Virtual Voice Coach

Wow, What a Month Full of Vocal Prob­lems, Flubs, and Tragedies! 

First Adel recov­er­ing from Voice Surgery, then the recent Steven Tyler bash­ing over singing the National Anthem, and now the Great­est Tragedy of All … the Loss of Whit­ney Hous­ton the Day Before the Grammy’s. What is Going on with Our Singers?

The vul­ner­a­ble thread con­nect­ing each of these events is: “Vocal Prob­lems.” Each singer has been crit­i­cized and con­demned for NOT LIVING UP TO THE EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR AUDIENCE, REVIEWERS AND FANS dur­ing live per­for­mances. Adel’s recent can­celled tour stretched her voice to it’s lim­its and caused her vocal cords to rebel from the abuse she put them through try­ing to live up to her  amaz­ing recorded CD. Steven had the courage to sing the National Anthem LIVE even though he had just got­ten off of a flight from Los angles where he had  attended  2 funer­als. His reward for that was the media call­ing his National Anthem “The worst since Rosanne Barr.” (Read my take on that is in a recent post… ‚) And now today the media is filled with sto­ries of Whitney’s amaz­ing voice fail­ing due to drug abuse and per­sonal problems.

Voice Real­i­ties For Those Who Have Never  Walked In A Singers Shoes

This morn­ing amid all of the spec­u­la­tion as to why Whitney’s tragic death has hap­pened, Record Pro­ducer David Fos­ter (who had worked with Whit­ney many times), said it so well; ” Don’t spec­u­late or judge Whit­ney unless you have walked in her shoes.”

I would like to now, amid all the spec­u­la­tion as  to “the big why…”,   address David’s insight­ful state­ment. As a voice coach I not only lis­ten to my stu­dents who con­stantly face the typ­i­cal “voice demons” that con­front us all when we step on that stage to sing, whether its the lead in a high school play, the National Anthem at a major sports event, an Amer­i­can Idol audi­tion, or a con­cert in Cen­tral Park, each one has  of these singers HAS walked in Whitney’s shoes, includ­ing me:

To begin with, it has been said that the great­est fear peo­ple have, is the “fear of pub­lic speak­ing.” Well, amplify that 10,000 times  and try; the fear of stand­ing up in-front of a crowded room full of expec­tant peo­ple judg­ing how you sing.

They call it Stage Fright but for singers it should be re-named, per­for­mance anx­i­ety. On the news, they have been announc­ing all morn­ing that they found Xanex, used to treat anx­i­ety and panic attacks, in Whitney’s room. After the last two years of Whit­ney hav­ing to hear in the media, over and over again, how her “amaz­ing voice was, gone, shot, destroyed by drugs etc.etc. etc…”  that night she was about to  sing again at her men­tor Clive Davis’s yearly Pre –Grammy party. Was she anx­ious, scared, ner­vous, pan­icked to once again open her mouth and sing in-front of the record­ing indus­tries biggest stars????? Wouldn’t you be if you knew that each per­son in that room, no mat­ter how much they loved you, would be dis­ap­pointed if your voice was not up to their expec­ta­tions? Put your­self in Whitney’s shoes right now. . . can’t you just imag­ine the fear she was fac­ing???? If you are a singer, hav­ing a “bad voice day” , (which hap­pens way too often), know­ing you would dis­ap­point every­one in the room if your voice “cracked”, wouldn’t you want to take any­thing to keep the fear and panic out of your voice? She had gone to the voice doc­tor the day before she died and it’s very com­mon to sub­scribe some­thing to relax the voice before a big event.

Big Shoes to Fill

Adel walked in Whitney’s shoes at every con­cert, as her voice began to weaken from over-use and stress (accord­ing to reports). Steven walked in her shoes singing the National Anthem with­out sleep (accord­ing to fel­low band mem­ber Joe Perry), every singer who has had doubts and fears before a per­for­mance has walked in Whitney’s shoes, as have I, when I was diag­nosed with COPD (Chronic Obstruc­tive Pul­monary Dis­ease  (from in-haling sec­ond hand smoke singing in smoke-filled rooms, which forced me to stop singing 2 years ago.)

The human voice is an amaz­ing God cre­ated instru­ment and like any instru­ment, it must be under­stood, loved and not abused. The high notes and the loud vol­ume expected from today’s singers is caus­ing chronic voice prob­lems because much of what the pub­lic hears is cre­ated in an elec­tronic stu­dio and CANNOT be dupli­cated live all the time. (Just a note: For those that are com­par­ing Whitney’s National Anthem to what they are call­ing “Stevens Flub”, need to re-evaluate their think­ing because Whitney’s Anthem was cre­ated in a stu­dio and she was lip-syncing while Stevens was LIVE. (Read my post)

Bot­tom Line:

As the true facts about Whitney’s death become known and all the spec­u­la­tion is put to rest, David Foster’s sug­ges­tion to “Try walk­ing in Whitney’s shoes before you judge her action.” will ring true for every singer who has the courage to step on a stage and open their mouth. Do not be so quick to judge next time your favorite artist does not “sound exactly like the CD!”  Maybe they are hav­ing one of those “human bad voice days.”

Whit­ney IS  still the great­est singing voice I’ve ever heard and is now singing with pure joy in her heart…