Tongue in Cheek

Date: June 10, 2010

Here's an interesting video for your Thursday morning. Perhaps put your coffee and muffin down if medical videos make you at all squeamish.

A view of the tongue working, as through the eyes of the MRI, of an opera soprano, and a beatbox emcee.

The video was featured at the Sounds and Visions Session, of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Scientific Sessions, May 2006, Seattle.

Even more fascinating to me, is the different uses of the soft palate between the two subjects.

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Tom Carter on June 10, 2010 8:10pm

Fascinating. I would love to see an exploration of different vocal pedagogies -- comparing this soprano's technique (raised soft palate, tongue lifting and pulling back as pitch ascends) with another's. It would be great to do such a study, and compare their 'vowel intelligibility' along with other vocal manifestations such as tone, clarity, hootiness, vibrato, tongue vibration, et cetera.

I wonder if the people creating the study were aware of the vastly different approaches to classical singing.

Based on the way they presented the study, I'm guessing they think all classical singers use the same technique (and all beatboxers do as well).

Thanks for posting that!

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