SLU (St. Louis University) prof's invention makes masked singing a snap
Almost two years into a pandemic that has reshaped life around the world, there are tiny masks for toddlers and clear masks for easy lip-reading. There are masks for athletes and masks for professional clowns.
What Stephanie Tennill couldn’t find was a mask for singers — something that didn’t just stay dry while they belted out a song, but actually preserved the acoustic quality of their voice with no strain or muffled consonants.
And that was important to Tennill, an associate professor of music at St. Louis University and a former opera singer. She knew COVID-19 wasn’t going away, but she was nevertheless eager for music performances to come back.
So she invented one. Working with supplies around the home and funded by a SLU microgrant, she developed VocalEase — a washable, “acoustically transparent” mask so deftly designed, singers at the Metropolitan Opera have been spotted on Instagram wearing them in rehearsal.
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2021-12-16/slu-profs-invention-makes-masked-singing-a-snap?
= new reply since forum marked as read
