Describing your Voice: Viewpoints from Pre-Professional Singing Voice Users
Open Access
- Author:
- Peagler, Michael
- Area of Honors:
- Communication Sciences and Disorders
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Nicole Michele Etter, Thesis Supervisor
Carol Anne Miller, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- voice
preprofessional voice
professional voice
voice care
college voice training
singing
singing voice - Abstract:
- The purpose of this qualitative study was to begin to better understand the collegiate-vocal student’s lived experience with their voices and voice care knowledge. This study aims to what participants did to take care of their voices and to identify where gaps in their knowledge may exist. A total of 10 pre-professional voice users answered demographic questions and completed a semi-structured interview lasting approximately 45-60 minutes. Data were analyzed in two steps: free coding of nodes of meaning and horizontalization of data/categorization. Data were then reviewed in relation to three primary categories for this study: personal preventative voice care, personal rehabilitative voice care, and personal definitions of the term “voice problem.” The researcher translated these topics into the following questions: 1) What do people do to take care of their healthy voice?, 2) How do people classify ‘voice problem’?, and 3) What do people do to treat their ‘voice problems’?. Examining participants’ comments around these topics revealed that their voice and voice care knowledge were limited. Recommendations are made where unhealthy assumptions or practices are identified. Future work with these data will utilize a third level of analysis in which all categories are further analyzed and placed together under common themes, incorporating novel data and formerly-gathered data not discussed in this thesis. This work begins to highlight the need for more collaboration between speech-language pathologists and pre-professional voice users.