John wrote:
>There's no question that so > called classically trained and pop styles are radically different both from > a sound and technique perspective. The strange sounds that pop singers use > put them at extreme risk for vocal problems including mucosal lesions, > strain, hemorrhage, etc.
But what proves that belting, for instance, is necessarily harmful? Who can guarantee there's no such thing as safe belting, as Estill advocates? Maybe those who can belt without Estill's help are doing what Estill might recommend, so what determines vocal damage may not be what ( belting ), but how. Saying those who do it and have not had any vocal problems have a more resistant larynx, not a better way of doing it, seems to be only a supposition based upon those who had vocal problems, not on those who haven't had any.
Also, as there is a quality control over classical singers that does not apply to pop singers, how can you say opera singers necessarily have healthy habits? Those who damaged their voices by using classical technique may have stopped singing before any public performance ( something that does not happen in the pop area ). I have many friends who started taking opera singing classes and their teachers said they should stop because "they didn't have a voice'. And Kiri Te Kanawa's interview saying most of her classmates at the conservatory she went to when she started ended up quitting due to serious vocal damage caused by practicing OPERATIC TECHNIQUE seems to support my doubt.
I'm just applying Darwinian selection principles to classical singers in general and pop singers looking for medical help. The former would be the fittest ( to their technique ) and the latter the unfit ( to, maybe, lack of any technique ). In both cases you would be dealing with a more or less uniform population that does not represent the population as a whole ( and in the case of professional pop singers with vocal problems, not even the whole population of pop singers ).
In the introduction of that research comparing classical vs pop singers they say they consider muscular constriction in the larynx( I think they gave it another name, but I won't look it up now ) to be a problem BASED UPON PATIENTS IN THEIR CLINIC. All their subjects were supposed not to have had any vocal complications in the last 2 years, so as to be considered HEALTHY. Therefore, pop singing subjects had muscular constrictions that did not interfere in their vocal health, according to the researchers' own criterium. Anyone rational enough would conclude from that that there are two kinds of larynx constricting singers: healthy and unhealthy ones. That is the obvious consequence of what the researchers wrote, but if they didn't waste their time reading what they themselves wrote, why should we bother to do it :-)
Bye,
Caio Rossi
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