Solv­ing 4 Major Prob­lems That Affect Your Voice

                                                     By Joni Wil­son: Voice Expert/Best-selling Author/Voice Coach

Joni’s Stu­dents At Work

Here Are 4 Major Voice Prob­lems Speak­ers and Singers Face Daily and HowTo Effec­tively Man­age Them.

1.) Head Colds and Sinus Infec­tions: (“That darn kid on the plane just kept sneez­ing all over me, what can I do?”)

Water mag­ni­fies sound, and that’s a good thing. So when my clients have a major pre­sen­ta­tion and a head cold at the same time, I tell them to enjoy the res­o­nant sound and stop wor­ry­ing. The voice is pro­duced in the vocal cords down in the lar­ynx, (Adam’s-apple) neck area. Nasal con­ges­tion is pro­duced in the nose and sinus area. These two are not even close to each other. The major con­cern here is to be aware of the med­ica­tions you are tak­ing. If it dries up your mucous (as decon­ges­tants do), it will also dry up your vocal cords because they are mucous mem­branes and need that mucous to keep them lubri­cated. Steam­ing the mucous mem­branes of the nose and throat with a few drops of added euca­lyp­tus oil (any health food store has it,) will work won­ders to add needed mois­ture. If you don’t have a steamer, sim­ply boil a pan of water on the stove, drop in a few drops of the oil, place a towel over your head and breathe in the heal­ing steam all the way down to the bot­tom of your lungs. If you are in a hotel room, take a hot steamy shower and with your mouth wide open, breath that steam in and out of your lungs. DO NOT TAKE ANY DROPS OR MEDICATION CONTAINING MENTHOL. They will shrink and dry out your vocal cords. Old-fashioned lemon drops are the per­fect pastilles for adding lubrication.

2.) Heart­burn and Stom­ach Acid (“It must have been that chicken sur­prise I ate.”)

Stom­ach acid can move from the stom­ach up to the lar­ynx and irri­tate and burn your vocal cords, affect­ing your voice big time. Acid reflux is com­mon in those who have stom­ach prob­lems and has been blamed by many a singer for the lack of a voice. First, do not eat before a per­for­mance or presentation—that is a no-brainer. Sec­ond, never swal­low any­thing with caf­feine, alco­hol or cit­ric acid in it eight hours before you speak or sing. That means cof­fee, most soft drinks, orange juice and caf­feinated teas. Warm herbal teas are good and sooth­ing to the tummy and the voice. Sec­ond, stom­ach acid can also be a stress related prob­lem. Stage fright, per­for­mance anx­i­ety, toxic rela­tion­ships, and a lack of self-confidence before a per­for­mance can also churn up those but­ter­flies in the tummy. That fight or flight adren­a­lin rush, if allowed to run wild, will also turn on the stomach-acid spigot. (For great tips on han­dling Stage fright read; “How to Tame the Stage Fright Monster.”)

3.) Chronic Throat Clear­ing (“If I could just clear this gunk out.…”)

This is a very com­mon prob­lem for speak­ers, singers, teach­ers, lawyers, and peo­ple who over-use their voices in their jobs. We have all sat in an audi­ence lis­ten­ing to a speaker/teacher who con­stantly clears his/her throat. This not only irri­tates the audi­ence but it is extremely irri­tat­ing to the vocal cords. (This is some­times a chronic ner­vous habit car­ried over from puberty.) Remem­ber, the mucous that coats the vocal cords is there to pro­tect them and when you con­tin­u­ally scrape out the mucous to clear the throat, the body’s defense sys­tem calls up the “Mucous Army”. The more mucous you scrap out, the more mucous the vocal cords pro­duce to pro­tect them­selves from all that clear­ing going on When the Mucous Army begins to resem­ble the National Guard, it’s time to stop all that destruc­tive clear­ing and try another tactic.

