U Ideas of General Interest -- November 2000University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor (217) 333-5491; [email protected]
VOICING HIS EXPERTISEMusic school faculty member helps people with voice problems
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A horse is a horse, of course, of course -- but what is the course for a singer gone hoarse?
The source, of course, for Central Illinois singers seeking recovery from a range of vocal problems likely would be University of Illinois music professor Ronald Hedlund.
Hedlund, who chairs the voice division in the UI's School of Music, has sung leading baritone roles with most of the major opera companies in the United States, including the Metropolitan Opera National Company. Since 1993, he has been channeling his extensive experience as a performer and educator into an effort to help singers rehabilitate their voices following vocal abuse or injury.
As a consultant with Carle Clinic Association's Professional Voice Clinic, Hedlund is part of a team with an otolaryngologist and a speech pathologist. Patients are first diagnosed to determine the source of the problem and to evaluate the function of the vocal cords. Problems may include vocal-cord paralysis, neurologic disorders, gastroesophagaeal reflux, aging of the vocal cords, vocal nodules or polyps, or laryngeal trauma.
The clinic primarily assists patients who use their voices professionally -- singers, radio and television announcers, ministers, teachers and sports coaches among them. "When a singer is involved, I'm called in," Hedlund said. "If the problem is pathological, the doctor deals with it; if it's functional -- having to do with the vocal mechanism -- I'm called in, along with a speech pathologist."
Over the years he has treated nearly 100 people, amateurs and professionals alike. "I have worked with singers aged 14 and up, including an 80-year-old in one of the local retirement villages who is the sing-along leader," Hedlund said. Clients also have included university students, professional opera singers, music teachers and a construction worker who sang on the side.
Vocal rehabilitation typically consists of exercises similar to those Hedlund uses to train his voice students. If the patient's problem can be linked to the presence of vocal nodules -- protrusions on the vocal cords, the result of vocal abuse -- "I give them 'the sermon,' " Hedlund said. "If they're not willing to change their lifestyle or their method of singing, I can't help them. But if I'm working with professional singers, they're usually smart, and take the sermon to heart. Then they improve." The best treatment, he added, "is common sense": a healthy diet and lifestyle, and proper voice training.
Hedlund recently discussed his rehabilitative-therapy strategies as a guest lecturer and panelist at the International Vocal Health Symposium in Salzburg, Austria. Assisting with his lecture-demonstration was Elizabeth Barnes, a former graduate student who now sings with an opera company in Weisbaden, Germany. Barnes underwent vocal surgery last spring, and traveled to Urbana in July for postoperative treatment with Hedlund. As a result of the Salzburg presentation, Hedlund has been invited to serve as a guest consultant at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt.
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