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Updated: Jan 22, 2026
Acquisition and Semi-Automated Analysis of Respiratory Muscle Surface Electromyography
Published on: January 24, 2025
Monitoring Breathing Muscle Performance During Singing Noninvasively Using Mechanomyography and Electromyography
Muhammad Imran Ramli1, Nur Azah Hamzaid1, Julia Patrick Engkasan2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to investigate the performance of mechanomyography (MMG) and electromyography (EMG) in monitoring the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) as accessory respiratory muscles when breathing during singing.
Methods:
MMG and EMG were used to record the activity of the SCM in 32 untrained singers reciting a monotonous text and a standard folk song. Their voices were recorded and their pitch, or fundamental frequency (FF), and intensity were derived using Praat software. Instants of inhale and exhales were identified during singing from their voice recordings and the corresponding SCM MMG and EMG activities were analysed.
Results:
The SCM MMG, and EMG signals during breathing while singing were significantly different than breathing at rest (p < 0.001). On the other hand, MMG was relatively better correlated to voice intensity in both reading and singing than EMG. EMG was better, but not significantly, correlated with FF in both reading and singing as compared to MMG.
Conclusions:
This study established MMG and EMG as the quantitative measurement tool to monitor breathing activities during singing. This is useful for applications related to singing therapy performance measure including potentially pathologically effected population. While the MMG and EMG could not distinguish FF and intensity significantly, it is useful to serve as a proxy of inhalation and exhalation levels throughout a particular singing session. Further studies are required to determine its efficacy in a therapeutic setting.
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