This is something that every singer can relate to. Whether it’s legitimate illness, or hayfever, bad night sleep, excess revelry the night before, or something else entirely, we have ALL suffered from bad voice days. Worse still, we are all going to continue to experience bad voice days in the future. With that in mind, consider the following: Continue reading “Bad Voice Day?”
How different is your singing from your speaking voice?
One of the key principles that our technique is built on is using the natural calibration of your speaking voice (i.e. chest voice) as a roadmap to build our singing voice. The greater the deviation from our speaking voice co-ordination/calibration (evidenced by a different sound), the greater the level of issues singers tend to encounter.
Such issues can be physical, acoustic, and/or psychological. Let’s get into the first one now… Continue reading “How different is your singing from your speaking voice?”
Why are singers needing voice surgery?
Another vocal coach shared this (older) article this week regarding singers needing voice surgery (embedded below), and a paragraph in the middle jumped out at me:
“Soul singer John Legend, 33, said he has grown mindful of the importance of looking after his voice.
“I’ve certainly been no stranger to having issues with my voice,” he said. “My first year performing was the worst year because I didn’t know how to pace myself, and once I started to understand how it worked, I started to pace myself better.” Continue reading “Why are singers needing voice surgery?”
Recover your singing voice after illness – 6 Expert Tips
Knowing how to recover your singing voice after illness can be a royal pain in the bum. Singing after illness or after bouts of vocal fatigue (especially when viruses, colds, sinus issues, or mucous-heavy bugs have hit you) can frustrate and annoy even the most skilled singer.
Put simply, there is a certain amount you cannot control — you often have to let an illness run its course. However, there are also things you can do to minimise the derailing effect of symptoms during that course. There are also simple things you can do to ensure your voice is as good as it can be once the virus has finished its run.
In this post, I’ll take you through six key tips I use as part of my regimen to:
- Get my voice through a tricky throat virus or cold-based sickness
- Alleviate how the symptoms can further aggravate the voice
1. Drink more water, reduce diuretics like caffeine
When you’re in the full throes of a bug, you need to stay hydrated. Particularly with excess mucous, the more water you provide your body with, the easier it will be to shift. A doctor once advised me that the reason flu capsules make you feel better so quickly is not because of the paracetamol or other drugs, but because of the caffeine. It naturally makes you feel better when you’re rough, so go ahead and enjoy a coffee or tea.
However, at the tail end — when it’s the last bit of mucous left — caffeine’s diuretic effect really affects my ability to shift it. The mucous gets thick, difficult to clear, and promotes extra coughing. Try to reduce caffeine, coffee, tea, and soft drinks, especially as you recover.
2. Sleep and vocal rest
When you get sick, or hit the wall with vocal fatigue, you need rest. Exercise and general energy expenditure prevent recovery. You can’t heal if you’ve already drained your reserves (cortisol, adrenaline, etc.).
In one recovery, I forced myself to bed at 9pm every night and added a 2–3 hour nap in the day. A lot of people return to singing far too quickly, before they’ve even recovered.
So if you get sick, seriously — go to bed.
But what if your night-time rest is disrupted? Or the ailment worsens at night? That’s where the next point comes in.
3. Beware of post-nasal drip
This one is a colossal pain. The cold can often be minor, but as they end, post-nasal drip begins. Infection remnants lingers in the sinuses and drip onto your vocal folds and chest at night. This can lead to a heavy chest in the morning, but can often create morning voice issues, swelling and dysfunction, etc.
I had a particularly bad instance of this a few years ago. I’d go to bed with a normal voice, wake up in the night with a burning throat, and rise in the morning with a swollen, wrecked voice. It felt like I’d screamed myself hoarse each night.
It took nearly a week to recognise the signs and intervene. This was so damaging I had to cancel over a week of sessions. To illustrate just how bad this is, I’ve recovered to a functional level from laryngitis in two days. Post-nasal drip was significantly worse.
What helps:
- Stay hydrated and rest (see points 1 and 2)
- Prop yourself up at night with extra pillows to reduce drip landing on vocal folds
- Nasal irrigation — clears infected material; only with sterilised water, never straight from the tap
- Steroidal nasal sprays — e.g. Beconase (Beclametasone dipropionate), used sparingly and per label instructions
Standard disclaimer: I am not giving medical advice, just sharing what I personally use. Post-nasal drip can be minor, or it can wreck your voice. Take action if it persists.
