Vocal health for singers: Sustaining a professional singing career

The musician’s career lifespan is emerging as an important area of research with opportunities for cross-disciplinary investigations that merge performing arts research with the fields of science and health. For singers, the area of vocal health is one of constant concern, and without a thorough understanding of vocal health management, a long and productive professional singing career can be impossible to maintain. This paper reports on a case study of a professional singer who has been performing and teaching for over twenty years with a particular focus on the regime of vocal health management that has been necessary to sustain this career. It is part of a broader research project that aims to investigate the issues surrounding vocal health for professional singers and the development of a specific vocal health regime that will mitigate the effects of vocal fatigue and illness, thus ensuring a long and productive career as a performer. This paper documents the findings of part of an autoethnographic case study of the career lifespan of one professional singer and some of the specific strategies she has used to manage vocal health to sustain a professional singing career. Beginning with an overview of some of the key literature in the field and the research method for this case study, the analysis leads to some preliminary findings that have implications for the training of singers at the tertiary level to enable them to experience a long and productive career of voice use.