Tag: singing lessons

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Why do I keep losing my voice?

Many ask me

“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 (while serious, this isn’t the purpose of this article, as we’ve already discussed this in another article. Click here if you want to read more about nodules).

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: To get the best use out of the following, we are going to define a comfortable speaking volume as the volume you would use when holding a conversation with one other person, in a completely silent room (e.g. no other people, no music playing, no hum from electrical goods, no TV, etc). 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 (say) football matches or at loud clubs, then you are going to be shouting a lot. It only takes a few minute of intense shouting to cause noticeable damage to your vocal cords.

Scaling it back from “shouting”, I know many speakers who (in an effort to be more dramatic onstage) regularly go for a soft yell throughout their talks. Whilst obviously dramatic and helpful for communication, if shouting is a 10/10 on the wear and tear scale, then that artificial soft yelling or aggressive speaking can be a 5-7/10 on the wear and tear scale.

Mark’s Suggestion: Reduce your weekly vocal load

Try looking at your average week and its activities, and pay attention to periods where you are regularly raising your voice above a comfortable speaking volume. Recognise that these are going to be the biggest source of vocal stress and vocal loading during your week.

Try to either reduce the frequency of these events, keep the highest vocal intensity to a minimum duration, or reduce the overall intensity at which you use your voice at these events (or ideally all three) will result in a BIG difference overall.

AREA 2 – Overuse

– This one is a little harder to spot. Whereas everyone can identify shouting, not everyone can identify what constitutes overuse. Particularly in teams of people where a leader or critical numbers of team members raise their voices all day every day, people then assume that is what they need to be doing as well…

But, we are not all built the same – we need to recognise our own abilities and strengths, and play to those, not those of others.

Everyone has (relatively speaking) their own vocal balance point, where they are not so loud they are fatiguing themselves, but not so quiet they feel like they are drying their voice out.

More than that, we all have a certain amount of vocal loading that we can take, i.e. how much talking/singing can we take in a day without suffering. Some people can take a LOT of use of their voice with no ill effects, others need regular time-out time for their voice.

A lot of people also have a diary where they have a day of heavy vocal use (e.g. at a conference, meeting with lots of people), then yet another day of heavy vocal use (e.g. the same again, or a de-brief with team members about how the day before went), followed by another day (e.g. more meetings, etc). It’s like doing repeated intense gym days, but never actually resting.

Mark’s Suggestion: Establish and change problematic patterns

Try looking at your average week and its activities, and notice when your voice starts to fatigue. Then, try and establish the trajectory that landed you there, e.g. what’s happening on the days leading up to that regular voice loss/fatigue.

Like in the abuse section, try reducing the amount of vocal loading you are doing in those times (e.g. talk to fewer people, factor in allocated rest time, don’t sing along to things if you don’t have to) as well as identifying any potential excess intensity.

AREA 3 – Misuse

– This one is even harder to spot, particularly as we’ve already covered shouting as abuse, and excessive use as overuse.

When I talk about misuse, I’m talking more about the way in which we use our voice as an tool/instrument. Many people aren’t shouting or even using their voice excessively, but they suffer fatigue – why? Because the way in which use their voice is fundamentally unhealthy.

Call centre staff can often be overly breathy when they speak, with excess air going over their vocal cords. This dries them out and fatigues them, despite low volume. Therapists are similar. Certain business people can be more glottal when they speak (abrupt, hard starts to words) in an effort to be more authoritative or dominating. Whilst arguably effective, without even being loud, this can aggravate the cords.

Others often speak at the very bottom end of their voice in an effort to introduce vocal fry into their voice (think Morgan Freeman), which can be very wearing on the voice without any substantial volume.

These things can be addressed through various vocalises (voice exercises) that help return the voice to a more balanced and relatively normal state. With time, these will create robustness in your voice, by increasing the threshold of vocal stress you can take, and by increasing the duration of vocal loading you can cope with.

