Effects of a three-week vocal exercise program using the Finnish Kuukka exercises on the speaking voice of Norwegian broadcast journalism students.
Nine broadcast journalism students attended 10 hours in Kuukka vocal exercises, which aims at producing a ringing vocal quality. Nine control subjects received no training. A text was read at habitual loudness before and after the course. Five speech specialists evaluated the text samples for perceptual voice quality and analyzed mean fundamental frequency (F0), equivalent sound level (Leq), and long-term average spectrum (LTAS). For the Training Group, voice quality improved and correlated negatively with firmness and timbre (less firm and darker qualities being considered more desirable), and F0 increased slightly. Leq increased significantly in both groups. The results show positive and perceivable differences after the course. However, the aimed ring was not reached, may be due to too short time.
Bele
Irene
I
Faculty of Humanities and Education, Volda University College, Volda, Norway. irene.bele@hivolda.no
Laukkanen
Anne-Maria
AM
Sipilä
Laura
L
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020452:Journalism; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D019303:Multilingualism; D010699:Phonation; D010700:Phonetics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013334:Students; D013997:Time Factors; D014833:Voice Quality; D014834:Voice Training; D055815:Young Adult