If you’d like help fixing your voice that’s been badly affected by illness, and putting together a bespoke plan to help you keep your voice on track, you can book an initial consultation with me right here.
4. Reduce mucous-stimulating foods and inflammation triggers
Your vocal folds have a natural mucosal lining, but throat bugs often lead to excess production. This creates that gungy horror in your throat. Don’t add fuel to the fire: milk, eggs, chocolate, yoghurt, and similar foods can make it worse for many people.
Inflammation is also an issue, so avoid excessively hot food or anything that mildly triggers your allergies. It takes experimentation to know what matters for you.
Extra tip: A chemist client who worked on Boots’ chesty cough mixture told me the key active is guaifenesin. A 400mg dose helps thin mucous, making it easier to clear.
5. Stop coughing so damn much!
We all cough and clear our throats far too often. Constant coughing is damaging. Instead, carry a bottle of water — when you feel the urge, take a sip to soothe instead.
Sometimes you will have to cough, but it’s rarer than you think. Once you stop over-coughing, your voice recovers faster and stays less irritated.
6. Lip bubbles and semi-occluded exercises
Lip bubbles are a type of semi-occluded exercise. They create gentle back-pressure on the larynx and are low-impact. If I can vocalise, I use them to:
- Keep my voice ticking over during illness
- Shake off mucous gently without coughing
- Rehabilitate the voice as it returns
One winter I had a throat cold that lingered for over a month. Once the worst passed, I spent a full day rebuilding my voice. 60% of that practice was lip bubbles or similar exercises, retraining my voice to move correctly. They’ve also helped with post-nasal drip recovery.
Wrapping up
These are my six main tips for coaxing a voice back after a bad throat bug. They’re what I find most helpful, and most singers find at least some of them useful too. You may discover other strategies with experience.
I don’t personally subscribe to singers’ teas or throat pastilles. For me, rest, diet, respect for your body, and correct application of technique are enough to return to singing after illness.
If you’re finding you regularly struggle with illness or wear-and-tear taking out for your voice for long periods, I’d love to help you rectify that. Book in an initial consultation to start work with me and we can address those issues. We can build a simple repeatable routine to help get your voice back on track – and keep it there.
Five Famous Singers with Vocal Problems
From Nodules and Granulomas, to Haemorrhages, and Surgery Complications
This week I thought it would be interesting to look at the kind of issues that can befall singers who neglect their vocal health, nodules and otherwise. Now some of the following are due to particularly hazardous vocal technique (or lack thereof). However, even with half-decent or great technique, if you over-use your voice and give yourself inadequate rest you can encounter similar issues.
John Mayer – Granuloma
A few years ago John Mayer had to cancel an extensive tour to undergo surgery for a granuloma.
John Mayer is a self-taught singer, and if you watch interviews with him at Berklee College of Music he talks about the search to find a great ‘base’ tone for his voice. Sadly, this tone (as cool as it is) is not a healthy form of phonation full stop, let alone for extended periods. Granuloma is a swelling/inflammation of the cartilage at the back of the vocal cords, whereas nodules occur on the cords themselves (see below). However the growth of this inflamed tissue can interfere with vocal function and cause a great deal of pain and dysphonia (i.e. can’t pitch correctly).
In my opinion, from a technical perspective John Mayer has always been way too light with his chest voice. I’m talking purely technically and NOT stylistically. This results in a LOT of excess air passing over the vocal cords (which you can hear in almost every song). Functionally speaking, this results in insufficient stability throughout his voice, which then leads to strain at the top of his (chest) voice when he tries to gun it on the higher notes.
He also constantly flips between a light insufficiently stable (but regularly strained) chest co-ordination and his artistic use of falsetto. This kind of vocal habit can really wreak havoc on a voice. This is because the cords are constantly being strained and excessively taut one second, then being suddenly let go of like letting go of an elastic band the next. Such a constant flip-flopping can create a lot of wear on the voice and the connective tissues. Add into that an intensive gigging schedule and you’ve got a recipe for vocal disaster.
