Straws for everyone!

A weird trick to help you find a stronger, more flexible voice
--Liz Jackson Hearns

You may have noticed that we’re all about straws here at The Voice Lab, and if you haven’t heard about it from your voice teacher already, you deserve an explanation!

Straw phonation is a voice therapy technique developed by Dr. Ingo Titze and Dr. Kittie Verdolini-Abbott. After attending the Summer Vocology Institute where I learned from both of these amazing voice care professionals and excellent instructors, I was hooked on straw phonation. Their vocology literature, as well as other resources, are listed below.

What is straw phonation?
Let’s start with phonation first: phonation refers to the vibration of your vocal folds; when you make sound with your voice that requires your vocal folds to vibrate, you are phonating. How can you tell if you’re phonating? Place your hand on the front of your neck and see if you can feel all those bumpy cartilages. Now say the word “wowee.” Do you feel those cartilages vibrate under your hand? Try the same word again, but whisper the word “wowee” instead of speaking it. No vibration this time, right? Right! Because whispering doesn’t [exactly] require you to phonate. Anytime you use your voice to speak, sing, hum, sigh, squawk, or laugh, your vocal folds vibrate, and we call that vibration phonation.

Straw phonation refers to phonating through a straw. Ever used a kazoo? Same concept. By singing, or phonating, through a straw, you are doing some really groovy and unique things to your voice, which are all beneficial!

What does straw phonation do to help singers and voice users?

1. Repairs vocal fold tissue. This study performed by Mara Kapsner-Smith and her team showed that Resonant Voice therapies, including straw phonation helps repair vocal fold tissue.
2. Builds laryngeal muscles. You might notice the first time you sing through a straw that it’s quite difficult, and the smaller the straw, the harder the task. Not only is producing sound at all (phonation, remember?) difficult, but your voice breaks will probably become more abrupt and difficult to navigate. Utilizing straw phonation helps create a more efficient vocal system. I like to analogize this as to taking your voice to the gym with extra gravity on; you get real buff, real fast.
3. Improves breath management. When using the straw, you might hear a hissing or whooshing sound that you’ll recognize as extra air leaking or blowing through the straw. This immediate aural feedback lets you know you’re using too much breath, and helps develop your breath mechanism to be more efficient and have better stamina.
4. Increases sensations of resonance. One of the comments I hear regularly when someone tries straw phonation for the first time is, “my whole head is buzzing!” That’s exactly what we want! Straw phonation helps you find efficient and effective ways to improve the resonance of your voice by amplifying those sensations of resonance (some voice teachers call it “placement”). It feels weird at first, but can become a very useful tool.

Straw phonation is such a handy tool, I use it with every student and I think it’s a great warm-up to start every lesson. I also like to use my straws in the car, on the train, while I’m typing (right now), and whenever I’m feeling a little vocally fatigued after a long day of teaching or rehearsing.
We can’t wait to start using straws with you!

Books:
Titze, Ingo R. Principles of Voice Production. Iowa City, IA: National Center for Voice and Speech, 2000.
Titze, Ingo R. and Katherine Verdolini Abbot. Vocology: The Science and Practice of Voice Habilitation. Iowa City, IA: National Center for Voice and Speech, 2012.

Online Articles:
A Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Voice Therapy Protocols
Voice Training and Therapy With a Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract: Rationale and Scientific Underpinnings
Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Postures and their Application in the Singing Voice Studio