles.