INTRODUCTION:
Welcome to the first week of our open forum!
Every week will be focusing on a new topic inside of the vast umbrella that is vocal health. We'll be asking questions, offering up facts, techniques, and answering any questions that you might have. Question and comments are more than welcome, and in fact are vital to getting this forum to thrive. So please jump in! Tell your friends and get the conversation going.
This week, being our first week, we're asking the enormous question of: What is vocal health, and why is it important?
Vocal health is a huge topic, and really, over the following weeks we'll get a more in depth look at aspects. But for now, when you think of maintaining vocal health what comes to mind? We'll throw some things out there. But there is SO much to this, that we're surely not going to think of everything, so please jump in!
WEEK ONE:
"What is vocal health, and why is it important?"
Tone way to dissect this is to look at the health of the vocal cords themselves, and then to look at vocal technique that will maintain the health of the cords. So how do you know if your vocal cords are healthy? Good question. For someone who has plenty of vocal training under their belt, this is a fairly easy question to answer. We know what our voice sounds like at it's best, and we know what it sounds like when it's tired, overworked, inflamed from illness, etc. But for those who don't - how do we tell?
Let's make some broad strokes. You went to a sporting event and shouted all day, you conducted meetings and were horse by the time you got home, etc. At the beginning of the day projecting was easy. But by they end of the day it may have felt like you were yelling through layers of blankets just to make yourself heard. During the course of this day, quite understandably, you wore on your vocal cords until they were inflamed. So they were in better vocal health in the morning than you were in the evening. Even if you're feeling just a little raspy after singing through a show or a concert, you're putting unnecessary wear and tear on your voice. The best sign of vocal health is that the more you sing in a day, the easier and healthier it gets. Again, very broad strokes. But for those who've never thought about vocal health it's important to look at, and here's why:
On the extreme side of things, if we batter our vocal chords repeatedly and often the cords themselves can develop calluses and blisters known as nodules. Nodules affect the quality of sound. Imagine gluing beads to the strings of a violin, and you'll get a picture of how the sound might change. The only way to get rid of them is complete vocal rest (silence) for months on end along with speech therapy and myriad lifestyle changes delineated by your doctors. Many brilliant performers have stopped their careers in their tracks because of nodules. But if you learn some simple steps to maintain your vocal health (self care and technique) you can avoid this all together, as well as preventing vocal exhaustion.
On the less extreme side, vocal exhaustion simply makes us unreliable as performers. I think we'd all love to be able to show up to every gig knowing that we're going to be at our best. We want to show up in peak form and knock it out of the park every time. AND WE CAN. We just have to know our instrument. And what about double show days? Want that second show to sounds just as effortless as the first? IT CAN.
So what contributes to vocal health? How do we maintain it? We're going throw some topics out here, and we hope you will too. Every week we'll pick one of these and discuss it together in depth. So if you want something talk about, tell us! Ready? Set! Go!
Hydration
Breath Support
Resonance
Laryngeal position
Singing while sick
Soft palate
Pressing - and how do I stop?
Overall body health - how does this affect my voice?
Natural voice type
Inflammation
Legit vs Belt - do I have to pick ONE?
What else have you got? Cause there are a LOT more...
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