When you are in the front man in a
bluegrass group I bet you make a lot of fuss over your
instrument. You probably try to keep the sweat off it when
it's hot outside. You probably try to keep it in a nice,
padded case. You may even go so far to put one of those
fancy little humidifiers in the case to keep the humidity just
right. The big question though is, do you treat your voice
with the same respect that you treat your instrument?
I found out the hard way a week or so ago that you can damage
your voice. I'm not professionally trained so I'd never
even considered this. I grew up singing on Sunday
mornings, nights and Wednesday nights at Church... singing in my
truck on the way to school and work after I turned 16 and then
when I got into bluegrass I started singing at jams and
festivals. Nowhere along the way did anyone ever tell me I
could hurt my voice!
Well after 3 weeks straight of going to several jams and
get-togethers several times during the week I found out my voice
was messed up. I couldn't hit high notes, my throat strung
a little and it felt like I got hit in the adam's apple.
Its pretty simple really. When you use your voice
improperly you make your vocal cords thrash together, then they
get inflamed. When the cords are inflamed they can't
vibrate as fast to hit high notes and the way air travels over
them is altered.
Its actually pretty easy for this to happen, especially for me.
I give everything I have when I sing and that's good as long as
you give it from the right parts. In retrospect I realize
I was forcing myself to hit high notes with my neck and head if
that makes sense. If you ever feel yourself tightening up
in the neck and your veins bulging out its time to do one of two
things.... let your belly take over and drive air out of it, or
let your voice break and go falsetto. I didn't do that and
now I have some thrashed vocal cords.
I'd be very interested to see how the folks in Third Tyme Out or
Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver take care of their voices.
They are known for their harmony and soaring vocals and I
guarantee you they treat their voices like a treasured
instrument. In fact if they didn't, they'd be out of a
job!
I'm no voice coach (and I don't want to be) but here are some
things I learned while reading up on the internet.
Things that will hurt your voice
Not warming up
(you need to stretch those cords out before using them... if
somebody wants to do something in B at the start of a jam
tell them to start out in G first instead!)
using your neck muscles to force
yourself to hit high notes (bad, bad, bad!)
not pushing wind out of your belly
(diaphragm) and using your mouth instead
not drinking enough water (after
drinking water it takes about 20 minutes for your body to
create saline to lubricate your vocal cords... water doesn't
wash down your throat and run all over your cords either, if
it did it'd go into your lungs! Soft drinks, coffee
and alcohol do nothing to help your voice... all they do is
leech the water out of your body)
smoking is pretty rough on your
vocal cords, though some folks like the "signature" sound
years of smoking gives them!
not getting enough sleep
cold water on a hot day will cause
cords to cramp... hot drinks are great for your voice
if your voice is gone (laryngitis)
whispering is not good... its actually worse then talking
low
Things to do to help a hurt
voice
from what I've read, sleep
is the number one thing you need
if your voice is really messed up,
you simply need to talk as little as possible (if you are a
bluegrass front man this is probably going to be really hard
with your type A personality... I know because I'm dealing
with it right now... better just leave the radio off too, or
you'll just want to sing everything that comes on!)
Somebody is going to probably call
me out on this but its pretty much true... honey, tea and
lemon aren't going to do anything to instantly fix messed up
vocal cords. Its not like the honey, tea and lemon
even flow over them (and how could you sing good anyway if a
bunch of honey were smothered all over your vocal cords...
they wouldn't vibrate very good would they?). When you
drink things they flow past your voice box into your
digestive system, not really through it! Your larynx
sits at the top of your lungs, your respiration system and
closes up when you swallow. Duh, right? Well I
never even really thought about it till I was reading about
things to help your voice on some classical singing coaches
website. Everywhere on the internet people say drink
lemon juice, or honey and tea... well none of that is going
to effect your vocal cords. What it will do is if you
have a sore throat it'll sooth your throat and make your
throat feel better, and if its hot it may help reduce
swelling in your cords... but its not really going to
directly effect your cords.
So in conclusion if you hurt your voice you're
going to need to do the following. You are going to have
to go to sleep at a decent hour, talk as little as possible and
stop smoking and drinking alcohol, soft drinks, etc. and drink
lots of water. Then when your vocal cords feel better you
can start pushing air out of your belly instead of your throat
and if you feel your neck muscles tensing up just let your voice
break and make like Ralph Stanley or Bill Monroe and sing some
falsetto or do some yodeling. You live and learn, right?
I'm going to leave you with a pretty entertaining (and weird)
video below.
-SD
Update:
8/12/2008 After about two months since I wrote this
article I am finally singing again. I can earnestly say my
voice is not at 100%. 2 months ago I could sing for hours
on end using my head voice and singing in B with my natural
voice. I simply can't do that anymore. I'm much more
mindful of keeping hydrated, not over-extending my voice, making
it a point to switch to my head voice if the notes get too high
and not trying to sing to long. I've found that water,
rest and warming up are the 3 best things for keeping your voice
healthy. I'm no scientist as far as singing is concerned
but this has worked for me and I hope it helps you too.