Mark’s Suggestion: Establish a base-line of your voice, and stick to it

To identify this, think about your normal speaking voice (as defined above) and compare that to the various stages of your day to day activity. If you want to get really analytical, perhaps even record the two, and identify how they differ.

While you need to know what you’re doing to fix this, this will go some way to showing how far from healthy you are likely straying with the daily use of your voice.

Question: Why do I keep losing my voice?

Answer: Abuse, overuse and misuse

Revisit your week, and identify these three areas. You’ll be surprised what you’ll find that can improve your voice. I use this same process when I work with people who’ve had weekly or seemingly constant ongoing voice issues (e.g. church staff members, call centre staff, teachers, business-people, etc), and we find that this approach means their voice returns fully within a few weeks.

Within a few months they find they rarely get knocked off balance again. Many comment that their voice is so much more robust, that it almost seems insane to think they’d ever had the voice issues they’d had previously.

Try following the above suggestions, and look after your voice – it’s the only one you’ve got!

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
The Seriousness of Vocal Fold Nodules

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Clever Use of Keys

Today I want to talk about the clever use of keys. For those of you who don’t know I grew up in Hong Kong. One of the things that you hear a LOT of in HK is canto-pop – i.e. cantonese pop music.

In canto-pop there is a HUGE love for softly sung ballads with lighter voices and higher pitched songs.. often CRAZY high pitched in order to get a much thinner and arguably more feminine sound even from the men.

Other countries in Asia have a very similar preference for pop music, and Korea is no different. A Korean student of mine (who has great taste in music!) brought in this prime example of more Asian lighter-voiced pop from Park Hyo Shin:

IMPORTANT: Even if (like me) you don’t speak Korean, just have a listen to the quality of the voice in the verses – notice how light and airy it is…

This is the result of intentionally picking a higher key than perhaps is vocally ideal for ease in the voice, then overly thinning the voice out in order to make it more comfortable to sing.

Over time this can be verrrry fatiguing or even damaging for the singers’ voice, and can also result in a singing voice that is drastically disparate from the singers speaking – i.e. they sound verrry different when they sing.

While there are many singers that do this, at a very basic level (to one extent or another) this does erode the conversational nature of the singer singing the song…

If singing is about moving people, maintaining a conversational spoken quality to the voice is of critical importance in achieving this… irrespective of style.

The Clever Use of Keys I Mentioned…

Here is another singer from Korea (also brought in my by Korean student) who keeps that conversational quality I mentioned above…

Notice how he bucks the trend of the light voiced Asian pop? There is real depth and definition to his voice, and the WHOLE range is richer for it.

I would probably put money on the notion that if the other singer (Park Hyo Shin) was given the same song, he would probably choose to place it several keys higher to achieve that more thinned out sound (NOTE: I’m reliably informed Park has adjusted his sound to be more appropriate for the natural balance of his speaking voice since that era of his recording life).

By changing the tonal centre, by way of a clever use of keys, singers can not only embrace the best bits of their voice and avoid the pitfalls of any organic instrument, but also create a more conversational spoken quality to their performance… irrespective of style or genre.

Try it yourself!

Try taking a song you feel is a bit of a reach down about 3 semitones and see how it sounds in your voice. It’s not about ego or being macho, it’s about sounding the best for your voice. Remember, 3 semitones is not the magic key change number, it’s just to get you starter in experiencing a different sensation in your voice, and to realise that a clever use of keys and key-changing of your songs is a BIG factor in how good (to great!) you can sound!

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Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben

Yesterday I had a conversation with a foreign student who is currently working with me on their voice, who did not know who Pavarotti was. While this seems unthinkable to many of us here in Britain, I can completely understand how those growing up overseas may well never have heard this incredible voice.

Pavarotti was a monster vocalist, not just of his generation, but in the over-arching story of great singers of the ages. He had an incredible voice, one with great agility and range, but also power and tenderness to boot. What is important to remember is that he also had to put a lot of work into his voice… it just goes to show how even gifted singers need to work on their voice. Good can become great in this way!

