In 2008, the American Academy of Teachers of Singing released a paper in support of further research and training in the teaching of non-classical music or Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM). CCM can be defined as encompassing (but not limited to) the following genres: musical theatre, pop, rock, gospel, R&B, soul, hip-hop, rap, country, folk, and experimental music. Despite the increase in number of musical theatre and CCM degree programs at American universities, and the that national voice pedagogy organizations have begun to include musical theatre competitions and masterclasses, such academic training for future voice teachers has not met the demand. A 2003 survey by LoVetri and Weekly to evaluate the levels of training and experience of voice teachers in CCM styles of singing showed that while 71 schools offered Bachelor’s degrees in Musical Theatre, there were no schools offering CCM voice pedagogy training. In a 2009 follow-up, Weekly and LoVetri found that only 19% of those surveyed had any training to teach Musical Theatre. Additionally, many teachers indicated they were only classically trained and had no idea how to sing in any other style. For this study a three-part survey containing 27 questions was used to survey voice teachers who had been enrolled in or completed graduate-level (MM or DMA) voice programs since the publication of Weekly and LoVetri’s most recent survey. The purpose of the survey was to discover the pedagogical training of recent graduate voice students in CCM. The data is collected from a population in which n=66. While this study did show an increase in pedagogical training in CCM at the graduate university level (26%) as well as an increase in the number of CCM teachers with both graduate-level training and performance experience, this increase was small, and the majority of those who reported having received training did so through private instruction or independent study. / Music Performance

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This master thesis describes early attempts at using electroglottography (EGG) to capture such changes in vocal fold vibration patterns that could be of interest to teachers of contemporary commercial music. After initial explorations, focus is placed on detecting potentially detrimental phonation; more specifically on the pressed quality often associated with loud singing in high register (belting). FonaDyn, a program written in the SuperCollider language, is used to detect pressedness using an algorithm based on K-means clustering of Fourier components of EGG cycles. Results indicate that pressedness affects phonation in ways detectable using EGG. Changes caused by pressedness seem to vary between registers and this variation is similar between subjects. Detection of pressedness in a subject is quite successful when training the algorithm on the same subject, but not always across subjects. / Denna masteruppsats beskriver inledande försök att använda elektroglottografi (EGG) för att avläsa sådana förändringar i stämbandens vibrationsmönster som skulle kunna vara av intresse för sånglärare inom icke-klassisk stil. Tidiga undersökningar leder till att fortsatt fokus läggs på att detektera fonationstyper som kan orsaka röstskador; mer specifikt den typ av pressad röstkvalitet som ofta förknippas med stark sång i högt register (s.k. belting). FonaDyn, ett datorprogram skrivet i språket SuperCollider, används för att detektera pressad fonation med hjälp av K-means-klustring av EGG-cykler baserat på deras Fourierkomponenter. Resultaten indikerar att pressad fonation går att urskilja med hjälp av EGG. Kännetecknen för pressad fonation tycks skilja sig mellan röstregister och denna skillnad är snarlik hos olika försökspersoner. Programmet klarar av att känna igen pressad fonation hos samma person som algoritmen tränats på men inte alltid om algoritmen tränats på en annan sångare.

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