Dosimetry Measurement of Vocal Demands in Contemporary Musical Theatre

Singers are highly skilled vocal athletes who master specialized vocal requirements when cast to perform in a musical theatre production. Their participation is physically, vocally, and emotionally challenging. Each musical role requires specific sonorities or styles of vocalism that involve a high level of vocal coordination while performing the physical, emotional, and cognitive demands of singing and speaking while acting and dancing.

Due to the vocal demands of a particular musical score, specific aspects of a singer's vocal dose increase during rehearsals and performances. The singer’s focus on required types of production and desired vocal timbre, especially when the musical tessitura focuses on a belting range with repetition of a small frequency range, can tax the vocal mechanism of soloists and ensemble cast members and lead to vocal trauma, especially when performing the productions eight times per week on Broadway. Over time, this vocal dose can contribute to changes in the consistency of voice production and the health of the vocal fold tissue.

One way to identify and monitor the impact of speaking or singing dose is through vocal dosimetry. It uses an accelerometer embedded in the throat sensor to record the speed, amplitude, and duration of vibrations to measure the mechanical stress on the vocal folds. The dosimeter records neck vibrations at a sample rate of 20 samples per second and records three types of vocal doses:

• Time dose
• Total cycles of vibration dose
• Total distance dose and sound pressure level

The time dose includes only those instances when the vocal folds are vibrating, and the cycle dose counts the number of glottal pulses the dosimeter detected. The sound pressure level (SPL) describes the amplitude of vibration of the vocal folds in decibels (dB). The dosimeter calculates the distance dose in meters based on the total cycle of vibration dose and SPL. It is the most complete measure of vocal dose as it accounts for the duration of phonation on the same fundamental frequency at various intensity levels.

This presentation will describe research conducted in collaboration with Drs. Ana Flavia Zuim and Ingo Titzi focused on identifying vocal dose and singers. Increasing student and professional singer’s awareness of vocal dose may lead to a better understanding of vocal differences between performers and recognition of ways to reduce vocal load and preserve the consistency of performance and longevity of voice careers.

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