In a message dated 10/3/2000 8:08:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
thomas8@t... writes:
<< Perhaps someone can back me up here, but several years ago I read some
research in which vocal chords from various groups were looked at by
researchers and rated as to degree of healthiness by group. The top rated
group was professional choral singers, the second was opera singers. At
the bottom of the list were heavy metal performers in the penultimate
position, followed by black gospel singers. >>
Yep. That was done by the Center for Voice Disorders based at the Wake
Forest University School of Medicine here in Winston-Salem, NC. Here's a
link to their home page: http://www.bgsm.edu/voice/ I was one of the many
singers used in this study. They did laryngoscopic examinations of every
singer they could get their hands on, then correlated degree of vocal damage
to type of music sung. I saw the presentation of the results, which were
pretty much as outlined above. By the way, musical theatre singers were the
third healthiest group. Actually, I think gospel singers (and I don't
remember any correlation with race) were the least healthy, followed by rock
(no separation into categories of rock) and country singers. During the
presentation, they showed film of some of the more damaged larynxes, and they
were pretty ugly, which really inspired me to work on my technique! It was
an interesting experience all around.
Lee Morgan
Mezzo soprano
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