Guide to Singing whilst Self-isolated

Well, what a week this has turned out to be, not just for those in the UK but all over the world. It’s been great to work with everyone online, especially for those who are brand new to online lessons.

As many of us are doing our bit by staying at home, I thought as someone who spends most of his day teaching and making music from his home studio, I’d share some great resources, suggestions, and advice on how to make the most of singing at home. Continue reading “Guide to Singing whilst Self-isolated”

February 22, 2020November 5, 2025

5 Ways Sleep Affects Your Singing Voice, Your Brain, and Your Body

5 Reasons Why Sleep Boosts Your Singing, Your Brain, and Your Body

I suffered from insomnia for about 2 years. More specifically I suffered with a type of sleep onset insomnia (problems with getting to sleep) called ‘sleep anxiety’.

In short, it means you get physiologically and/or mentally stressed about going to bed. It can arise for many reasons, but for me I’d had around 10-14 days of intensely disrupted sleep.

Initially I’d just been ill with a bad stomach bug. But after that it was just one thing after another that prevented me sleeping properly. When I say I wasn’t sleeping well, I was getting around 2-4 hours of sleep a night, in 20-30 minute chunks. If you’ve ever experienced this, you’ll know how brutal surviving on that little sleep can be.

Getting anxious

This inability to get consistent sleep led to a state of anxiety around sleep. This is where one gets irrationally stressed as bed time rolls around. They get stressed that they will not sleep, which in itself prevents sleep. The stress association was with my own bed, at night. I could nap in the day because it wasn’t night time, and I could sleep when staying over at someone else’s house because it wasn’t my bed. It was weird, but pretty debilitating.

I would go to bed at 9/10pm, and not sleep til 3/4am. Over the course of 6-8 months I managed to claw back getting to sleep at 12am/1am, after which the anxiety started to subside. If you can get any sleep, then the anxiety starts to abate. However, even now, if I get worked up around bedtime, I will end up struggling to sleep. I don’t stress about that so much now, but I’m far from care-free about sleep as I once was.

The reason I share this is so that if you too struggle with getting a solid and restful sleep routine, you know where I’m coming from.

What I learned during this time

Through this experience I did a lot of research about sleep, what it’s for, how to get more of it, etc. Worse than the general fatigue, I found I was fighting to keep my voice “above water” for that initial 6-8 months. Lack of sleep was killing my ability to improve my own voice, and massively hurting my ability to recover from hard voice days or illnesses.

We all know sleep is important for rest, but people often underestimate or underappreciate just how much sleep does for you. I wanted to feature five things that sleep is essential for, especially when it comes to keeping your voice in the best possible condition.

1. Recovery from daily wear

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. Similarly if you sit at a desk all day, you’re not doing tonnes, but you know you’ve been in a certain posture most of the day by the aches you feel at the end.

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. This can often lead to frustration with one’s voice, and lead to a downward spiral both mentally and technically for singers. I certainly experienced this during my period of insomnia.

Sleep is essential for recovery from normal wear and tear. Whether that’s full on injuries, or just the normal abrasions of every day life, you need this to reset and refresh your voice.

2. Healing from illness

You could argue this is just point 1 again, but really it’s point 1 at a whole other level.

Normal wear and tear takes one level of rest and recovery. Illness takes a whole other level. Sleep is when your body does most of its work healing your wounds and recovering from bad illnesses. Your body isn’t expending any extra energy on movement or heavy cognitive tasks, so it can devote all of it’s attention to healing itself.

Studies show that lack of sleep switches on certain genes and switches off other genes. Markers that make you want to eat more (and more of the wrong things) get turned on when you are low on sleep, and markers connected with a strong immune system get depressed. Lack of sleep is not just a problem for getting better, it’s a problem for staying better – both in the short term, and the long term.

If you are sick, run down, under the weather, get more sleep. If you are healthy and want to stay healthy, make sure you get the recommended 7-9 hours (yes, the recommendation has been revised upwards).

3. Muscle memory develops

Now onto the fun stuff. Studies have been done on people learning tasks, such as playing the piano. They found that the repetitions the participants brain underwent during waking hours ALSO occurred as they sleep. The same neurological patterns that were observed during actual performance of the task, were also being repeatedly run through by the brain at super high speed whilst asleep.