Joni Wil­son Voice Expert

 Also drop­ping the jaw in a relaxed “yawn” posi­tion will help relieve pres­sure in the vocal cord area. While in that yawn posi­tion say; “Haaaaah­h­hhh” slid­ing down your pitch from high­est to low­est. This is called a “yawn sigh” and it’s a great ten­sion reliever as well as a tool to help your vocal cords re– affirm their relaxed posi­tion so they can get back to their “real” job of cre­at­ing sound.

4.) The PMS Blues (“PMS also affects my voice? You are kid­ding me.”)

Obvi­ously this one only affects the ladies, but it’s a real prob­lem for women who depend on a strong voice for busi­ness. It is not an imag­ined prob­lem, guys! It’s so real that it is even writ­ten in the opera diva’s con­tract that she will not per­form while PMS-ing. It is taste­fully called “Grace Days”. This monthly vocal prob­lem is caused by a woman’s hor­mone lev­els get­ting out of bal­ance dur­ing those PMS days and not only effect­ing her emo­tions but also chang­ing the nat­ural size and tex­ture of her vocal cords. This causes a deep­en­ing in the voice and a loss of high notes. For the female speaker/singer the symp­toms are: vocal fatigue, hoarse­ness and some muf­fling of the voice. What to do, what to do? Sim­ply under­stand­ing that this annoy­ance is merely a part of being female, helps a woman han­dle it. Like the Opera Diva, if you can, sched­ule your major pre­sen­ta­tions around your per­sonal “Grace Days”, do it!

This is an amaz­ing web­site with very graphic pic­tures of unhealthy vocal cords. Hope­fully with good voice train­ing you will never need to see Dr gupta, but if you do…I’m very impressed with her!!!!

Voice Doc­tor Laryn­gol­o­gist Los Ange­les.

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

When I first heard Adel sing I was so impressed by her sul­try, blues, jazz vocals and so glad that a young singer could find an audi­ence in a gen­er­a­tion that was used to scream­ing vocals.

Then her cur­rent CD was launched with ‘Rollin in the Deep’ and ‘Some­one Like You’  jump­ing off the charts. I liked both songs but when I heard Adel’s “new” voice pulled tight to the top of her range, I knew that on tour she would be in BIG trou­ble. I bought tick­ets to her first con­cert in San Diego because I wanted to see how she was going to pull-off the power on those high notes ‘live.”

Well, long story short, the con­cert was can­celled because of “vocal problems”…DARN!!!!! Although Adel did come back to San Diego at a larger venue, her voice prob­lems forced the can­cel­la­tion of her tour and she had to have surgery on her vocal cords. Tomor­row night she will sing for the first time at the Grammy’s so I will con­tinue this after I hear her sing…  I can hardly wait. Stay tuned.

OK … So Steven Tyler’s Ren­di­tion of  Our National Anthem Wasn’t Per­fect, and He “Blew-out” a Few High Notes  as  Many Famous, and NOT so Famous, Singers Have Done Before Him …

By now, isn’t it obvi­ous to all of you crit­ics and Steven Tyler bas-hers that our National Anthem is  a hard song  to sing? Those of you who are com­par­ing Steven’s “Anthem” to Whit­ney Houston’s “Anthem” at the 1991 Super­bowl, which many believed set the stan­dard  for the “per­fect Anthem”, or the Jen­nifer Hud­son “flaw­less Anthem” at  Super Bowl XLIII,  are in need of a Big Voice Real­ity Check!

It’s com­mon knowl­edge that Whit­ney and Jennifer’s per­for­mances were pre-recorded in a big record­ing stu­dio with auto tune and then edited to per­fec­tion, long before the Super­bowl.  They, along with many of the singers on “The 10 Best National Anthems” list, were  lip-syncing their song. If you are not famil­iar with what the words, lip-sync means, it’s this: They mouthed the words to the National Anthem as the pre-recorded CD played over the arena sound sys­tem. They did not sing the National Anthem live. (This group also includes Faith Hill’s crit­i­cally acclaimed ver­sion at Super­bowl XXXIV.)

