Students on the Voice Study Centre MA Voice Pedagogy often ask if there's any research relating to Musical Theatre performers and breathing methodology.
The answer to this question is there isn't a great deal of research available.
Joan Melton looked at this closely and her books are certainly worth a look at.
A 2016 study by Sliiden et al. (2016), looked at the impact of breathing for Musical Theatre performers mid-performance.
What they found was that MT performers experienced a staggering 62.5% drop in their mpg then Maximum Phonation Time, and this really is probably what we would expect.
When we see that figure in black and white it really does bring home the extent to which these performers are compromised.
They also discovered that the performers themselves felt that they were inadequately trained, often receiving different instructions from perhaps their singing teacher and their dance teacher.
So, we really are crying out for more research.
If you're interested in voice research, why not take a look at the Vocal Pedagogy courses we offer?
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