Resonant Voice Therapy (RVT) is a technique for improving vocal production through oral vibratory sensations felt on the alveolar ridge, lips or higher in the face. RVT promotes forward resonance and effortless phonation.
RVT is often employed by speech-language pathologists to treat individuals suffering from chronic hoarseness or vocal strain. RVT may result in improved vocal quality, increased projection and decreased throat clearing symptoms and swallowing difficulties.
Breathing
Resonant voice therapy starts by teaching individuals how to breathe efficiently through deep diaphragmatic breathing, and this form of breathing effectively will reduce strain on vocal folds and cavities and minimize any possible hoarseness as a result of excessive strain.
Resonant voice therapy encompasses more than breathing exercises; in addition to vocalizations that promote healthy and natural sound production, exercises like humming can encourage individuals to explore “mask resonance”, the vibrations in facial bones and sinuses caused by facial muscles vibrating together with facial bones and sinuses. SLPs use resonance shaping and gentle onset techniques in voice therapy sessions in order to maximize resonant voice production, helping reduce strain on vocal folds while increasing clarity and volume of voice production.
Resonant voice therapy entails various voicing and articulation practices at the word, phrase and sentence level that enable patients to familiarize themselves with healthy resonant voices through experiential sensory processing and repeated training stimuli at various levels of complexity.
A clinician will first ask their patient to identify sensations associated with producing resonant voice production. For instance, they might pose questions such as, “where are you feeling the vibration?” The clinician will then guide their patient in producing resonant voices, starting from simple sounds such as /m/ and /n/, before gradually progressing to more complex sounds such as y-buzz and straw phonation. Finally, they’ll ensure their patient can feel vibrations at the front of their mouth including in areas such as an alveolar ridge, nose, teeth and lips – to make sure their patient can experience vibrations at every part of their mouth – before beginning work together on producing their resonant voices.
The clinician will then encourage their patient to adopt this resonant voice during everyday conversations, by modeling it, encouraging inflection use, negative practice (dropping the voice back into throat), or teaching them how to hum on command! In this way, their voice becomes easily practiced throughout daily life while the clinician works to reinforce and expand it until it becomes habitual for the individual patient.
Relaxation
Resonant voice therapy techniques aim to teach patients to produce strong, clear sounds without straining the vocal cords. Their goal is to maximize vibrations of vocal cords while minimizing impacts against one another in order to relieve tension and lower risk of voice disorders such as laryngitis, neoplasms or nodules (pneumonia).
Speech-language pathologists utilize resonant voice therapy to teach patients how to produce resonant voices with minimal effort, which may help improve stamina, projection and clarity in daily communication. Resonant voice therapy steps include identifying sensations, teaching basic productions and increasing difficulty exercises in order to increase patient awareness of and volitional control over their own vocal production patterns.
Katherine Verdolini developed Lessac-Madsen Resonant Vocal Therapy (LMRVT) as one such resonant voice therapy technique in the early 2000’s. LMRVT incorporates elements from perceptual resonant voice therapy and motor learning into its approach to training for resonance (Verdolini, 2002).
Perceptual Resonant Voice Therapy employs various voicing stimuli to enable patients to perceive forward vibrations along the anterior alveolar ridge during phonation, which correspond to barely adducted vocal fold posturing – an indicator of quality resonant voice (Titze & Verdolini, in preparation). The program begins with simple humming followed by voiced and voiceless productions at word level and conversational production levels to raise awareness of quality resonant voice quality and generalize skill usage within everyday speech demands.
LMRVT not only produces resonant voices, but it can also maintain voice health by including vocal hygiene and Vocal Function Exercises (VFE), which are non-speech activities designed to coordinate breathing and phonation during easy voicing, and promote balanced oral-nasal resonance.
Resonant voice therapy also trains vocal folds to close efficiently during phonation, which is essential in avoiding laryngeal tension and strain on delicate vocal cords, helping prevent laryngeal tension as well as any potential for granulomas forming as a response to irritation or injury of vocal cords.
Posture
Resonant voice therapy (RVT) uses specialized techniques to optimize natural resonance patterns within the vocal tract in order to produce richer, more powerful tones that engage listeners and heighten your presence. RVT is particularly helpful for singers who wish to increase vocal performance by optimizing vibration of sound waves and projecting (amplifying voice without strain) their sound waves to their audience.
The anatomy and physiology of voice production is complex. Multiple structures work together to generate and modulate sound waves, including vocal folds that open and close in order to vibrate to form harmonics and formants that modulate by voice to produce speech or singing. Damage to these tissues may result in hoarseness and decreased vocal quality; luckily speech language pathologists possess various tools at their disposal that can maximize vocal outcomes, such as resonant voice training.
RVT can assist in alleviating tension in the vocal folds, increase laryngeal muscle adduction to allow healthy opening and closing of vocal folds, promote proper breathing-phonation coordination and treat various voice disorders including vocal nodules/polyps/muscle tension dysphonia/phonotraumas.
Humming exercises are one of the most effective resonant voice therapy steps to relieve stress, support vocal folds, and enhance voice clarity. To conduct one, start by standing or sitting comfortably with head tilted forward and neck relaxed; produce gentle hums while feeling the vibrations around lips and nose area, eventually gradually shifting pitch up/down for optimal health posture for voice support.
Other steps taken towards resonant voice therapy include Y-buzz, which encourages individuals to explore their “mask resonance.” This technique involves vibrations in facial bones and sinuses as well as soft onset sounds for vocal folds without tension and force. Other resonant voice training strategies could involve changing tongue position, lip posture or oral cavity configuration in order to alter resonance of vocal tract.
Exercises
Resonant Voice Therapy (RVT) provides adaptive strategies designed to improve vocal quality, optimize resonance, and reduce strain on the voice. SLPs teach patients these techniques as part of everyday speech; singing achieves increased range, power and endurance with enhanced vocal clarity and projection that reduce strain on their voices; speakers overcome hoarseness and pitch fluctuations to deliver captivating presentations that capture audience attention; everyday individuals overcome symptoms like fatigue, breathiness or voice loss in order to confidently communicate in all circumstances.
RVT employs several exercises to develop and train healthy voicing patterns. Clinicians will typically begin the first stage with basic training gestures (BTGs), such as resonant sighing or repeating vowels /m/ and /n/. These simple exercises train patients how to identify oral-vibratory sensations in front of their face while simultaneously balancing airflow between vocal folds for easy phonation. Once this step has been accomplished, further transitional steps such as bridging exercises may gradually transition them towards conversational tones over time.
Exercises, the clinician assists their patient in changing tongue posture, lip tension and oral cavity configuration to optimize resonance. Gentle onset techniques that emphasize beginning phonation smoothly without force reduce stress placed on vocal cords while simultaneously creating self-awareness of their voice allowing individuals to make ongoing adjustments as necessary.
SLPs can utilize various techniques to enhance resonance and ease of phonation for non-singers. Humming exercises allow people to discover their “mask resonance”, by producing vibrations within facial bones and sinuses that vibrate to produce sound vibrations that produce resonance within their “mask resonance.” This approach helps develop awareness of both acoustic and tactile characteristics of voice production as well as reduce anxiety about speaking publicly.
SLPs may also introduce resonant voice exercises designed to facilitate coordination between breathing and phonation during easy phonation, such as lip trills, tongue trills, humming exercises, or vocal function exercises with easy onsets and forward focus. This approach promotes natural, healthy voice usage for daily communication while decreasing injury risks due to misuse or improper management.
