Happy World Voice Day 2024

Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,

Why do singers always struggle with breathing? Why do they want to balance breath and voice with different techniques? Is there an organic reason for the breathing techniques or is it all just artistic imagination? 

Low breath is the most accepted breathing approach in the pedagogical literature. This is possibly because the secondary breathing forces at the upper chest, neck and shoulders are directly related to the extrinsic laryngeal musculature. The sternothyroid muscle is an obvious example of this organic relationship. When the sternum is elevated during inhalation, the sternothyroid is loosened and if the subject lowers the sternum during exhalation (i.e. singing) then the sternothyroid pulls the thyroid by the chest movements. The voice box continuously pulled down and released in this scenario and it will be a challenge for the vocal folds to keep a certain balance for singing processes. 

Filling the chest with excessive air is also disadvantageous because the ‘wild’ breath tries to get out by the thoracal stretch reflexes. It would be ideal to keep the balance around resting expiratory level for the lung volumes.

Since the whole body is an instrument for the human voice, the singers must be aware of sportive dimension of vocal stage performance. It is like a marathon throughout professional life to be sustained.

We would like to invite you for our online scientific marathon for 2024 UEP celebrations for the World Voice Day. There will be distinguished authors from all over the World this time, for almost twelve hours speaking about human voice in different aspects. (Register: https://s.mirket.io/uep)

Happy World Voice Day!

Sincerely Yours,

İlter Denizoglu UEP WVD Coordinator