National Center for Voice and Speech

12/26/2025

Open and shut.

12/25/2025

12/24/2025

"In our opinion, the equivalent of the male singing voice revolution brought about by Duprez in 1831 occurred for females about a century later. Music theater singers like Ethel Merman were searching for a non-operatic (more speech-like) voice quality that would fill a large house without amplification. The quality should also be a better match to jazz instruments (primarily brasses, woodwinds, and percussion) than the heavily string-dominated ensembles and symphony orchestras used to accompany classical singing. Perhaps the voice quality was also to reflect the emancipation of women in the portrayal of stronger and self-determined characters. Traditionally, the adult female speaking voice is a linear extension of the girl voice to a lower pitch, without a dramatic change at puberty to another register that prolongs the closed phase in vocal fold vibration and thereby increases second harmonic energy. Research cited above has shown, however, that in high effort and high pitched singing, phonation with a longer closed phase (shorter duty ratio) becomes the belt when properly reinforced with vocal tract interaction."

from "Source-Vocal Tract Interaction in Female Opera Singing and Theater Belting" by Dr. Ingo Titze, Dr. Albert S. Worley and Dr. Brad Story. Journal of Singing, May/June 2011, pp. 561-572

12/23/2025

Available now.

Book Bundle: Purchase these 4 books together for the best value. When you purchase this selection you will receive the following books: Vocology: The Science and Practice of Voice Habilitation Principles of Voice Production The Continuing Influence of Ingo R. Titze on Voice, Science, and Music: A Fe...

12/22/2025

"Stated simply, the phenomenon seems to be that a greater subglottic pressure will result in a higher fundamental frequency. Although this is certainly an accurate deduction, it is not in agreement with known behavior of simple mechanical vibrating systems. In a linear mechanical vi****or or acoustical resonator, for example, an increase in driving force will increase the amplitude of the response, but not the frequency. Internal elastic and inertial properties, such as stiffness and mass, determine the vibrational frequency. We would be quite annoyed if a piano string, or organ pipe, were to increase its fundamental frequency substantially whenever it is struck or blown harder. Yet a toy ukulele strung with rubber bands has, in fact, such an annoying characteristic. So also does a New Year’s Eve noisemaker."

from "What Physical Factors are Involved in the Relationship Between Vocal Pitch and Breath Support?" by Dr. Ingo Titze, Journal of Singing, Jan/Feb 1981, pp. 37

12/19/2025

Sounds about right.

12/17/2025

This week, we publish the last of our 2025 NCVS Insight columns with an article from Dr. Ingo Titze entitled, "The Power of the Question." Here is a brief excerpt:

"The scientific method of investigation is built on asking questions and testing hypotheses. Many of us have questions about how something works, how applicable or valid it is, or how it can be implemented economically. Those of us who obtained a post-graduate degree were likely asked to write a thesis or a dissertation. This assignment often began with a question. It may have been stated in colloquial terms at first, but eventually it was written in scientific language with terms that could be quantified with measurement or theory. How powerful was that question – to you and the entire world? Looking back, did it put you on a course of future investigations, make you more inquisitive, increase your thirst for better understanding – or was it simply to satisfy your advisor and your academic research committee? Were the letters you received (MS, PhD, DMA, MD, EdD) more important than the discovery?"

12/16/2025

Available now.

Sing and Shout for Health explores the remarkable impact of vocalization on human physiology, health, and well-being. Edited by renowned physicist Ingo R. Titze and vocologist Elizabeth C. Johnson, this groundbreaking book delves into scientific discoveries that reveal how singing, shouting, and oth...

12/15/2025

"It is clear that the average speaking fundamental frequency may not be an accurate predictor of either average, most comfortable, or maximum attainable fundamental frequency (pitch) in singing. Nevertheless, the monotonic decrease of fundamental frequency with increasing age during childhood leads one to speculate about a size principle. It would be relatively easy to develop an empirical relationship between some aspect of body size and fundamental frequency, provided one understood which body dimensions are the crucial ones. Would they be body height, volume, neck circumference, neck length, or some combination of external measurements? A quick reflection on a number of speakers and singers of our own acquaintance will reveal that measurements based on external sizes are not reliable indicators of average speaking fundamental frequency. The often espoused belief that tenors are shorter in stature and basses have longer than average necks may be supportable in very broad statistical terms, but predictions for a given individual must be based on other size criteria."

From "Fundamental Frequency Scaling and Voice Classification" by Dr. Ingo Titze. Journal of Singing, Sept/Oct 1980, pp. 21-22

11/06/2025

Join Dr. Brad Story and Chris Johnson for a fascinating conversation on the anatomy of a vocal tract. Click the link to register for the free seminar.

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10/03/2025

Preliminary dates for SVI 2026 are up!

We have preliminary dates for SVI 2026!

Please hold these dates on your calendar if you plan to attend all of SVI 2026. We cannot wait to get started on launching into another wonderful year of the Summer Vocology Institute at the Utah Center for Vocology and our with our colleagues at the National Center for Voice and Speech.

If you are considering applying, now is a good time to connect with mentors and colleagues and start gathering those 2 letters of recommendation, preparing your resumé/cv, and gathering your academic transcripts. Application will open late November/first week of December.

(Please note: this is a preliminary date. Administration may adjust by one day, either starting one day later or ending one day earlier. Final conformation will be communicated when we release our application form on our website.)

07/18/2025

Sounds like envy to me.