Voice source and acoustic measures of girls singing “classical” and “contemporary commercial” styles

The understanding of the singing voice of children and adolescents is still in its infancy, and there is a lack of a general developmental model of the young voice, in particular with relation to young singers. Available research has largely also been on “classically” trained voices, and contemporary commercial music (CCM) including pop/rock and musical theatre has largely been ignored. This study examined laryngographic and acoustic analysis of 10 young female singers, aged 14-17, training using a system which includes both classical and CCM techniques, particularly musical theatre (MT). Singers were found to have generally higher vocal fold closed quotient (CQ) at most pitches when singing in an MT style than in a classical style. The spectral slope was also found to be generally shallower for MT singing than classical, particularly over F0F5.