Virtual Voice Coach

Adel

Adel Sang Live  At the Grammy’s on Sun­day, Her First Per­for­mance After Voice Surgery.

2 Days After the Grammy’s

Ok, the Grammy’s are over, so are Adel’s vocal prob­lems  and she basi­cally “swept” the awards. Did she deserve to win? OH YES!!!!! Why? Because she faced her vocal prob­lems and beat the odds as many singers before her have Not done. Instead of whin­ing, mak­ing excuses, and deny­ing her fears,  she admit­ted that before her per­for­mances she gets so scared that she lit­er­ally throws-up. On her 60 minute inter­view, with Ander­son Cooper, before the Grammy’s, she held noth­ing back. From her love of “cussing” on stage, to her anx­i­ety before each per­for­mance. Adel is not only  a “real” singer who uses no gim­micks,  she is a “real” per­son and a delight to watch. (See the link below to her inter­view at the bot­tom of this post.)

As singers, speak­ers and peo­ple who depend on our voice’s to make a liv­ing, what can we learn from Adel’s bat­tle with her voice prob­lems you ask…? I have always advised my stu­dents to treat the voice like the pre­cious, fine tuned instru­ment it is. Proper use of the voice takes the co-operation of the entire body, not just those two lit­tle vocal cords that reside inside your lar­ynx or voice box, located at the “Adams Apple” point of your throat. The vocal cords are pow­er­ful when used prop­erly but on their own, they can only do 20% of your vocal work, while your body does the other 80%. Learn­ing where to posi­tion your higher, “power” notes will take the strain off of the vocal cords and avoid those dreaded nod­ules and polyps.

With all this inter­est in Adel’s voice prob­lems, (as well as Whit­ney Houston’s  chronic voice loss), it’s impor­tant to  take the time to at least know who the voice cul­prits are and how to avoid them if pos­si­ble. So here is my take and I’ll try to keep it simple…

Under­stand­ing Vocal Cord Nod­ules and Polyps

The symp­toms of vocal cord nod­ules and/or polyps are:

1. Hoarsness for more than 3 weeks
2. Breath­i­ness
3. “Rough, scratchy”  sound­ing voice
4. That “lump in the throat” feeling
5. A Con­stant need to “clear” the throat
6. Decrease in pitch and vocal range.
7. Weak­ness in the voice

Nod­ules are non-cancerous growths on your vocal cords caused by vocal abuse. We think instantly of singers, but teach­ers, pub­lic speak­ers, actors, busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als and even chil­dren can develop these callous-like growths on their vocal cords. The longer the abuse, the big­ger those cal­louses can get. Polyps on the other hand are more like blis­ters with leisons on the cords and they too are caused by vocal abuse.

After diag­no­sis by a oto­laryn­gol­o­gist who spe­cial­izes in voice prob­lems, treat­ment can range any­where from med­ically, sur­gi­cally to behav­iorally. Although med­i­cine and surgery may relieve the prob­lem tem­po­rally, if the behav­ior that caused the prob­lem in the first place is not changed, the nod­ules and polyps can return. Also, as in Julie Andrews (Mary Pop­pins) much pub­li­cized vocal prob­lems, surgery  can leave you sans voice and sans singing and speak­ing career. Voice prob­lems are espe­cially hard on politi­cians in a polit­i­cal cam­paign year.

Bot­tom Line;

The best defence against ruin­ing your voice and jeop­ar­diz­ing your career is proper voice tech­nique PERIOD!!!! Even Adel told Ander­son Cooper, ” … If  I  go on another long tour, my vocal prob­lems will return.” I would add to that; ” Only if there is not a proper change in her vocal tech­nique.” As I watched her; “Rollin’ in the Deep”, at the Grammy Awards, I noticed a big change in her tech­nique which made me smile. I know the doc­tors first advise to her had to be,  “STOP SMOKING!!!” because her voice was clean and clear when she sang. Sec­ondly, her vocal posi­tion was more in the front of her face, focus­ing at the bridge of her scrunched-up nose, and the biggest, most effec­tive change was   … Her Mouth Was  WIDE Open. These are all good, effec­tive, things to do to keep those pre­cious vocal cords from strain­ing on the high notes.

But of all of the things we must do to make our voice happy,  keep­ing the stress, along with the stress­ful peo­ple, out of our lives, is our first order of business.

Adels Inter­view:

Here is the link to Adel’s delight­ful inter­view with Ander­son Cooper. For more info on proper voice tech­nique, visit www.virtualvoicecoach.com and please share this info with all your voice-abusing friends… !

 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7398480n&tag=mg;mostpopvideo