Adele & Sam Smith – vocal cord haemorrhage
A haemorrhage is a particularly unpleasant issue. It’s where the tissue of the vocal cords themselves rupture and bleed all over themselves. This also creates swelling, much like any other cut in the human body.
In Adele’s case, you can hear the amount of sheer pressure she uses when she sings. In fact, if you listen to her recorded version of ‘Rolling in the Deep’ you can hear her voice trembling to try and hold onto that very first high note in the chorus. This is indicative of a singer using significantly excessive amounts of air pressure to generate their sound and trying to retain that chest-like sound as high as possible. Sam Smith has vocal habits/behaviour a little closer to that of John Mayer.
Singing in a kind of ‘crafted yelling’ co-ordination or repeatedly cranking up the volume without adequate technique or rest periods in between is remarkably bad for the voice. I can’t even begin to describe how damaging it is, even for short periods of time, let alone entire concerts night after night. Continued misuse and OVER-use of the voice in this way is what resulted in this damage to her voice.
Michael Buble – nodules
A year or so ago, Michael Buble announced he had to cancel at least part of his tour to have vocal cord surgery to remove nodules. Nodules are like blisters/callouses on your vocal cords. These generally occur as a soft localised swelling on one cord initially, then hardening to a hard nodule (like a blister), and often result in a matching nodule on the opposite cord as the initiating nodule rubs against the other vocal cord during phonation. Soft nodules can occur quite regularly with even loud shouting at events, football matches, concerts etc, and so are not uncommon per se (though we should try to avoid even these). However, prolonged singing on nodules or adema (swelling) is what tends to lead to hard nodules.
Now while Michael Buble is not perfect technically, he doesn’t sing in ridiculous keys. He also doesn’t sing with dramatically excessive volume, nor does he experiment with vocal distortion. He is relatively clean when he sings and doesn’t jam his voice as hard as it will go as often as he can. In short, he’s not perfect, but he is a great example of what can happen when even as a singer with half-decent technique. Over-singing (gigs night after night!) can just create that level of wear in the voice. Gigging every night with inadequate rest can still lead to serious vocal issues.
Julie Andrews – Nodules, then surgery complications
Julie Andrews is an unusual case. She went in to have nodules removed, but the surgeon allegedly botched the operation. This resulted in a piece of her vocal cords no longer being there or being available in the way it once was. My recollection from conversations with other coaches was that the surgeon slipped during the operation, but I cannot find a reliable source to corroborate this. In any case, surgery is a serious route to go down, and the consequences never leave the voice the same again. Once nodules reach the hardened stage, they must be removed surgically, whereas soft nodules (the ones that are “merely” a localised swelling) can reduce with rest and corrective exercises.
The Upshot is…
You only get one voice – be smart about how you use it and look after it.
If you’re straining, stop doing it. If you’re repeatedly straining, DEFINITELY stop doing it. Whether you’re being too heavy and aggressive (like Adele previously), or light and flipping to falsetto (like John Mayer), or even whether your technique is reasonably together but you’re singing without adequate rest (like Michael Buble), you have GOT to respect the inherent requirements of how the voice is meant to work and how it’s meant to recover.
Learn More: Related Articles
If you want to learn more about vocal health and voice issues, you may enjoy the following articles:
Shouting masquerading as singing: Why so many singers are just yelling
Why vocal problems so regularly derail careers, permanently
Vocal Health Issues
My Singing Voice Hurts: 5 Habits for Vocal Health
Vocal Longevity: The Icarus Effect
Why do I keep losing my voice: Overuse, Misuse and Abuse
The Seriousness of Vocal Fold Nodules
Vocal Longevity: The Icarus Effect
At the time of writing this article, I had one particular client who gigged regularly down in London. One of the issues they raised was that they feel that longevity and robustness is a serious problem for them. If they were doing a recording session, they felt they could deliver a handful of good takes and then the voice would just get weaker from that point on. If they were doing a string of gigs, they may even feel like they need months off to recover from them.
This performer’s age is relatively young, so it’s not an age related issue. They can hit all the notes they are trying to hit. They are also not overly aggressive with their singing, if anything they are slightly light with their voice. And they are not alone in this struggle – I regularly get experienced singers in suffering the same issues.
So what’s going on?