Check out this beautiful piece, Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben…

Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben

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Quickest Route to Your Goal

Want to find the Quickest Route to Your Goal? Let’s get a plan together first

I attended the National Entrepreneur’s Convention at the end of this week, and it was jam-packed full of stuff to make your head hurt and your business grow. I love what I do, and I’m always looking for ways to make it better. One of the things that was discussed was ‘quickest routes’ or rather is this ‘the quickest route to your goal’.

In business the goal is to do stuff better to make money, but the key to this is to find what people REALLY want and give it to them – better, bigger, and faster. And you can apply this in your work as an artist or songwriter, hell, even musicians can learn from this!

Here’s a key phrase for you that has been in billboards everywhere this summer promoting educational institutions.

A dream without a plan is just a wish.

When someone starts up a company, the successful ones do so having already defined where they want their business to be in the long term. They then work backwards and work out what steps need to be taken to get to where they want to be. Not only that, but the goal is to engineer it so that each step isn’t immensely difficult, and so that each step takes them the QUICKEST possible route to their goal, step by step.

A key thing that comes out of this principle is:

A person without an ongoing plan is just playing at running their own business.

And in our world of music, I would say this:

An artist or songwriter without an ongoing plan is just playing at being an artist or songwriter.

Any success is hit or miss, and unfixable failure is rife. They don’t learn or grow from their mistakes, quite frankly because they often don’t know they are making them. They think that ‘working hard and hoping for the best’ is … well…. the best they can hope for.

What utter nonsense.

Wherever you are, whatever your skills, whatever your dreams. You NEED a concrete plan. This gives you a scalpel to cut away the nonsense that is encumbering you, enables you to say ‘yes’ to the right things, ‘no’ to the wrong things, and get up and move forward again in the wake of failure. It really is your most powerful tool, knowing what your goal is. Without it, you have no destination, and (therefore), no direction (i.e. you’ll be going nowhere fast without one!).

You need to sit down and work out what you think success needs to be for you… because it’s this that will nail down what you really want from your artistry.

What happens once you understand your goal?

Once you define and understand your goal, you can break that (perhaps) seemingly impossible journey into achievable progressive steps. From there, you can identify what step 1 is. And with every step you should be asking myself – ‘is this the quickest route to your goal?’ – what one step will take the minimum amount of effort for maximum gain? step 1 should to be that simple step, but that takes you the furthest distance from step 0 (i.e. nowhere!) towards your goal.

What is the quickest route to your goal? Only you can tell (though give me a shout if you think I can help – I do this pretty often!), but you need to understand your goal before you can craft a plan! But always ask yourself:

So ask yourself, what is the quickest route to my goal?

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How to practice singing: Part 1 – The Mind-instrument connection

How to practice singing?

It’s been a while since I did a series, so here is a 3 parter to help you understand how to better work on your voice.

Every student I teach asks me how to practice singing, and which songs they should work on… and it seems quite straightforward a question, and sensible to ask such a thing. The difficulty is, the answer isn’t always helpful unless you understand how effective voice training works.

The difference between the voice and every other instrument.

There IS a big difference between the voice and every other instrument that most singers and musicians alike don’t fully appreciate.

How to practice singing - the voice is different from guitar...

When someone wants to take up guitar, they go and buy a guitar. When they buy that guitar, the guitar itself has already been built – it’s finished, end of. There are some adjustable elements, but the instrument itself is ready to go from day 1 to make the right sounds.

The work that a student of guitar (or piano, trumpet, any other instrument you care to name) is almost exclusively directed at establishing a mind-instrument connection, whereby their musical thoughts are translated into notes played by the instrument. They need to learn the right movements to make the instrument play the right notes in the way they desire. The instrument is not a part of our body, so we need to learn how to approach it and respect what it can do. We don’t have any similar movements in our day to day lives to map over to the way we need to approach guitar or other instruments. We are learning these from scratch to develop that mind-instrument connection.

