Singing Louder Without Straining: A “Need to Know” Guide

Many singers wonder: how loud should I be singing? This hub gathers expert advice and practical tips on vocal volume, projection, stamina, and control—without ever pushing or straining the voice.

Explore Articles in This Cluster

• How Loud Should I Be Singing? – Discover the ideal singing volume for most singers and why singing louder isn’t always better.
• Sing louder without straining – three aspects that the pros understand.
• Shouting vs Singing – Learn the difference between healthy projection and shouting, and how to avoid vocal tension.
• Why Do I Keep Losing My Voice? – Understand overuse, misuse, and how loud singing habits may be damaging your voice.
• Vocal Health Issues – Strategies for maintaining a healthy, strong voice when singing frequently or loudly.
• The Icarus Effect – A long-term view on building vocal stamina and volume safely over time.
• Changing an alto into a soprano – how we can transform a low voice into a higher voice.

Common Questions About Singing Volume

Is it bad to sing too quietly?

Yes — overly quiet singing can cause tension and airflow issues, just as singing louder than you can handle is bad for you. The general advice is to aim for a natural “speech-level” volume. We don’t want to remain at that level forever, but this is where we start singers. You can learn more about this by reading more about such a speech-level approach.

How can I sing louder without hurting my voice?

It starts with vocal balance. Build coordination first, then power will follow naturally without strain. Have a read of this article to learn how to sing louder without straining.

Should I push harder for more volume?

No — pushing harder often leads to constriction. True volume comes from resonance and balance, not brute force.

I feel like I’m stuck with a lower voice – can I become an soprano/tenor?

Absolutely! This is all a matter of training not just your range, but your tessitura. I work with clients on this all the time, and have turned dozens of baritones into tenors, and altos into sopranos. If you’d like to learn more about this process you can have a read about how we change an alto into a soprano.

If you’d like to experience this in your own voice, I’d love to work with you. You can book in via my booking form using the button below.

It’s been a brutal winter for colds, chest infections, flu, and many other illnesses. Sessions since the New Year have often involved putting singers’ voices back together after illness. I thought I’d walk you through what I typically do. Then we’ll conclude with how our process of voice training engenders a ‘bulletproof’ voice.

My first client of the year had been suffering from an awful chest infection. They had been ill for 3-4 weeks, and coughing up mucus throughout that period. In our session, they’d said they’d tried the usual warm-up of lip bubbles the week before, but anything more demanding than that was just a train-wreck.

So what did we do?

Warm-ups
We took it slow, starting with our usual warm-up, but kept it light and breezy. We didn’t try to access their whole range all in one pass, but instead started with a short pass. Then we took a rest.

After that we did another pass. Going a little deeper, and a little higher than before, then another short rest.

Then one more pass unlocked the whole range, before another rest. I enquired as to how it felt at each step, to ensure that (despite it sounding fine), everything felt OK to continue. It’s a slow warming up process when we want to solve how to sing when sick. Continue reading “How to sing when sick or at half-capacity”

Well, it’s that time of year again. Every single day in my vocal coaching studio, SOMEONE is coming in with a cold or illness. Bugs of all shapes and sizes are going round, and even as a professional vocal coach and singing teacher, I am not immune to bugs that affect my voice.

As a professional voice user, I have to use my voice every day. As such, I’ve had to learn how to navigate and advise on how different illnesses affect our voices, and develop protocols for getting back to vocal health. In this article I want to discuss the different broad categories of vocal illness, how to recognise them, how they affect you, and different ways to address them.

I only recently sent out this regular article on how to bounce back after illness. I don’t like re-sending articles so I thought we’d go over the different illnesses that you can catch that affect your voice, how to distinguish them, and some suggestions for attending to them.

NOTE: I am not a medical doctor, and I’m also trying to cover a lot in a very short space. As such, I’m going to talk in broad generalities to get the message across. We’ll group more similar things together, and discuss the range of symptoms you’ll generally get. Almost all of these will benefit from paracetamol to take down infection/inflammation.

If you’re struggling with your voice – whether due to ill health or not – I’d love to help you fix those issues.

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1. Colds / Sinusitis

We’ve all had colds, so I don’t need to linger on this. Runny nose, snot/mucus either out the nostrils, or down the back of your throat (post-nasal drip). Some facial pain, swollen eyes, etc. If it lasts a while or gets bad, it can become sinusitis, i.e. an infection of the sinuses. This can sometimes requires antibiotics to aid recovery.

Suggestions: rest, lots of water, saline solution (e.g. Sterimar nasal spray) to help cleanse out the nose. Note that you won’t be able to access the sinus cavities directly with nasal spray, but it can help them to drain.

You can sing while suffering from a mild cold, but it may not be so enjoyable. The post-nasal drip can cause secondary inflammation in the throat or vocal folds, hence why the nasal spray is so helpful to reduce these symptoms.

2. Sore throat / Pharyngitis

Your pharynx is one of the chambers of the throat, hence why this is a sore throat. Like cold vs sinusitis, sore throat is mild infection, pharyngitis is when it becomes a seated infection. Antibiotics may be required to shift the latter. You’ll generally get coloured mucus if it’s an infection.

