The effect of specific versus combined warm-up strategies on the voice

Although actors and singers typically warm-up the voice before performing, little is known about the effects of vocal warm-up on the voice. This study was designed to determine the relative effectiveness of specific versus combined warm-up strategies on the voice by group comparison. Twenty participants, 10 male and 10 female actors, completed two warm-up protocols, at least 1 week apart, in a counter-balanced order. Measures of phonation threshold pressure (PTP), jitter, noise-to-harmonics-ratio (NHR), and self-perceived vocal effort were obtained. For the males, there was no significant difference in PTP difference values between vocal warm-up only (specific) and vocal plus aerobic warm-up (combined) conditions. For the females, however, a significant difference was found, with a greater reduction in PTP in the combined warm-up condition. A significant difference was also found in male jitter percent values, with significantly lower values in the specific condition than in the combined condition. There were no significant differences in the remaining comparisons. Females appeared to respond more to the vocal warm-up when it had an aerobic exercise component. It is possible that the males' greater level of physical fitness impacted this finding.