But no work is expended by the student in order to ‘finish’ the instrument – it’s already done! If there is a problem with the instrument, the student buys a new one or finds a professional to fix the instrument. The instrument itself is already complete and (barring any modifications) the sound of the instrument is the sound of the instrument.

The voice is the opposite.

The voice, on the other hand, is NOT a finished instrument. It requires work to develop. Sure, some people have voices/instruments that sound pretty good almost from the moment they open their mouth, but EVERYONE needs to work on their voice to make it better than it already is.

With the voice – unlike guitar or other instruments – we already possess that mind-instrument connection – we use it every day and it is part of our bodies. There are no mechanical hand movements or the like that are alien to normal every day use that we must incorporate into muscle memory, but we operate the voice every day regardless of whether we are singers or not. This gives us unparalleled connection and control over our voices when compared with other instruments, even when we are unskilled singers.

But the voice as an instrument itself is not actually fully built when we start, or even as we progress as singers – it is a never ending process. The voice is an instrument formed of muscles, cartilage, and various other bodily components. The challenge lies in co-ordinating the voice efficiently for use in singing. As such, we are actually building the instrument at the same time as learning to play the instrument. We must learn to co-ordinate our vocal cords in a predictable and repeatable fashion, across a range of pitches, volumes, styles, and to be able to produce a great tone every time.

Like a master luthier making a guitar, it takes time to learn how this works, and it takes dedication to ingrain co-ordination and tone into your voice as an instrument.

So how does that affect the way we should practice?

The real question should be (in my opinion) ‘how do I effectively train my voice’, and the answer, like anything to do with muscles in your body, is with prescribed exercises. If you go to the gym and consult a personal trainer, you will be given a prescribed set of exercises based on the condition of your body when measured against your goals. You can do exercises without a personal trainer, but serious athletes and gym-rats know that only amateurs do it themselves without ever consulting a skilled personal trainer. Personal trainers know their way around different people’s bodies and how such body types will respond to particular exercises. They can help you achieve your goals often many times quicker than when a gym attendee would go by themselves.

The same truth is applicable to training your voice. You need exercises that are geared up for your voice, and you need to practice those exercises regularly. These are not just random scales to improve musicality (though these can be helpful), but are prescribed by skilled voice trainers based on the state of your voice and your desired goals. These tools act as spanners, screwdrivers and wrenches to get inside and tweak the very muscles of your instrument… to co-ordinate them better, to enable you to sing with more ease, less strain, and better tone across your range.

So when you practice, it’s important that WHAT you are practicing is leading you to a state where the condition of voice further enables you to deliver the vocal performance you are after.

If you have any questions about this, just leave a comment below and contribute! Stay tuned for part 2!

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Josh Groban – Drummer, then singer?

Josh Groban was a drummer?

So, believe it or not, I don’t get THAT much Josh Groban brought in to the teaching studio… quite surprising given how great Josh’s voice is and how popular he is.

Nevertheless! Here is a great video someone posted on a forum I’m a member of.

Turns out Josh studied with Seth Riggs, the guy who started off the technique of Speech Level Singing (the method I initially trained and Certified as a singing teacher in) and which principles underpin the IVA teaching method.

In this video, he talks about his own background, how he actually started as a drummer (YES! a DRUMMER!), how he started getting coaching with Seth, and how his first gigs were massive concerts. Crazy stories but utterly true. He’s also one of the most humble guys you’re ever going to meet.

Check it out.

For those of you who are also musicians, but perhaps feel that because you started singing AFTER getting decent on another instrument you are somehow disqualified from being classified as a true singer… or that you can never become a great singer… Josh is a living testimony this is not true.

Whatever you think is stopping you from achieving your goals, is not what’s actually stopping you. It’s you THINKING something is stopping you, that is the thing that’s really preventing your progress.

Watch the video and hear the hidden nugget in there.