Historical vocal pedagogy emphasized the impact of posture on training singing, often referring to “noble posture,” (Miller, 2004) and (Garcia II, 1894). Previous research has explored the effects of postural position on resonance (Rollings-Bigler, 2018) and respiration in singing (Baker, Nix, and Oyama, 2024). However, no published research has explored the impacts of postural positioning on a singer with a lower-limb disability. This research fills that gap in the literature by examining how body positioning impacts respiration and the perceived vocal effort of a singer with a lower-limb disability.

The singer recorded the last eight measures of “Why, God, Why” from Miss Saigon five times in four different postural positions (seated on a chair, standing while holding onto the edge of a piano, standing freely, and hunched over with a tucked chin), while wearing a respiratory inductance plethysmography (RespTrack) and a Countryman headset microphone 5cm from the corner of the mouth. After each sample recording, the singer completed an Omni-Vocal Effort Survey (Omni-VES) to report their self-perceived vocal effort.

The calibrated audio recordings will be sent to a panel of expert-listener voice teachers with a minimum of five years of teaching experience to complete a modified Omni-VES to gather the listener-perceived vocal effort exerted by the singer in each recording. Finally, the listeners will be asked to categorize the audio samples into perceived physical postures. The analysis will compare listener-perceived Omni-VES, singer-reported Omni-VES, and RespTrack data. Initial findings indicate this singer reported the lowest Omni-VES scores while standing and holding onto the edge of a piano for support and the highest while singing hunched over with a tucked chin.

Data collection is ongoing, and results may contribute to the understanding of the impacts of postural positioning on respiration and vocal effort in a singer with a lower-limb disability.

Keywords:

Disability, lower-limb disability, OMNI-VES, Miss Saigon, “Why, God, Why,” Respiration Inductance Plethysmography, RespTrack, Noble Posture