Pedagogical methods of overcoming muscle tension in vocal students at the initial stage of training

The aim of the study was to determine the effectiveness of a set of pedagogical methods for reducing muscle tension in vocal students at the initial stage of training. The methodology involved a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-testing, implemented over 12 weeks during the academic semester. A combination of theoretical generalisation of approaches to the nature of muscle tension and empirical testing of the impact of the pedagogical complex was used in a sample of 48 students divided into experimental and control groups. The results showed that at the initial stage, medium and high levels of muscle tension prevailed, mainly in the neck, shoulder girdle and lower jaw. During the 12-week formative stage, the experimental group showed a decrease in the overall tension index from 2.1 to 1.2 points. The most pronounced changes concerned respiratory and phonation indicators: shoulder raising during inhalation decreased by 41% compared with 12% in the control group, jaw tension by 36% compared with 10%, and neck tension by 33% compared with 9%. Students in the experimental group also corrected body position and breathing independently in 64% of cases, while this figure did not exceed 27% in the control group. Subjective tension decreased from 6.8 to 3.9 points in the experimental group and only from 6.8 to 6.1 points in the control group, while the discrepancy between self-assessment and expert assessment decreased from 1.2 to 0.4 points. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using a substantiated set of methods for the systematic formation of vocal-body coordination and the development of students’ self-regulation skills.