This neural behaviour further entrenches and ingrains the desired behaviour practiced during the day. Which means you get better even whilst we sleep. Double win!

People often want to keep staying up, keep practicing etc, when in reality they would be better going to bed and letting the brain do it’s thing. All this for remarkably little physical effort. Particularly with something as refined yet dependent on a healthy body as singing, having a more efficient split between practice and rest is of paramount importance.

So that whole ‘pulling an all-nighter to get something into your head or your body’ thing, turns out it doesn’t actually work. Practice the thing in the day, and let your body do it’s thing at night. It’s maximally efficient, and you feel great after. Who could say no to that?

4. Creative connections form

You know the phrase “sleep on it”, that we reference when trying to tackle a tricky problem? Turns out, every culture in the world has some equivalent of that phrase. While our body is paralysed as we sleep, our brain lights up in remarkable ways whilst unconscious. Please see the Matt Walker references 2 and 3 in the footnotes.

Even the stage where we start to enter sleep – the hypnagogic state – where we are still mostly conscious but we start to hallucinate and get very odd images floating across our mind, is powerful for forming creative connections.

The inventor Thomas Edison used to use the hypnagogic state to help solve problems and come up with ideas. He would place himself in an armchair, holding a steel bearing in his hand draped over the side of the chair, with a tin plate placed underneath his hand position. As he fell asleep his hand would relax, the bearing would drop onto the tin plate and make a noise, thus rousing him. He could then quickly write down the creative connections that had formed during that hypnagogic state.

People often say the answer came to them in a dream, and yet so many of us don’t get enough REM sleep (responsible for dreams) either through lack of sleep or alcohol disrupting said REM sleep (alcohol does that, sorry).

5. Mentally able to give 100%

Sleep scientist Matt Walker covers many things quite startling about sleep and the brain. One key example is that once you have been awake for more than 20 hours, you are as cognitively impaired as someone who is legally drunk (by US standards of blood alcohol level, at least).

One of the by-products of being awake and functioning during the day is beta amyloid protein buildup in the brain. Key stages of sleep are responsible for clearing out this protein buildup in the brain. If you don’t get to those stages of sleep, the buildup doesn’t get removed in the same way.

Note: one of the key factors in developing Alzheimers is beta amyloid protein buildup in the brain.

Yes, that’s right. Matt Walker’s studies are preliminary indicators that prolonged lack of sleep contributes to brain disorders such as Alzheimers. Yikes.

He also comments anecdotally on politicians who were reknowned for getting remarkably little sleep (e.g. 2-4 hours a night, such as British PM Margaret Thatcher) suffering from Alzheimers in later life.

Summary: Get more sleep

7-9 hours is the currently recommended amount from experts such as Matt Walker. While some of us will struggle with that, there’s nothing wrong with trying.

Recommended sources:

Head Trip by Jeff Warren – this covers the various states of consciousness that we all go through in a 24 hour period. It’s exceptionally interesting from start to finish.
Why We Sleep by Matt Walker – this covers Matt’s substantial research findings in a very engaging way. Also recommended.
Interview with Matt Walker – if you want something to listen to instead, I highly recommend this podcast with Matt Walker.

November 22, 2019January 1, 2026

Why vocal problems so regularly derail careers

Something I encounter a lot is the phenomenon of the vocal professional who ‘all of a sudden’ finds themselves having voice problems.

Here’s what normally happens…

At first, the issues are usually shrugged off. Errors are discounted as “just one of those gigs” to others, but inwardly they are a little apprehensive as to why their voice was misbehaving or feeling so off.

Then the issue worsens

Usually in both in severity and frequency. The odd gig starts to get cancelled, and it takes the singer longer and longer to “recover” from one gig for the next one.

Shortly afterwards, the inexorable public announcement follows – typically on their Facebook page – along the following lines… Continue reading “Why vocal problems so regularly derail careers”

July 18, 2019July 26, 2025

Bad Voice Day?

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?”

October 14, 2018July 26, 2025

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?”

July 29, 2018August 3, 2025

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?”

January 7, 2018September 28, 2025

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.

March 19, 2017November 20, 2025

Five Famous Singers with Vocal Problems

From Nodules and Granulomas, to Haemorrhages, and Surgery Complications

No matter how top-tier a singer may be, if the touring demands outstrip their ability, vocal problems are sure to follow.

So 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.