Semi-occluded vocal tract exercises (SOVTEs) have been a topic of research and interest among voice specialists for over three decades. An SOVTE is "any exercise in which the vocal tract is made partially closed at or near the lips." When this kind of occlusion occurs there are numerous consequences that follow, but of primary interest is a beneficial change of impedance. These beneficial changes are still being studied, but efficiency in phonation, as well as a shift in the configuration of the vocal folds during phonation are two significant findings thus far. Efficiency in vocal production is paramount to a performer's vocal health. Therefore, a dissipating impedance or a hindering reactance would be undesirable. Research over the last three decades has largely addressed the degree of reactive inertance possible through such impedance and its health benefits on the speaking and singing voice. The performing arts health aspects of these benefits are increasingly relevant to professional voice users. Although research on SOVTEs has become plentiful and widely available to voice teachers, it is unknown how or if this population is digesting the current performing arts health research and implementing it within their vocal instruction. Understanding the extent to which SOVTE science is known and implemented by the current voice-teaching population could inform the current and future voice-science community on how to best alter the dissemination of upcoming research.

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The purpose of this report is to present a plan of study for a course in vocal pedagogy.

No / This paper introduces a comparative multi-group study carried out to investigate the use of multimodal interaction metaphors (visual, oral, and aural) for improving learnability (or usability from first time use) of interface-design environments. An initial survey was used for taking views about the effectiveness and satisfaction of employing speech and speech-recognition for solving some of the common usability problems. Then, the investigation was done empirically by testing the usability parameters: efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction of three design-toolkits (TVOID, OFVOID, and MMID) built especially for the study. TVOID and OFVOID interacted with the user visually only using typical and time-saving interaction metaphors. The third environment MMID added another modality through vocal and aural interaction. The results showed that the use of vocal commands and the mouse concurrently for completing tasks from first time use was more efficient and more effective than the use of visual-only interaction metaphors.