To be on the safe side, most ren­di­tions of Our National Anthem sung at impor­tant events, ARE pre-recorded to avoid vocal dis­as­ters and screw-ups.

It takes a true voice-pro and a ton of intesti­nal for­ti­tude to stand in front of thou­sands of fans,  micro­phone in hand, and sing LIVE with­out CD back-up, espe­cially when we live in an un-forgiving, elec­tron­i­cally enhanced soci­ety that hasn’t a clue how the human voice func­tions, or whether what they are hear­ing and lov­ing is live or “Memorex”.

Of course the edited, enhanced ver­sions are amaz­ing, but so is Steven Tyler’s singing on the Arrow­smith stu­dio albums. “There are too many vari­ables to go live.”, wisely stated Super­bowl pre-show pro­ducer Rickey Minor.  ”I would never rec­om­mend any artist go live because the slight­est glitch could dev­as­tate their per­for­mance.”  Which brings us …

… Back to Steven Tyler

For the media to con­sis­tently acclaim Steven’s anthem as the worst since Rosanne Barr’s dis­as­ter where she grabbed her crotch and spat on the ground, (which of course was ment to be funny…) is ridicu­lous.  Roseanne is NOT a singer, while Steven is one of the best! So…What DID hap­pen to Steven’s voice?

A Voice Coach’s Take on Steven Tyler’s National Anthem

Accord­ing to Arrow­smith band mem­ber Joe Perry, an amaz­ing singer in his own right, Steven had flown into Tampa to sing the National Anthem. after attend­ing 2 funer­als in Los Angles and was exhausted. The first thing I learned when I began teach­ing voice over 20 years ago was that the voice is not like a gui­tar or horn, that you can put in a closet when you are not using it. Your voice is happy when your happy, sad when your sad, sick when your sick and exhausted when your exhausted. The great Opera singer Pavarotti once said; “As a singer, if you have 5 good voice days in a month if you are lucky. The rest of the time, you must sing like you are hav­ing a good voice day, no mat­ter what is going on in your life. “

Emo­tions, hor­mones, cabin com­pres­sion in an air­plane, air con­di­tion­ing, what you eat and drink etc.etc.etc. The list of things that can affect your voice goes on and on. That’s why singing is such a bless­ing to the lis­tener, and a frus­tra­tion to the singer. We all want to sing our best, but there are times when out­side cir­cum­stances are so over­whelm­ing that no mat­ter how good we are, we suf­fer “vocal blowouts.”

As I watched Steven start to sing, I knew he was in trou­ble because he started too high which is so easy to do with the, oh so frus­trat­ing to sing, National Anthem. (I’m sure it would have been fine on one of those, “good voice days.”  For those of you who have been in Stevens shoes …  know­ing you are in deep trou­ble long before you get to the “rock­ets red glare…”, here is the great­est advise I can give when singing the National Anthem   a-cappella, (with­out music):

NEVER, Never  Get Your  Start­ing Note (Pitch)  by Singing the “Oh-woh. . . .”

It is the sec­ond word “Say” that you should use to set a safer key to sing in. If the word “Say”, as in; “Oh-woh SAY can you see…” is on the low­est note in your range…you will be just fine when you get to the high­est “Rock­ets Red Glare. . .” part of the song.  I swear, this has never failed to work with my stu­dents. Even those with­out big ranges.

I did a one-minute video for One minute U on YouTube a few years ago and have received hun­dreds of com­ments from peo­ple who told me; “This tip has saved my life many times!” So I know it works…

Please me know your suc­cess or if it doesn’t work for you, let me know and we will fig­ure it out together. Oh … and if any of you know Steven, will you please tell him the key word is SAY! In the mean time don’t be so quick to bash a good singer who fal­ters, unless you have; “Walked (or sung) in their shoes.”

Here is the link to: Vimeo How to Sing the National Anthem in the Right Key.