AVERAGE LOUDNESS LEVEL, MEAN FUNDAMENTAL-FREQUENCY, AND SUBGLOTTAL PRESSURE - COMPARISON BETWEEN FEMALE SINGERS AND NONSINGERS

Subglottal pressure, measured indirectly as the oral pressure during / p/ occlusion, was studied in 10 classically trained female singers and 10 female nonsingers, as they uttered the syllable /pa/ as softly and as loudly as possible over their entire voice ranges. There were no d iscernible differences between the subject groups for soft vowel phona tion, but for the loudest vocalizations the singers used considerably higher subglottal pressures. Possible reasons for this difference are discussed.