Sound Professional and Vocal Performer Center
We offer personalized treatment for professional performers who depend on their hearing and voice.
Sound Professional and Vocal Performer Center
We offer personalized treatment for professional performers who depend on their hearing and voice.
The Best Care to Perform at Your Best
When an ear or throat condition affects your livelihood, you want an experienced team. Whether you’re a musician, sound technician, actor, teacher or public speaker, you get the highest level of care from a team that understands the unique needs of professionals like you.
Our fellowship-trained surgeons, audiologists, speech-language pathologists and other professionals offer complete care and personalized treatments to help you get back to work as quickly as possible. Backed by the leading-edge research of an academic medical institution, we can offer the latest diagnostic testing and treatments for voice and hearing conditions. You get innovative care you can’t find anywhere else nearby.
Meet Our Voice Center Team
When Your Livelihood Depends on Your Health, Depend on Us
As a creative arts performer or technician, routine diagnostic testing for hearing and vocal problems may not discover subtle changes that can impact your livelihood. That’s why we use advanced approaches to identify changes and develop a treatment plan that gives you the very best results.
We specialize in treating vocal cords (vocal folds) and a full range of problems that impact your hearing and voice, including:
- Dysphonia (voice change or loss)
- Hearing loss and other hearing-related symptoms
- Inner ear problems
- Laryngitis (swelling of your voice box or larynx)
- Neurological voice disorders, including vocal tremor (rhythmic voice unsteadiness) and spasmodic dysphonia (vocal cord spasms)
- Strained vocal cords or singer’s throat (muscle or vocal cord injury from overuse)
- Throat-related symptoms, including hoarseness, throat pain and chronic cough
- Vocal cord nodules, polyps or cysts (noncancerous vocal cord growths)
- Vocal cord paralysis
We draw from the latest voice and hearing treatments to give you a personalized approach — care that gives you the best results. Our doctors and therapists work together to help you feel better as quickly as possible.
Related Conditions
- Autoimmune Sensorineural Hearing Loss
- Cholesteatoma
- Laryngitis
- Otosclerosis
- Reinkes Edema
- Spasmodic Dysphonia
Related Treatments
- Awake Laser Therapy/Pulsed KTP Laser Therapy
- Cochlear Implantation for Sensorineural Hearing Loss
- Inflammatory Causes of Hearing Loss
- Stapedotomy or Stapedectomy for Otosclerosis
Related Services
- Acoustic Assessment
- Aerodynamic Assessment
- High Definition Laryngeal Imaging
- Speaking and Singing Voice Skills Assessment
- Voice Range Profile
Patient Information
Frequently Asked Questions
How am I evaluated at the USC Sound Professional and Vocal Performer Center?
You will undergo multiple evaluations in our center by physicians with different specialties. Tests appropriate to your conditions will be conducted. In particular, you will have both your voice and your hearing evaluated. This is because a problem with one of these organs often affects the other in subtle ways.
Your visit will be coordinated so that everything will happen on one day. Please plan on visiting for several hours (four or more, in some cases).
After your visit, our physicians meet as a team to discuss your unique case. All of the data we have collected from you, both the clinical data and research data, will be reviewed. As a team, we will then develop a comprehensive treatment plan for you. Follow-up appointments will be arranged as necessary.
Do you offer participation in clinical trials?
Yes. As an academic medical center, we offer participation in the latest clinical trials for new treatment options. Ask your doctor or visit clinicaltrials.keckmedicine.org to find out if we are conducting a clinical trial that is relevant to you.
If you elect and consent to be part of a research study, that may also occur along with your clinical evaluation. While participating in these studies is optional, these tests represent the cutting edge of vocal and auditory research and are designed to provide additional insight into these types of subtle voice and hearing issues. We will carefully explain the risks and benefits of each study to you so you can make an informed decision about whether or not you wish to participate.
How do I make an initial appointment?
If you are interested in an evaluation at the USC Sound Professional and Vocal Performer Center
USC Sound Professional and Vocal Performer Center, please contact us at (800) USC-CARE (800-872-2273).
Now that I have an appointment, what’s next?
A patient navigator will coordinate your visit with you regarding your assessment results and your treatment plan, including:
- Core voice evaluation
- Core hearing evaluation
- Laryngology evaluation
- Otology/neurotology evaluation
- Advanced voice evaluations
- Advanced hearing evaluations
- Summary of evaluations from the visit
- Summary of the recommended treatment plan agreed upon at the interdisciplinary conference
Interventions for Voice and Hearing
The following are interventions that can be initiated via the USC Elite Listener and Vocal Performer Center to ensure voice issues and hearing loss are minimized.
Voice:
- Lifestyle counseling
- Behavioral intervention/voice therapy
- Singing voice therapy
- Topical therapies
- Alternative therapies
- Medical/surgical intervention
- Bio-injectables
Hearing:
- Counseling for hearing loss, hyperacusis and tinnitus
- Hearing aids (HA): behind-the-ear (BTE), in-the-ear (ITE), in-the-canal (ITC) and indwelling deep-in-the-ear devices. All major brands are available.
- Best practice: validating and verifying prescriptive targets for amplification
- Cochlear implantation. All FDA brands are available.
- Bone-anchored hearing aids (BAHA). All FDA brands are available.
- Musician earplugs that are custom-made for comfort
- Best practice: validating and verifying level of noise reduction
- Custom In-Ear Monitor (IEM) for musicians for use in practice and performance
- Assistive-listening devices (ALD) to aid hearing in meetings, work in classrooms, communication while dining in restaurants, watching TV, etc.
- Aural Rehabilitation (AR): retraining the brain to listen via interactive computer software (may be available via tablet)
Leading Ear Nose & Throat Care for Creative Professionals
We have one of the most comprehensive ENT programs in the country.
We’re among only a few centers in the nation to bring together the clinical and research expertise of laryngologists, voice-specialized speech pathologists and singing voice rehabilitation specialists in a single place.
You get complete care and personal attention from an expert team, including voice trainers, singing teachers and other professionals, to ensure seamless, coordinated care.
Leading-edge Care Is Music to a Woman’s Ears
Patient Story
It has been wonderful ... I get to work with music in a different way.
Leading-edge Care Is Music to a Woman’s Ears
Patient Story
It has been wonderful ... I get to work with music in a different way.