LMRVT trains clients to sense vibration on the hard palate and alveolar ridge during easy phonation of voiced and voiceless sounds, creating both functional and medical goals such as increased vocal intensity or decreased nodules/polyps. A program centered on this biomechanical target often results in functional goals like increased vocal intensity as well as decreased nodules or polyps.
Therapists use sensory methods of instruction to teach resonant voice behavior and offer personalized hygiene programs for their clients, with emphasis placed on hydration to minimize risks of phonotrauma.
Vocal Straw Exercises
Straw exercises (also known as SOVT exercises, or semi-occluded vocal tract exercises) are an efficient and gentle way to develop both singing and speaking voices. By helping your vocal folds elongate and move into their optimal positions, these exercises also release tension in muscles of the throat and neck as well as creating back pressure that equalizes airflow below and above vocal folds; decreasing risk and fatigue associated with strain and vocal fatigue.
Popular methods of straw exercise include straw humming and singing with lips closed, tongue trills, and aloud reading of Goldilocks and the Three Bears through a straw.
These exercises help to develop breath control, resonance and articulation while giving you an opportunity to widen your pitch range.
When performing these exercises, be sure to select a straw with appropriate resistance levels. Selecting a lower resistance option will enable easier singing while higher resistance requires greater vocal effort. It is also essential that when engaging in these exercises you listen to your body and stop immediately if any discomfort or strain arises; pushing through pain could result in lasting damage to your voice if done too vigorously.
Studies have demonstrated that singing through a straw leads to improved articulation and resonant quality. One such study showed that singers using narrower straws were better at creating formant clusters due to reduced vocal loading from lower portions of their pharynx; possibly leading to increased voice efficiency.
Another study reported that straw phonation improved vocal articulation and tone in healthy voices. Furthermore, according to their authors’ theories of this research project, these improvements were linked to changes in interaction between Thyroarytenoid muscle activity and Cricothyroid muscle interactions; specifically that narrower straws caused more active Thyroarytenoid activity, leading to greater vocal fold overlap with decreased tissue collision during phonation.
Voice Function Exercises
Your SLP will use the information from your evaluation to craft a therapy plan designed to optimize vocal function and voice. They may use various techniques, some more complex than others, to help overcome obstacles preventing you from having strong and healthy vocal tone. They will provide detailed instructions and demonstrations of exercises along with regular monitoring sessions in order to track progress.
Lessac Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy‘s approach to treating muscle tension dysphonia involves teaching patients to make use of their full range of vocal folds while relaxing their throat muscles when speaking and singing, helping alleviate hoarseness, difficulty breathing, altered vocal pitch/tone/clarity of voice as well as hoarseness in general.
Treatment has proven highly successful for improving overall voice quality and is recommended as an option for patients suffering from vocal nodules or polyps. However, it should be noted that it does not address their root causes.
If your voice has been affected by thyroid conditions, medical attention must first be sought to treat those issues before proceeding with this type of therapy. Furthermore, reflux and other health conditions that might contribute to voice issues must also be treated prior to commencing voice treatment.
On a more general level, this approach may also benefit those living with other voice conditions that negatively affect speech production or overall quality of life, such as vocal cord nodules or laryngeal cancer. While treatment cannot cure these disorders entirely, this therapy may significantly decrease symptom severity while improving speech production and quality of life.
Many of the same concepts and exercises utilized in voice therapy are also utilized by other approaches like Flow Phonation and Vocal Function Exercises (VFEs). VFEs use techniques more similar to actual speech than others; for instance, in one such exercise VFEs require performing a glottal adduction exercise where patients protrude their tongue out while holding an “i” vowel sound for several seconds – after which their clinician will guide them through several scan-gel-show-tell processes to help find their ideal representation of resonant voice quality.
Y-Buzz
The Y-Buzz is an exercise used in voice therapy that promotes resonance. Part of Arthur Lessac’s Tonal NRG approach, it aims to develop a kinesthetic awareness of vocal fold vibration. By becoming aware of how they use their voices, patients gain control of how their articulation occurs as well as being able to control how often they produce vocal sounds that could potentially lead to laryngeal granulomas forming in their larynxes.
Y-buzz involves creating sounds by vibrating vocal folds and other parts of the voice box, such as humming, lip trills, tongue out trills, buzzy /u/ phonations and straw phonation. Its purpose is to produce more natural-sounding voices than traditional voicing and be easy on vocal cords.
Recent research indicates that Y-buzz training can be highly beneficial to those susceptible to laryngeal granulomas and other voice disorders, and is an effective method of teaching vocalization and prosody. According to researchers, this form of voice training was more successful in decreasing laryngeal granulomas while simultaneously improving phonation than other forms of training methods.
Y-buzz training also reduces the amount of energy necessary to produce voice, which in turn reduces throatiness. This is especially useful for people unable to use their full voice due to illness or surgery; alternatively, actors can utilize Y-buzz before scenes or auditions as it can prevent excitement or nerves from turning into unfavorable tones in their voice.
Although this study provided a promising start, further investigation is still required to ensure its success. For example, studying tube diameter can provide insights into whether certain sizes work better for specific individuals than others; and establishing optimal treatment dosage and length will guarantee its success as voice therapy techniques.
Humming
Humming has therapeutic effects on the vocal folds by optimizing vocal fold vibration and relieving overcompensatory hyperfunction (muscle tension). Humming can help strengthen and provide vocal flexibility; it is an effective tool for dysphonic patients as well. Humming can be practiced multiple times daily as part of Lessac Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy Program for speech or singing purposes.
Humming requires starting off by encouraging patients to produce comfortable nasal sounds with their lips closed while sensing how sound waves interact with facial tissues. They should then transition these sounds into a gentle hum. Patients can progress onto more complex sounds such as bilabial raspberries and the beginnings of /m/ or /n/; again monitoring physical vibration. A clinician must ensure that each syllable forms into a pleasing sound quality hum; this will strengthen its resonance quality.
Once a patient has achieved mastery for each syllable, they can expand gentle humming into a hum + vowel combination. A clinician should employ various facilitative gestures in order to facilitate this development – for instance tucking the chin towards the chest, leaning forward with one elbow resting against knees, rounding lips etc – in order to elicit this development and prompt their patient with efficient inhalations to support it; then transition this into the target vowel; additionally it is important to provide enough word stimuli so as to ensure quality practice is developed over time.
Humming is the final stage in its progression, involving production of voiced and unvoiced sounds at word, phrase and sentence levels. Resonant voices should be highlighted; these have an easily produced vibration which feels buzzy near the face without becoming effortful or tense sound production. Negative training with these vibrations may also prove effective; for instance when they accidentally drop back into throatiness.
