Hi. Came across this article that might be of interest to readers of vocalist. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001129/hl/throats_1.html
By the way, the Renée Fleming CD contest at our website http://www.scena.org ends tomorrow.
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Wah Keung Chan
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Wednesday November 29 5:30 PM ET Opera Meets Medicine in Singers' Throats
By M. Mary Pennell
CHICAGO (Reuters Health) - By using high-tech medical imaging devices that can see details of human vocal cords without any invasive procedures, physicians can apply the technology so it can help voice teachers select the proper range for professional opera singers. Researchers announced their findings here at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Dr. Marco Di Girolamo, a self-confessed opera lover, said his studies show that the vocal cord length differs forsopranos, mezzo-sopranos, tenors, basses and other singers.
When a singer performs out of his or her normal register, it can set up a cascade of anatomical changes that may lead to development of vocal cord nodes--calluses on the cords--that can prematurely end a singer's career, he explained.
``In almost 1 in 10 cases, at the beginning of a singer's artistic career, the voice teacher has a difficult time correctly classifying the singer's tessitura or vocal register,'' Di Girolamo said.
If the singer performs for a long time in the wrong register, nodes can form. Resting the voice can help relieve the strain, but sometimes surgery is required to remove the nodes.
Using magnetic resonance imaging machines, which are capable of visualizing internal organs without any form ofsurgery or even injection of dyes, Di Girolamo was able to get vocal cord pictures of 26 opera singers--all members of the chorus of the Opera Theater of Rome.
He reported that there were significant differences in the average sizes of the vocal cords and in the vocal tract for most of the singers.
``It is amazing that we can use these machines for so many different functions,'' said Dr. Hedvig Hricak, chairman of the department of radiology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
She said Di Girolamo's study is consistent with other evidence that singing or talking in the wrong register can cause problems. ``It is known that when women public speakers attempt to speak in a lower register in order to sound more professional, they can develop hoarseness and vocal cord nodes.''
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