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Essay / What is vocal health and why is vocal health relevant...
The human voice is an expressive musical instrument because people use their own voice to perform pieces or songs with or without other instruments. If the voice is severely damaged, it may be lost forever. Therefore, vocal health is important for singers to take care of their voices. In the following discussion we will discuss what vocal health is, why it is relevant to contemporary singing from the perspective of vocal anatomy, physiology and vocal function. Vocal healthVocal health is the ideal functioning of the vocal mechanism (Hughes, 2002). The voice is created from the interaction between many parts of the body. (Benninger & Abitbal, 2006) The vocal mechanism has five components: respiratory energy, larynx, resonant tract, articulators, and mind (Hughes, 2014). The lungs are the activator that provides breathing air to vibrate the vocal cords. He has excellent command of vocal cord movements, and is flexible in speaking and singing. And the resonator which includes the pharynx, oral and nasal cavities gives the tone and style of the voice (Benninger & Abitbal, 2006). And these can be taken care of by voice care strategies. All parts are necessary to protect and take care to avoid injury. The following information is the useful methods for caring for the voice.1. Warming up before singingTo achieve the best singing voice, breathe correctly and deeply, with the diaphragm expanding outwards, as breathing takes place in the respiratory system of the vocal instrument. Then sing the scales, going up in range and down. It can relax the vocal cords and increase the capacity of the lungs (McCoy, 2004). For example, start warm-up exercises with "br" in different notes and sing "nor" on 5-note scales with different range.2...... middle of paper ...... And lots of them are forced to stop a tour to rest or have voice surgery due to many problems such as stress, smoking, overuse of voice and noisy environments, etc. For example, Adele, a British singer, canceled her tours and underwent laser surgery. vocal cord surgery due to the great pressure of touring. This resulted in a long period of full recovery and she cannot return to work in a short time. Another singer, John Mayer, required surgery due to a granuloma created by vocal cord irritation and he stopped work on the album until his voice was also restored (Hatschek, 2012 ). Therefore, we can see that vocal health is so important for contemporary singing and that when your voice is injured, the damage is permanent. Prevention and vocal care strategies are very important to keep the voice healthy.