Style of Phonation: An Electromyographic Investigation of Some Laryngeal Muscles

THE style of phonation, or the mode of phonation, is one of the very important factors which characterizes the human voice. Clinicians have been greatly interested in the style of phonation because of its clinical importance. Protracted phonation with an improper style can cause laryngeal diseases or voice disorders, such as contact ulcer, vocal cord nodule, vocal cord polyp, phonasthenia ("myasthenia laryngis" by Jackson¹), and so on (Brodnitz^2,3; Froeschels⁴; Green⁵; Holinger and Johnston⁶; Jackson⁷; Jackson and Jackson⁸; Luchsinger and Arnold⁹; Murphy¹⁰; Peacher and Holinger¹¹; von Leden and Moore¹²). On the other hand, patients with various kinds of laryngeal diseases often can develop unfavorable styles of phonation. A vicious circle may thus develop between an improper style of phonation, and a laryngeal disease or voice disorder. The importance of correction of bad vocal habits has been emphasized by many laryngologiste