Last time I went over things I love about my job. Now we get to the stuff people might not know or even consider as a downside to my job… but since last week’s article, I can tell you I’ve had a LOT of verbal interest in what the difficulties are.
In truth, a lot of these are counterparts to the things I love. These are the ‘other side of the same coin’ to things I love.
1. I HAVE to get my voice firing every day, whether it wants to or not
In part 1, I said one of my favourite things is I get to spend all day making music with my voice. Well, there is a downside to this. There are times I HAVE to get my voice functional, when I’m in not in great shape to do so.
Sometimes my voice has been well-worn through weeks of teaching – one of the reasons I try to factor in vocal rest days. Other times I’ll be getting over a throat infection, suffering from reflux, had a horrendous night sleep that has caused vocal inflammation, or a late night that has disrupted sleep, etc, and I will STILL have to try and get my voice started and functional.
Sure, as a voice coach or singer you could cancel a gig/run of sessions – and sometimes that’s unavoidable – but you have to try starting it up and see what state it’s in before making that call.
Professional singers who work with me can confirm, it’s all fun and games being a singer until you’re sick and your voice is knackered. Remember, cancelling brings financial cost to you, disrupts someone else’s schedule/booking requirements, and in turn bears a reputational cost when it happens more than once.
When you just sing for fun, or for a hobby/nominal income, it isn’t anywhere near as egregious to abandon a practice session or reschedule an infrequent gig. If you do decide to go ahead and sing when your voice isn’t in great shape, you can get away with not sounding your best and you can spend days recovering from blowing out your voice afterwards – I cannot take that liberty.
2. Even a mild cold can take you out and leave you unable to work
You may not know this, but there are many different types of respiratory illnesses. Pharyngitis affects the pharynx (throat infection), laryngitis affects the larynx, sinusitis affects the sinuses, upper respiratory tract infections (chest infections), not to mention various different flavours of the common cold – delicious!
Each of these impacts the voice in a different way. Obviously a really bad case of any of these could land anyone in bed for days, but some of these even in very mild form can force me to cancel a lot of work.
For me, post nasal drip (typically caused by head colds or sinusitis), can leave me feeling 100% fine in myself, but totally destroy my voice and leave me unable to work. Pharyngitis affects my ability to control vowels or train people precisely. Again, all the singers who depend on their voice for their income will know exactly what I’m talking about here. And there’s no sick pay or holiday pay like if you’re employed. You don’t work, you don’t earn.
If you don’t depend on your voice to make a living then you may not have appreciated the potential impact of even a mild cold.
3. Your worth can feel overly tied up in your voice
In part 1, I commented that I get to sing my favourite songs every day. But there is another side to this.
Because I am paid to fix, build and finish people’s voices, I need to have a voice that can keep step with even the most advanced voice that can come my way. I work on it every single day (per point 1, whether I want to or not). As a result, while this IS my skill set, it can become all-consuming in terms of self-worth.
Think of those times that you have tried to sing a song you know you can sing, and it comes out sounding obnoxiously awful. What if you have several instances of that a week? How would that affect your confidence in your own singing ability even if you just sang for fun? While such extreme are thankfully rare for me, this is quite wearing psychologically when your income depends on it.
When ill, voice is feeling a bit worn, or songs are being retooled, your voice is not at it’s best… therefore you do not feel you are at your best. Speaking to professional singers, even the seasoned ones recognise this issue. They know these moments come around, but it doesn’t stop them feeling like their self-worth has taken a dip.
In reality, we are all worth more than just our voices (thank goodness for that!) but the nature of my day-to-day being so tied up in my voice can often make this hard to see or feel.
4. Constant background of mild stress
In part 1, I commented that having a job where I get to sing and make music every day is wonderful for my headspace and mental health. However, there is a dark side to the job that only a few will understand.
This is especially hard to grasp if you don’t run your own business, so I’m going to use an analogous illustration.
Imagine…
Imagine, if you will, it’s 7pm on a Friday night. You’ve worked hard all week, you’ve done a good job, and you’ve earned your weekend off. You’re lounging on the couch, relaxing. You’ve turned off your email and work phone. But your personal phone buzzes with a WhatsApp message. It’s from your boss.
In the message, they tell you that you’ve done a great job that week, and are highly complimentary about how much they appreciate you. They then inform you that they may be docking your pay by 10-20% moving forward. They don’t know by how much exactly or when, but they’ll let you know. They sign off with a cheery ‘Have a great weekend!’
Maybe you drop a reply to understand more. You can see they’ve read it immediately, but no further reply comes. You go to bed worried about whether that will transpire or not, how much you stand to lose, especially as you don’t really have any say in the matter. Maybe you sleep alright, but it’s obviously weighing on your mind.
You wake up on Saturday, not entirely refreshed but doing OK. And as you’re having your morning coffee another text message arrives on your personal phone. It’s from someone else more senior in the company, about a further pay reduction. It’s for different unconnected reasons, but they just wanted to let you know. Other things going on, you understand.
This could happen at any time, for any reason
Now, imagine you KNEW messages like this could drop any time, day or night, weekday or weekend, and that anyone in the company/group paying you could do this, for near enough any reason they felt like. It’s a pretty heavy threat of uncertainty to try and put out of your mind.
While this is an imperfect analogy, this mirrors the kind of day-to-day pressure that most small business owners face. I’ve used this analogy before with other business owners and they all practically leap out their seat to exclaim “YES! That’s EXACTLY what it’s like“.
There is always an unavoidable background level of uncertainty and stress, coupled with the Damocles sword nature of loss.
To finish
I cannot stress enough how much the positive things in last week’s article sit front and centre in my mind, substantially more than the above points. Nevertheless, I hope this week and last week’s article gives you some insight into the great and not-so-great things about my job as a voice coach. There’s so many fantastic things and people to be grateful for, but it certainly isn’t sunbeams and rainbows all the time, and there is undoubtedly pressure that people don’t get to see. Trying not to let that derail you each day isn’t easy, believe me.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some voice work and singing!