Looking after your voice

How to look after my voice

It's not hard to take care of your voice, but we all have trouble doing it.

Often when students come to me after vocal damage, I use the Broken or Sprained Wrist effect. In other words, if your wrist was broken or sprained, you'd keep it in a sling. You'd try to keep it still as much as possible, and you can clearly see the injury. But our voices are internal, and since we use our voice to communicate, we struggle to keep quiet and struggle not it use it.

For my singers, I tell them to rest, avoid speaking and definitely don't sing if their voice hurts. I suggest drinking hot ginger & honey, herbal teas or vocal zone teas and avoiding caffeine. 

You don't want the vocal crash, which is no voice at all. Reconsider the signs before it gets to that point.

Avoid relying on throat sweets

Lot of people take throat sweets, but remember you are taking them because your throat is sore, or your voice went. This is the vocal crash, and you want to avoid it. Try not to rely on throat sweets for a quick fix. Remember, the throat is telling you it needs rest.

Good throat sweets are vocal zone: https://www.vocalzone.com

Vocal Warmups & Warm downs

Warm ups can be anything from lip trills to full-on musical medleys. You're singing athletes, so you've got to warm up before you go full on. Any athlete warms up before a physical, and you've got to do the same. There are a bunch of vocal warm ups out there, ranging from 5 to 20 minutes. Some of them are really fun! And if you attend a choir, your vocal leader should do different warm ups with you. 

Warm downs: 

They're great if you've been singing for a long time. I do sighs and low tones with my choir and or a general chat as this can relax the voice and bring the Larynx back down.