Many singers suffer from these issues to one extent or another, and it is increasingly common with younger singers. This is for reasons I’m going to explain. The best illustration I can give, is the Greek tragedy of Icarus.
The Icarus Effect
In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who was imprisoned with his son. Daedalus built them each a set of wings made of feathers and wax to enable them to escape and to fly out of their prison.
During the flight, Icarus was amazed at what he could do with his wings and flew up high, far too close to the sun for far too long. This was despite warnings from his father. The prolonged exposure to heat from the sun melted the wax holding the feathers in place. Icarus’s wings fell apart, and he plummeted to his death.
The issue with many singers of any age is that they over-estimate their ability.
This is especially true with those gifted with a half decent instrument, but often a trap that hobbyists fall into. They keep running their voice into the red, biting off more than they can chew, until… well… they can’t do it anymore.
To be clear, I’m not talking about just merely hitting the notes – I’m talking about something several dimensions deeper than that.
– What does it take to hit a reasonably high note just ONCE in a song? Probably challenging but doable.
– What does it take to sing a final chorus where the whole melody is relatively high? Hmmm, tiring, but manageable.
– What about if the whole song sits in that range? Oh… that’s getting really exhausting.
– What about if you’ve got a whole set of songs that sits in that range? Errrrrr….
– What if you have got multiple gigs a week, with a whole set of songs in that range? Uh-oh.
But THIS is exactly what many singers do. They realise they can sing a high note once, maybe several times, then suddenly everything becomes about shoehorning every song into that area of their voice, without addressing how LONG they can sustain that kind of demand of their voice.
The issue is NOT how high someone can sing.
I’ve met untrained singers with great initial aptitude for higher notes all the time. The issue is NOT even how often they can sing those high notes. If there is a portion of the song that is lower that the singer can retreat to for comfort and ease between climaxes, then repeated high notes are really not too exhausting.
Why Icarus ACTUALLY fell…
Icarus didn’t just fall because of how close he flow to the sun, he met his fate because of how LONG he spent that close to the sun. It’s the duration at a particular level of exposure that we’re talking about.
If a singer insists on placing songs in keys where EVERY note requires application of effort, even if it’s only a tiny amount, the resulting vocal condition places the demand squarely in the court of how LONG can they spend hitting those high notes… i.e. how long can they spend in the sun without their wings melting.
THIS is an altogether different parameter to measure your singing ability against. It is absolutely possible to spend a long time in those places (correctly!), but it’s an ability that takes a long time to develop and control.
Truth be told, most OVER-estimate their ability in this regard. Most tend to be able to hit a note without strain a few times in practice, or look back on a gig and think “wow, I was NAILING the high notes at that gig”, and they become convinced they’re able to sing well there. I see this time and time again.
Some examples
In the opera world, Pavarotti talked about how challenging it is to keep singing those high notes and how the body naturally finds it harder to keep the system perfect the longer you are “up there’. You can read about this in the book ‘Great Singers on Great Singing’ by Jerome Hines. In the pop world, you can look up Bruno Mars bootlegs on YouTube where the man with the biggest and most consistent live range of the early 21st century places songs just around his first bridge, or even just in chest voice. The Take-Home Message Take your songs down several keys. Assess yourself AND your set-lists and the songs you sing. Your primary goal is to sound GOOD – don’t compromise on that. If you can’t sprint a whole marathon, if you can’t lift maximum weights in the gym with no rest, then you can’t sing every song at the tippy-top of your range – you will wreck yourself. You must pace yourself, and make sure you don’t spend too long “up there” taxing your voice. If you want to learn more about vocal health and voice issues, you may enjoy the following articles:
If you are a singer who is repeatedly facing vocal health and longevity issues in relation to periods of singing, it is very likely you are flying too close to the sun, hence my advice to you will be the same as to the client I had the other day.Learn More: Related Articles
Shouting masquerading as singing: Why so many singers are just yelling
Why vocal problems so regularly derail careers, permanently
Famous Singers with Voice Problems
Vocal Health Issues
My Singing Voice Hurts: 5 Habits for Vocal Health
Why do I keep losing my voice: Overuse, Misuse and Abuse
The Seriousness of Vocal Fold Nodules
Why do I keep losing my voice?
Why Do I Keep Losing My Voice?
