Tiyatro Öğrencilerinin Ses Sağlığını Koruma ve Ses Performanslarını Arttırmaya Yönelik Geliştirilmiş Uygulamalı Ses Eğitimi Programının Etkinliğinin Araştırılması

Abstract

By virtue of their profession’s nature, theatre actors/actresses have to preserve and maintain their voice quality. Thus, voice therapists strongly advise them to engage in protective-preventive activities so as to eliminate the risk of voice disorders beforehand. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a 12-week holistic vocal training program designed for theatre students. The program has been administered to 9 theatre students between 18-30 years of age, and different group of 9 students with similar characteristics were assigned to the control group. To measure the efficiency of the program, participants’ knowledge of vocal hygiene and vocal mechanisms were assessed pre and post-training via a questionnaire we developed, as well as objective and subjective voice measurements. Results showed that although there were no significant between-group differences, within-group comparisons revealed a significant increase in study group participants’ knowledge of vocal hygiene after training (p=0,011). Similarly, they outperformed the control group in vocal mechanism knowledge (p=0,027). In the objective measurements, Multi-Dimensional Voice Profile (MDVP) findings validated that vocal qualities of the control group deteriorated while no alterations were present in the study group. Although cepstral analysis identified deteriorations in vocal qualities of either group, they were observed to be more drastic in the control group. Subjective measurements of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE- V)/Turkish did not introduce significant changes in the control group in grade and roughness parameters while these values decreased significantly in the study group (p=0,008). Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the holistic vocal training program is effective.