Nearly every voice teacher is aware of problems encountered by students with tightness in the throat or jaw muscles. Classes in vocal pedagogy attempt to solve problems such as these through indirect inference and mental images using psychological and empirical (observation) teaching methods. In fact, many voice teachers will freely admit that singing is mostly a matter of imagination.Traditional teaching methods in voice (an area open to much charlatanism) generally deny the existence of a direct, explicit solution reached through creative problem solving. The purpose of this study was to supply a comparison (through means of accepted research techniques) between students who received traditional instruction in voice and those who received additional scientific information in the form of electromyographic biofeedback to assist them in overcoming the problems of tension or tightness in the muscles supporting the larynx.The population sample of this study consisted of two groups of college voice students suffering from tension problems in the neck and throat.The experimental group consisted of six males and four females, ranging in age from 19 to 43. The control group was made up of nine females and one male ranging in age from 19 to 32.Each subject in the experimental group participated in 10 biofeedback training sessions of approximately one half-hour in length receiving 15 minutes of actual biofeedback during each session. The control group did not receive biofeedback but did receive pre- post-test electromyograms.Data from the two groups was subjected to statistical analysis using the T-test and F-test and the following conclusions were made. In comparing the pre-test means with the post-test mean of the experimental group, a T-test indicated a significant difference at both the 5% and 1% levels of confidence. An F-test between the post-test means of both the experimental and control groups indicated that variations in data did not appear to be due to chance, but to a cause (biofeedback).The null hypothesis was rejected at the 1% level of confidence as a result of the T-test between the post-test means of both the experimental and control group (assuming that the control post-test mean is the population mean). This allows a restatement of the hypothesis in the positive form: There is a significant difference between singers with tension problems in the laryngeal musculature who receive electromyographic biofeedback training and those who do not.The control group clearly showed no significant difference in the pre-test, post-test means at the 1% level of confidence.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/176344 |
| Date | January 1978 |
| Creators | Garrison, Thomas Edwin, 1949- |
| Contributors | Hargreaves, Robert |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | vi, 70 leaves : ill., charts ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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