Resonant voice therapy aims to build self-awareness of vocal production while optimizing use of hard palate and alveolar ridge for quality and power in vocal production. You will start out working on easy onset sounds before progressing to phrases and conversations.
Resonance disorders may arise from both structural and functional causes. Speech-language pathologists use differential diagnosis to establish whether articulation errors result from mislearning or functional causes (e.g. velopharyngeal dysfunction).
Voice Fatigue
Like any muscle, your voice has its limits before it becomes worn out from excessive use. If you use your voice inappropriately by talking or singing too frequently or using it too often, too much strain could put on the vocal cords and result in hoarseness or other signs of vocal fatigue.
Resonant Voice Therapy will teach you to support and preserve your voice to prevent strain or fatigue quickly. This involves learning proper breath techniques and relieving unnecessary tension for effortless, relaxed phonation. Furthermore, Resonant Voice Therapy teaches how to adapt your voice according to each situation for more stamina and flexibility for longer.
Sleep is also vitally important to maintaining good vocal health; sleeping allows your body to heal and rejuvenate itself during restorative cycles. Also, drinking plenty of water is vitally essential for the wellbeing of your voice.
People who have suffered a voice injury will typically experience some degree of voice fatigue as a result of larynx disorder or overuse of the voice. Duke Voice Care team of laryngologists (ear, nose and throat specialists with advanced voice training) and speech pathologists can provide assistance in developing strategies to avoid voice fatigue as well as ways to cope with it when it occurs.
Some individuals are highly attuned to their voices and know when they’re overusing them, while others may only become aware of its consequences when feeling fatigued or experiencing other symptoms such as hoarseness.
Voice fatigue often results from inefficient breathing, excessive yelling or loud speaking, slurred words repeated erratically and throat clearing. Other possible sources include poor nutrition, smoking and allergies.
Vocal fatigue can also be brought about by illness or conditions like thyroid disease, laryngeal cancer or nerve injury that affects voice muscles. Another condition which may contribute to vocal fatigue is vocal nodule or polyp formation – these granulomas form when there is irritation on vocal folds and must be treated quickly otherwise they will lead to vocal fatigue.
Pitch Problems
Incorrect pitch is one of the most frequently encountered challenges faced by singers. It affects everyone regardless of age or experience level and often leads people suffering to believe they are tone deaf despite receiving vocal training; it is essential to remember this problem can usually be easily fixed; most likely caused not by any sort of hearing disorder but instead by poor vocal technique or other vocal issues.
Most individuals who suffer from pitch issues are simply unfamiliar with the interval distances between notes they are singing in a song or scale, making their singing inaccurate and pitchy. To fix this easily, divide up each scale or chord into different intervals and practice each interval separately – this allows someone to get used to singing each interval correctly and improve their accuracy while practicing them separately.
Trouble with pitch can also come from difficulty maintaining proper vocal fold pressure to produce notes at just the right moment, which can be addressed through appoggio breathing training – which allows singers to release their voice at precisely the right moment and improves coordination between voice and ears, ultimately leading to both better initial pitch as well as overall quality of sound production.
Psychological resistance can often prevent singers from hitting higher pitches. This may stem from fear, self-consciousness, or simply lacking confidence in hitting these notes. To combat this obstacle, singing exercises that focus on hitting higher pitches directly and tuning into their vibration as you sing them can help the ear recognize them more readily.
Voice Changes
Resonant voice therapy (RVT) is a set of exercises that can help alter the way your voice sounds. While RVT is most frequently utilized by transgender individuals looking to masculinize their vocal quality, it can also be used by natural speakers who wish to alter it for easier speaking. RVT involves using air-filled cavities in your throat, mouth, and nose to modify how you speak; additionally it teaches how to place more emphasis on specific sounds and words for creating rhythmic quality that alters tone of your voice.
Voice production begins in the larynx, located at the base of your tongue atop of your windpipe. Vocal cords vibrate to produce sound; their vibration affects other aspects such as pitch and volume of your voice. Misusing or overusing vocal cords may damage them; other times nerves controlling them may become damaged or there may be an obstruction to their function in throat or larynx passageways causing issues to develop.
As an example, you could develop hypernasality or hyponasality, which prevents your vocal cords from vibrating normally. Furthermore, tissue can form between them causing them to vibrate separately which could result in hoarseness as well as other changes such as decreased tone and resonance of your voice.
As we age, our voices may begin to change. Aging can cause vocal cord thickness to decrease over time, making them less flexible. This may also result in nodules and polyps forming on vocal cords causing further changes to voice quality. You could experience changes due to illness or medications.
Changes to your voice can be difficult and upsetting, which is why it is crucial that you consult a speech pathologist. They will teach you resonance voice therapy techniques that will help adjust to the new sound of your voice while improving overall quality of life. A good speech pathologist can also identify which type of change has occurred as well as whether or not it is temporary.
Voice Loss
Voice therapy can assist in treating all forms of voice loss. For instance, laryngitis causes your vocal cords to become inflamed and prevent proper vibration of vibrational waveforms; as such, laryngitis patients often experience temporary voice loss. Speech-language pathologists can teach you techniques to use your voice more efficiently and relieve the strain on vocal folds, helping you regain your natural tone. If you have experienced permanent loss of voice, a speech-language pathologist can assist in adapting to life with a prosthesis such as tracheotomy. A tracheotomy involves creating a hole in front of the throat called a stoma to connect directly to lungs via tube which not only facilitates breathing but also alters quality of voice production.
Resonant voice therapy provides an effective solution to help people regain their voices and build confidence.
Resonant voice therapy targets the resonators in the vocal tract – chambers like mouth and throat which form sound waves – through exercises like breathing, humming and easy-onset phonation exercises to train patients to identify these resonators for maximum effect. Therapists teach this self-awareness so patients can more efficiently use their voices while developing strategies against fatigue, pitch issues or any other potential concerns with voice use.
Studies on resonance voice therapy have demonstrated its efficacy at improving voice functionality. Though these experiments were conducted with small groups and included various methodologies, making results difficult to compare across studies. Still, research indicates this technique’s benefits among professional as well as recreational voice users who use their voices frequently.
People who have undergone tracheotomies often struggle with transitioning to using voice prostheses because they are used to speaking through their nose and mouth. To manage underlying causative factors such as glottal retraction, mucosal wave distortion, air resistance resistance and articulation error efficiently they must learn how to speak using a tube inserted in their trachea while controlling factors such as glottal retraction, mucosal wave distortion air resistance resistance as well as articulation error using voice therapy as this provides solutions that will assist greatly with adapting.
