Assessment of Tongue Position and Laryngeal Height in Two Professional Voice Populations

Purpose To advance our current knowledge of singer physiology by using ultrasonography in combination with acoustic measures to compare physiological differences between musical theater (MT) and opera (OP) singers under controlled phonation conditions. Primary objectives addressed in this study were (a) to determine if differences in hyolaryngeal and vocal fold contact dynamics occur between two professional voice populations (MT and OP) during singing tasks and (b) to determine if differences occur between MT and OP singers in oral configuration and associated acoustic resonance during singing tasks. Method Twenty-one singers (10 MT and 11 OP) were included. All participants were currently enrolled in a music program. Experimental procedures consisted of sustained phonation on the vowels /i/ and /ɑ/ during both a low-pitch task and a high-pitch task. Measures of hyolaryngeal elevation, tongue height, and tongue advancement were assessed using ultrasonography. Vocal fold contact dynamics were measured using electroglottography. Simultaneous acoustic recordings were obtained during all ultrasonography procedures for analysis of the first two formant frequencies. Results Significant oral configuration differences, reflected by measures of tongue height and tongue advancement, were seen between groups. Measures of acoustic resonance also showed significant differences between groups during specific tasks. Both singer groups significantly raised their hyoid position when singing high-pitched vowels, but hyoid elevation was not statistically different between groups. Likewise, vocal fold contact dynamics did not significantly differentiate the two singer groups. Conclusions These findings suggest that, under controlled phonation conditions, MT singers alter their oral configuration and achieve differing resultant formants as compared with OP singers. Because singers are at a high risk of developing a voice disorder, understanding how these two groups of singers adjust their vocal tract configuration during their specific singing genre may help to identify risky vocal behavior and provide a basis for prevention of voice disorders.

Participatory Culture: A Study On Bangtan Boys Fandom Indonesia

In the past few years, South Korean pop culture has become a global phenomenon. The sudden popularity of the culture commonly known as as Korean Wave or Hallyu. This trend includes Korean drama, dance, music, films, animation, games, and fans club for Korean pop celebrity. In the past, those who become fans is only from a spesific age, but now it is more varied. One of most popular of the Korean singer groups is BangTan Boys. Abbreviated as BTS, the fans of BangTan Boys is proudly call themselves, “ARMY”. Using the Henry Jenkins’s Participatory culture theory along with qualitative method, this research tries to analyze that there are audiens who do not only consuming pop culture, but also producing new cultural artefacts from that. The data were collected by focus group discussion, in-depth interview and data analysis. It shows that some of the fans are making “fanfiction” as the reproductions of new artefacts, despite actively participating in BTS fandom by doing activities as include in the four types of Jenkin’s participatory cultures.

Lip-synch Gospel: Christian Music and the Ethnopoetics of Identity in Kenya

In recent years there has been an outpouring of Kenyan scholarship on the ways popular musicians engage with politics in the public sphere. With respect to the rise in the 1990s and 2000s of gospel music – whose politics are more pietistic than activist – this article challenges how to ‘understand’ the politics of gospel music taken from a small speech community, in this case the Meru. In observing street performances of a new style of preaching, ‘lip-synch’ gospel, I offer ethnographic readings of song lyrics to show that Meru's gospel singers can address moral debates not readily aired in mainline and Pentecostal-Charismatic churches. Critical of hypocrisy in the church and engaging with a wider politics of belonging and identity, Meru gospel singers weave localized ethnopoetics into their Christian music, with the effect that their politics effectively remain concealed within Meru and invisible to the national public sphere. While contesting the perceived corruption, sin and hypocrisy in everyday sociality, such Meru gospel singer groups cannot rightly be considered a local ‘counter-public’ because they still work their politics in the shadows of the churches.

Nilpotent Singer Groups

Let $N$ be a nilpotent group normal in a group $G$. Suppose that $G$ acts transitively upon the points of a finite non-Desarguesian projective plane ${\cal P}$. We prove that, if ${\cal P}$ has square order, then $N$ must act semi-regularly on ${\cal P}$. In addition we prove that if a finite non-Desarguesian projective plane ${\cal P}$ admits more than one nilpotent group which is regular on the points of ${\cal P}$ then ${\cal P}$ has non-square order and the automorphism group of ${\cal P}$ has odd order.

On the Orbits of Singer Groups and Their Subgroups

We study the action of Singer groups of projective geometries (and their subgroups) on $(d-1)$-flats for arbitrary $d$. The possibilities which can occur are determined, and a formula for the number of orbits of each possible size is given. Motivated by an old problem of J.R. Isbell on the existence of certain permutation groups we pose the problem of determining, for given $q$ and $h$, the maximum co-dimension $f_q(n, h)$ of a flat of $PG(n-1, q)$ whose orbit under a subgroup of index $h$ of some Singer group covers all points of $PG(n-1, q)$. It is clear that $f_q (n, h) < n - \log_q (h)$; on the other hand we show that $f_q(n, h) \geq n - 1 - 2 \log _q (h)$.

Noise Evaluation of Karaoke Facilities in Korea

An experiment was conducted to evaluate potential noise exposures to naive commercial “Karaoke” users using a 2-way, mixed-factors design with 2 independent variables of Noise Source (no-singer, 1-singer, and 2-singer) and Music Type (Trot, Ballad, and Rock). Each member of two singer groups (a total of 18 subjects) sang 5 popular songs of each music type in each singing condition. Equivalent continuous sound pressure levels (Leq) and maximum sound pressure levels (Max Lp) were measured for data analysis purposes. The statistical analyses indicate that noise levels were significantly different according to noise source and music type. The levels under most popular singing conditions were very serious, especially when two people were singing: higher than the OSHA's 95 dBA exposure limit. Rock music generated above 95 dBA even under 1-singer source. Max Lp often exceeded the OSHA's 115 dBA non-permissible level under some singing situations. A spectrum analysis revealed that Karaoke noise may have a potential impact on the speech band (500 − 4000 Hz) hearing. Some noise abatement strategies and ergonomic issues are discussed.