Most people lose their voice due to one or more of the following: abuse (e.g. shouting), overuse (e.g. too much vocal activity without rest), or misuse (e.g. unhealthy speaking habits). Identifying and adjusting these patterns is key to recovery and long-term vocal health.
“Why do I keep losing my voice?”
As well as…
- “Why am I constantly hoarse?”
- “I feel like I’m never getting back to full strength vocally”
The truth is, losing your voice can be caused by something very small and simple, but is a serious, serious thing whatever your job.
I meet a lot of speakers (e.g. church preachers, business-people, teachers, call-centre staff, etc) who are losing their voice on a regular basis throughout the year.
Why is this?
This is due to abuse, overuse, and/or misuse.
When we do any or all of these things we cause a swelling in the vocal cords — an edema. If we are not careful, this general swelling can become localised inflammation such as nodules… which can carry serious consequences (read more about nodules here).
The best way to tackle losing your voice (before even talking about voice therapy) is to identify where you are abusing, misusing or overusing your voice in the week.
IMPORTANT DEFINITION: A comfortable speaking volume is the volume you would use when holding a conversation with one other person, in a completely silent room. This is your voice’s natural weight and calibration showing through. Bear that in mind as we read the following:
AREA 1 – Abuse
This is often the easiest one to spot. If you spend a lot of time at football matches or clubs, then you’re going to be shouting. It only takes a few minutes of intense shouting to cause noticeable damage to your vocal cords.
Even a soft yell or aggressive speaking style used for dramatic effect can wear on your cords over time.
Mark’s Suggestion: Reduce your weekly vocal load
Look for regular events where you’re raising your voice and reduce the frequency, duration, or intensity where possible.
AREA 2 – Overuse
This one is trickier. Many people don’t realise how much they’re using their voice. You might not be shouting, but you may be speaking at length over multiple days without rest.
Mark’s Suggestion: Establish and change problematic patterns
Track when your voice starts to fatigue. Look for back-to-back vocal-heavy days and reduce usage where possible. Rest is critical.
AREA 3 – Misuse
Misuse refers to how you’re using your voice, even if the volume and duration aren’t extreme. Speaking with excess breathiness, glottal tension, or vocal fry can wear out your voice over time.
Mark’s Suggestion: Establish a base-line of your voice, and stick to it
Compare your neutral speaking voice to how you sound during work or stress. You may be deviating from healthy norms without realising it.
Summary
Question: Why do I keep losing my voice?
Answer: Abuse, overuse and misuse
Revisit your week and assess these three areas. With a few simple changes, most people see massive improvements within weeks—and lasting resilience within a few months.
Try following the above suggestions, and look after your voice — it’s the only one you’ve got!
Learn More: Related Articles
The Seriousness of Vocal Fold Nodules
Last night, I was contacted by someone I taught briefly, and this chat brought up the seriousness of vocal fold nodules.
This person was someone I taught for a short period of time whilst collaborating with a local dance and drama school in Nottingham. This singer successfully auditioned and secured a place at a major National dance school, where they have been for a little while now. I’m being intentionally vague about whether they are male or female, or which school they are studying at… I’ll leave you to read between the lines.
This student has a nice voice, but ultimately an untrained one. The reason they contacted me was that it was confirmed they have nodules, and they wanted to know what they could do about it, whether coaching could help, etc, as they had received little help from their instructors they were studying under.
Before we go any further, let’s talk about nodules and what they actually are.
Nodules are the result of swelling of the vocal fold, typically due to overuse/misuse – i.e. ABUSE. Excessive use or abuse of the vocal folds can lead to redness/swelling of the folds (swelling = vocal edema), which (if they are continued to be sung upon) can lead to localised swelling (like the formation of blisters on your hands – soft nodules), and can become hard and fibrous (like the formation of callouses – hard nodules).
The progressive nature of this interferes with correct use of the vocal folds, and corrupts the sound you here from the vocal folds.
