Article Review: Regulating Voice Load in High Impact Production

I have a new favorite article about power voice singing in contemporary music. In the May/June 2022 issue of the Journal of Singing, Justin John Moniz published Regulating Voice Load in High Impact Production. This article illuminated how far singing pedagogues and NATS have come in both the acceptance of contemporary styles as legitimate and in a willingness to help people maintain their artistic authenticity and their vocal longevity simultaneously.

It wasn’t long ago that those of us who taught and sing rock, pop, and other contemporary styles were excoriated for “ruining voices” and told that singing these styles is inherently damaging to the voice.?

Moniz produced a wonderful, well thought out piece that can serve as a primer to students of voice pedagogy and teachers who are approaching contemporary music for the first time. He is firmly rooted in a deep understanding of exercise physiology and acoustics, which he is able to apply to voice training.

He lays out the fundamental challenge to teachers: The lack of a historically robust contemporary music pedagogy makes it difficult for some teachers to discern vocal “fault” from a desired voice quality. If we can look at the voice more functionally, rather than imposing an aesthetic on top of it, we can correct course to instead ask ourselves if the voice quality is appropriate and sustainable.

Moniz proposes a superset of exercises, which implies working all parts of the system: high, low, various registers, in consideration of agonist antagonist relationships in the musculature. He calls this “counterbalance”. Adherence to the principles of exercise has been an important element of my training since studying clinical exercise physiology in graduate school. In voice therapy, I see many people who have worked one function of the mechanism to the detriment of training the other elements. They end up out of balance and their voice function suffers.

That said, some of the desired sounds in pop/rock are intended to sound unbalanced in order to support emotional intent and authenticity to the style of music being performed. Working all parts of the system and allowing that even “unbalanced” sounds can be produced in a non-ruinous manner is at the heart of helping contemporary singers express themselves with full intent and creative control.

I highly recommend this thought-provoking and well-executed article.

#singing #voice #teaching #rockmusic #journalofsinging