Consistency of phonatory breathing patterns in professional operatic singers

Breathing strategy is generally regarded as an important factor in operatic singing, because it is assumed to affect phonation. If so, professional si ngers should exhibit well-controlled, replicable breathing movements when r epeating the same phrase. The purpose of the present study was to investiga te to what extent professional opera singers show a consistent, exhalatory breathing behavior in a quasi-realistic concert situation. Respiratory move ments were documented in 5 professional operatic singers, two women and thr ee men, by means of respiratory inductive plethysmography. Comparison of re spiratory data gathered from 3 renderings of the same phrases revealed high consistency with regard to lung volume (LV) behavior. The same applied to rib cage (RC) movements, suggesting a great relevance of RC control in sing ing. Consistency in abdominal wall (AW) movement was observed in 2 singers. These observations are in accordance with the idea that the breathing stra tegy plays an important role in voice production during singing. In additio n, the correlation between LV changes, on the one hand, and RC and AW movem ents on the other, was examined; The contribution to LV changes from the RC and the AW varied across singers, thus suggesting that professional operat ic singing does not request a uniform breathing strategy.