Vocal Edema – Like swelling of any other part of the body, if you catch it at that stage, adequate rest can return it to normal. Most of us have had this, maybe during a bad respiratory infection, excessive coughing, shouting at a sporting event, talking too loudly at a party or a pub/club, etc. With adequate rest, you can recover in a relatively short space of time, but if you keep using your voice despite this, it can progress towards…
Soft Nodules – This is not an official term, it’s just to help you realise there are certain progression levels of nodules. If I had to give an analogy, these are like the beginning of blisters on the palm of your hand as they are beginning to form. This is obviously a more advanced condition than just straight swelling, but despite this, adequate rest and some care/medication can reduce this, and a return to normal can be achieved.
Continued singing on the folds is NOT a good idea, as this can lead to…
Hard Nodules – UNLIKE swelling or blisters, and very much like callouses on the rest of your body, these do NOT disappear with rest. The fibrous material that these turn into need to be cut off surgically, and there are risks and long-term hazards with dealing with this. Trust me, this is serious. Which then obviously begs the question of…
How do you avoid nodules as a singer?
As a normal person whose job doesn’t involve singing or raising their voice, adequate rest for their voice and simple exercises like Ingo Titze’s semi-occluded straw exercise is massively helpful.
For singers who just sing at home/very occasional gigs, or maybe normal people who don’t sing but who use their voice a fair bit in their day to day job (e.g. teachers, call centre staff, etc) the above combined with avoiding excessive volume of speaking/singing on a regular basis will help.
For those who sing regularly, train in a dance school, gig in a band, or perhaps those who hold down a job behind noisy bars or clubs, etc, more serious measures should be taken… because once you start down the road of swelling, without immediate rest, the progressive nature of swelling > soft nodules > hard nodules tends to take over.
What can coaching do for people with nodules?
If they are hard nodules, as far as I am aware, there is nothing that can be done by a coach to improve the situation… not until the nodules are removed surgically. The fibrous mass that defines the hardness of hard nodules is just too solid to shift by the body’s natural processes.
For those who’ve had hard nodules removed or who have even serious but still soft nodules, rehabilitation can still be done.
Frankly, if nodules occur even once, just standard speech therapy is (in my opinion and experience) rarely enough. Most speech therapists deal with SPEECH, the demands of which are substantially lower than the demands of high intensity singing. What they often prescribe are great for restoring a speaking voice for someone in whom the nodules were a freak accident. But for singers, they will be given a lot of vocal rest, some limited rehabilitation, and then they will go right back to doing what they did before.
The nodule is not the disease, it’s the symptom.
It’s the symptom of a voice that is not capable of surviving under the demands the singer chooses to place on it. It is the state of the voice that is the problem… and that is something that a skilled vocal coach can help dramatically with.
For example, with lower level edema and some small soft nodules, the voice can often feel a lot weightier than normal, which only serves to aggravate the voice as it is used even minutely throughout the day… only making things worse and prolonging recovery. A way that I have found successful in assisting recovery is to get the singer OUT of that part of their voice with various functional stretching exercises (prescribed on a per singer basis, dependent on the state of their voice and what they can cope with in their damaged state) helps to lift their voice out of the bottom end. What does this mean? Whereas before the very symptom created a vicious cycle where the voice couldn’t recover properly, this cycle is broken, and assisted recovery is possible.
Another thing this does, is help to retrain the singer to accept more correct vocal function. Typically singers that develop nodules sing too hard and too heavy for too long, not allowing the right resonances to happen as they ascend, and that fatigues the voice dramatically. As such, by introducing the singer to an extremely light but ultimately correct connection from bottom to top and back down again (where possible), helps them to accept a more functionally correct and ultimately sustainable singing approach once they have recovered…
In truth, if the singer doesn’t retrain even a little, once the nodules are gone, it is extremely likely they will just occur again, because nothing has really changed.
If you ARE concerned you have nodules, book in a visit with your ENT. If you DO have nodules, and they have said speech therapy will be necessary, please do drop me a line – if this has happened before (and if you want to make sure it doesn’t happen again) retraining to some extent will go a LONG way to helping this.
Learn More: Related Articles
If you want to learn more about vocal health and voice issues, you may enjoy the following articles:
Shouting masquerading as singing: Why so many singers are just yelling
Why vocal problems so regularly derail careers, permanently
Famous Singers with Voice Problems
Vocal Health Issues
My Singing Voice Hurts: 5 Habits for Vocal Health
Vocal Longevity: The Icarus Effect
Why do I keep losing my voice: Overuse, Misuse and Abuse