Suggestions: rest, lots of water. Gargling with a salt-water rinse can be helpful (boil some water, put a table spoon of salt in it, take a sip when it’s drinkable, gargle repeatedly and spit). Depending on how sore the throat is, I find cool/lightly iced water to be incredibly helpful to take down the inflammation. Hot drinks can FEEL good in the moment, but it’s like applying heat to inflamed skin, and tends to prolong the issue.

Singing on a sore throat can be done, but as the pharynx is responsible for shaping vowels, it can often be a wonky experience, and really quite sore when you wouldn’t expect it to be.

3. Vocal fold inflammation / Laryngitis

This is by far the worst. This is when your larynx and vocal folds get an infection. This is a BRUTAL illness and you should absolutely not try to sing until you’re well out of the other side. Your voice will be exceptionally low, everything will feel swollen and sore when you speak. Sometimes there’s a mild fever or fatigue, but it’s often just a brutally swollen voice. The mucus from this can be relatively little, and usually dry in the morning (my own experience).

Suggestions: rest, lots of vocal rest. Gargling with salt-water rinse CAN help, but liquids can’t touch your vocal folds directly (just the top of your larynx when swallowing), so it’s of limited use. I’d suggest cool/iced water per point 2. Again, don’t try to sing on this. You just need to rest.

4. Chest/Respiratory infection / Bronchitis / Pneumonia

These can be upper and/or lower respiratory infection. Generally you’ll feel a tight chest, some crackling or wheezing when breathing, and eventually you’ll be coughing up mucus. Upper or lower refers more to where the infection is seated. Often you’ll feel fatigued and a fever, more tired than usual, though sometimes it can just be like a low-seated cough/cold.

Suggestions: rest, lots of vocal rest, lots of water. You need to cough up the mucus to prevent a more deep-seated infection (e.g. pneumonia/pleurisy), but the act of excessive or aggressive coughing can cause more damage than the infection itself. Hence, try to hydrate the mucus with lots of water, and shift in controlled moments, rather than heavily throughout the day.

Can you sing on a chest infection? If it’s a light one, minimal mucus, minimal inflammation affecting the rest of your voice, then possibly… but the instrument may behave a bit weirdly, feel a bit unpredictable, and the damage you can inflict from bludgeoning your way through a song can make things far worse.

Conclusion

Generally, colds are about the only illness I regularly do some singing on. Sore throats I can get away with, only when they are on the milder end. Laryngitis is a total game-over situation. Chest infections can vary, but generally I just leave well alone.

Running theme is lots of rest, lots of water, vocal rest, etc. Paracetamol is a good option for taking down inflammation, fever, etc. Cooler drinks are good for taking down inflammation locally as well, though extremely cold/iced water can often trigger coughing fits or make the mucus harder to shift.

Warm/hot drinks generate nice vapours that are good for shifting stubborn mucus, though be careful not to drink them SO hot they irritate the already angry tissue.

I sincerely hope you all stay well and don’t need any of the advice I’ve listed here this winter. But if you do, I also hope you get better and back to singing soon!

I wrote this article a little while ago on how sleep benefits your voice and your brain.

I thought it also worth discussing how poor sleep impacts your voice negatively, so you can recognise the signs. I’ve copied the relevant bits from my other article, so we can make reference to the consequences that occur when we don’t sleep well.

1. Mucus

When we use our voice every day, it suffers wear and tear. A bit like if you work in a job that keeps you on your feet all day every day, your legs acclimatise, but they are tired by the end of the day.

The vocal folds are remarkably small, so the tiniest tear or swelling can yield a tremendous difference in vocal quality and (most importantly) how your voice feels to you. If you want to reach high notes with no strain or difficulty, even a little bit of swelling or vocal fatigue that hasn’t recovered from the day before can just shut down any chance of that.

The chief protection mechanism our body deploys against wear and tear, is mucus. The vocal folds are meant to have a thin layer of mucus on them to protect them during normal wear and tear, but if we don’t get the necessary recovery, the body deploys MORE mucus.

This is why after even one night’s poor sleep, you may notice your voice is gunkier than normal the next day. Continue reading “How Poor Sleep Impacts Your Voice”

How loud should I be singing? The Ideal Volume for Singing

This week, in my vocal coaching studio in Nottingham, I’ve had some VERY different singers in for back-to-back sessions. Some have had lighter voices with an abundance of range and ease, while others are weightier voices that operate well at much higher intensity levels. All need to know how loud they should be singing.

It struck me that I’ve not often talked about the ideal volume for singing and practicing singing. So let’s briefly go over what it involves.

Pssst… This article forms part of our “Beginner Singing Technique” collection of lessons. Click here to dive deeper.

Short Version

Singing around the volume of your natural speaking voice is about right. It’s the Goldilocks zone — not too loud, not too quiet.

The key word is around the volume of your natural speaking voice, because…

Continue reading “How loud should I be singing? What is the ideal volume for singing?”