Speech-Language Pathology production regarding voice in popular singing.

PURPOSE To present a literature review about the Brazilian scientific production in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology regarding voice in popular singing in the last decade, as for number of publications, musical styles studied, focus of the researches, and instruments used for data collection. RESEARCH STRATEGY Cross-sectional descriptive study carried out in two stages: search in databases and publications encompassing the last decade of researches in this area in Brazil, and reading of the material obtained for posterior categorization. SELECTION CRITERIA The databases LILACS and SciELO, the Databasis of Dissertations and Theses organized by CAPES, the online version of Acta ORL, and the online version of OPUS were searched, using the following uniterms: voice, professional voice, singing voice, dysphonia, voice disorders, voice training, music, dysodia. Articles published between the years 2000 and 2010 were selected. DATA ANALYSIS The researches found were classified and categorized after reading their abstracts and, when necessary, the whole study. RESULTS Twenty researches within the proposed theme were selected, all of which were descriptive, involving several musical styles. Twelve studies focused on the evaluation of the popular singer's voice, and the most frequently used data collection instrument was the auditory-perceptual evaluation. The results of the publications found corroborate the objectives proposed by the authors and the different methodologies. CONCLUSION The number of studies published is still restricted when compared to the diversity of musical genres and the uniqueness of popular singer.