Coronavirus, Covid & Singing: How Covid-19 Appears to Affect The Singing Voice

In the last 2-3 months, I’ve worked with a number of clients online and spoken with a number of people who have had coronavirus/Covid-19 (either tested positive for, or strongly suspected to have had). While none of these cases have been hospitalised, all have experienced quite severe upper respiratory symptoms that have lingered for quite some time. In working with these voices, certain patterns are beginning to emerge in relation to how this virus affects the voice.

But before we get going…

DISCLAIMER: The following is my anecdotal opinion and should not be considered a definitive medical finding. I am not a medical professional, nor am I seeking to provide medical advice. Anything contained in this article should not be construed as such.

This article is intended as a preliminary discussion on patterns I have noticed in the last 2-3 months in relation to my voice teaching practice, specifically in relation to those who have/are suspected to have contracted coronavirus/Covid-19. I also reserve the right to update this article with any new developments/re-evaluations that are encountered as the situation progresses.

Let’s look at Covid-19 data through the lens of a singer/voice user

Continue reading “Coronavirus, Covid & Singing: How Covid-19 Appears to Affect The Singing Voice”

May 10, 2020July 5, 2025

Something weird that online singing lessons do better than in-person lessons

Since the coronavirus pandemic we’ve switched all sessions to 100% online – and I noticed something unexpected – and very excellent – happened when we made the switch.

Obviously there are differences between online and in-person lessons. Travel time isn’t needed for online, you can have your sessions in the comfort of your own home, use your own instruments/ear, etc. Singers pitching also gets much better through following the vocal exercises without as much assistance from the piano.

The whole point of these exercises is to build technical facility and vocal balance into a singers’ voice. This involves building new habits whilst unpicking old pre-dispositions where they force their voice into one place or another. This better vocal balance is all about smooth and even connection from bottom to top, free from said bad habits/forcing of the voice, so that the singer’s voice behaves how it’s meant to behave. In turn, whatever they want to sing, they can just launch into unimpeded.

Now I’ve been aware of all of these differences for a while, but it wasn’t until everyone went online that I noticed something profoundly different, made obvious by those who moved from only ever having had in-person singing lessons, to online singing lessons: Continue reading “Something weird that online singing lessons do better than in-person lessons”

May 3, 2020July 5, 2025

Home Recording: First Steps

Last week’s article on building a Recording Studio on a Budget was overwhelmingly popular, so I thought for those of you who have taken the plunge into recording yourself (either now or recently), we’d dive into some basic baby steps you can use to get better vocal takes.

These steps are prepatory in nature but will also help take your voice to a “record ready” standard for when you ARE ready to hit record.

Gear and Gear Setup

1. Use a stand for your mic and a pop-filter

Firstly, having your mic on a stand will help you keep your hands free for singing. Secondly, this will enable you to more easily use a pop-filter.

You can buy a pop-filter from Amazon via this link

Microphones work by detecting changes in pressure across a diaphragm. Certain consonants create very strong and aggressive pressure waves, like the ‘p’s in the word ‘pop’. These can hit the surface of the microphone diaphragm hard enough to create unwanted popping noises in the recording.

A pop filter is a simple device that sits in front of the microphone and breaks up such incoming pressure waves. It’s typically a mesh material (like nylon tights, etc) stretched over a frame. This will reduce or eliminate those nasty unwanted pops, thus improving the quality of your recordings.

NOTE: If you ended up buying the Rode M1 I recommended in my recording studio on a budget article, this already has some pop-filter capacity built in (but an external one is always recommended). And an external pop filter is also a very helpful tool in another way… Continue reading “Home Recording: First Steps”

April 19, 2020July 5, 2025

The Art of Re-Building a Voice

I spend a lot of time working on voices. Often we are building them from the ground-up, teaching the instrument how to behave in a new way. And sometimes it can involve re-building a voice.

This can be slow for voices that are more stubborn, have suffered from health issues, etc. The process can also be surprisingly quick, as voices typically suck up new muscle memory/behaviour patterns when it’s good for them.

The whole process involves training and co-ordinating the vocal folds, the vocal tract, the larynx, and a host of other components.

Intro: Re-building a voice

However, there is a smaller sub-section of people I work with where I am not building their voice for the first time, but re-building their voice.

Here I’m talking about people who previously had a functioning voice – perhaps even a trained one – that have undergone some kind of vocal trauma that has radically shifted how their instrument behaves and operates. This shift is often so severe that the individual barely recognises their voice anymore (psychologically or mechanically/acoustically) and so they are at a loss how to proceed. Continue reading “The Art of Re-Building a Voice”

April 12, 2020July 5, 2025

Autotune vs No Autotune: Is auto-tune cheating?

Autotune vs No Autotune: Is Autotune Cheating?

When musicians talk about autotune, they often do so with great disdain. For guitarists, bassists, drummers, pianists, especially those of a more traditional or even classical persuasion, it can come across as an ENORMOUS cheat to use it.

Personally, I have no issue with autotune as a tool.

What I do I have an issue with, is how some people choose to use autotune vs no autotune. Let me explain and hopefully it will become clear.

What is autotune?

Autotune is a category of software used (typically) in music production. Algorithms in the software are able to identify the individual sung pitches in an audio clip.

The vocal line is then typically expressed graphically on-screen, much like a line graph.

The software enables the various portions of this graph to be dragged, dropped, cut, re-shaped, and moved around to suit the producer’s desire. This then results in a flexible alteration of the originally sung melody. One can make it extremely subtle and organic, or very extreme in its effect.

In short, autotune is software that enables flexible re-arrangement of already sung melody notes, without additional vocal re-takes.

IMPORTANT: That’s all that autotune is.

Continue reading “Autotune vs No Autotune: Is auto-tune cheating?”

March 29, 2020July 5, 2025

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”

March 15, 2020July 5, 2025

The Danger of Doing Too Much: Intentionality in Singing

There were a few lessons this week that reminded me of the importance of intentionality in vocal arrangement. It’s very easy, as one gains technical facility, to want to do various things with our voice just because we can. And why not! Doing exciting things with our voice is fun. The problem is, with increasing ability, we tend to overdo things – worse still, it can often be less listenable to our audience as a result. Why should this be?

“Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should”

And never more is this true, than in jazz.

Jazz is reknowned for (allegedly) being all about ‘breaking the rules‘, playing whatever you like, outside-the-box sounds, etc. The thing is, there are rules and guidelines about how best to do this without confusing or losing the listener, but taking them along for the ride. Jazz musicians are the masters of following these rules. Let me explain. Continue reading “The Danger of Doing Too Much: Intentionality in Singing”

February 22, 2020July 5, 2025

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. Continue reading “5 Reasons Why Sleep Boosts Your Singing, Your Brain, and Your Body”