The Healthy Sounds of Music: Vocal Health in College Student Singers

The broad goal of this investigation was to examine vocal health among college student singers. The specific purpose of this study was two-fold. First, I investigated the level of knowledge of various vocal-health techniques among student singers. Second, I examined the students’ practice of vocal-health techniques. Students with varied vocal performance backgrounds participated in order to determine whether these aspects differ among students as a function of prior training and vocal experience.Surveys were distributed to students involved in various levels of vocal performance at the College. Participants were grouped into three levels of experience based on their vocal performance activities at Wooster. Topics of the survey questions included students’ current knowledge of vocal health techniques, practice habits, and expected occupation to infer the level daily vocal use.The findings revealed four conclusions: the existence of significant differences among levels regarding qualitative and quantitative measures of knowledge, identification of behaviors that negatively impact vocal health is easier than identification of behaviors that positive impact vocal health, the discrepancy between ability to define and identify vocally healthy behaviors across levels, and self-reported behaviors do not differ among groups indicating knowledge of vocal health techniques does not result in implementation of techniques.