Aerosol emission in professional singing of classical music

Dirk Mürbe; Martin Kriegel; Julia Lange; Hansjörg Rotheudt; Mario Fleischer

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-93281-x

Aerosol emission in professional singing of classical music

Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 21;11(1):14861. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-93281-x.

Authors

Dirk Mürbe^#¹, Martin Kriegel^#², Julia Lange², Hansjörg Rotheudt², Mario Fleischer³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Audiology and Phoniatrics, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, 10117, Germany. dirk.muerbe@charite.de.
² Technische Universität Berlin, Hermann-Rietschel-Institut, Berlin, 10587, Germany.
³ Department of Audiology and Phoniatrics, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, 10117, Germany.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

In this study, emission rates of aerosols emitted by professional singers were measured with a laser particle counter under cleanroom conditions. The emission rates during singing varied between 753 and 6093 particles/sec with a median of 1537 particles/sec. Emission rates for singing were compared with data for breathing and speaking. Significantly higher emission rates were found for singing. The emission enhancements between singing and speaking were between 4.0 and 99.5 with a median of 17.4, largely due to higher sound pressure levels when singing. Further, significant effects of vocal loudness were found, whereas there were no significant differences between the investigated voice classifications. The present study supports the efforts to improve the risk management in cases of possible aerogenic virus transmission, especially for choir singing.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't