Semi-occluded vocal tract exercises are among the most studied techniques in voice science. The VoicePipe exists because the person who made it spends his working life inside that literature.
Sing into a narrow opening and the air cannot leave as fast as you produce it. Pressure builds above the vocal folds. That back pressure does two things: it helps the folds come together without being squeezed together, and it reduces how hard they strike each other on every cycle.
The result is that you can make sound with less effort. That is why semi-occluded work is used for warming up, for building stamina, and for settling a voice down after heavy use — and why it turns up in voice clinics, not only in practice rooms.
Daniel Zangger Borch holds a PhD in music performance. His doctoral thesis, Singing in popular music genres — artistic, physiological and pedagogical aspects, was supervised by Professor Emeritus Johan Sundberg, one of the most cited voice scientists in the world.
He was the first singing-voice specialist to study scientifically how the rock, pop and soul voice functions, including pioneering work on vocal distortion. The VoicePipe came out of that research, not out of a product brief.
Borch DZ, Sundberg J. Some phonatory and resonatory characteristics of the rock, pop, soul, and Swedish dance band styles of singing. Journal of Voice. 2011;25(5):532–537.
Semi-occluded work works. That is established, and it is not our finding. What we claim for the VoicePipe is narrower: it delivers a stable, specified resistance, so the exercise you did last week is the exercise you can do again today. A drinking straw gives you whatever resistance its diameter happens to give.
We do not claim it will make you sing better in seconds, and we do not claim it does something no other tool can do. If your voice hurts, see a laryngologist. No tube replaces a diagnosis.
Thirteen short films on how and when to use the VoicePipe — and on why semi-occluded exercises are not automatically enough on their own. youtube.com/@ZanggerVoicePipe
The cookie settings on this website are set to 'allow all cookies' to give you the very best experience. Please click Accept Cookies to continue to use the site.