Here are some things that go along with the title of this post:

When I practice singing too much, I…

• get physically worn out and frustrated
• notice that my vocal tone goes dead
• have trouble getting the proper vocal cord closure needed to connect into my mix voice
• rush my warm ups and practice
• forget that my voice needs a break every once in a while

Does this sound like you sometimes? I have to consciously remind myself that I must take breaks from singing in order to let my voice rest. I notice that many of my vocal woes simply come from a lack of rest. It always seems like there is so much to be done, yet so little time to do it. And when you try to jam singing into the mix, sometimes it can be overwhelming on your voice.

So the take home point of it all: rest your voice!

What happens to you when practice singing too much?

Related posts:

1. How To Prepare Your Voice For Singing

I’ve entitled this post “Singing On Empty” because it hits home in so many different ways. Physically I have been drained. Emotionally I have been drained. Mentally I have been drained. And yet somehow I must find ways to sing. I’m discovering new things about how singing works during this process of being stretched thin.

One of the biggest discoveries I have made during this rough spell is that my voice is the most pliable it has been in months. By pliable I mean flexible, agile, able, and capable. I am somewhat shocked by this because it would seem that all the stress of everyday life would kill my voice and tone. However, it seems that I have been drained enough to completely release my voice of tension and strain and the results have been absolutely incredible. My voice has gained a buttery smooth texture. My mix is quite smooth and connected. My control is solid. It’s like I’ve found a new voice inside of me.

So what does this have to do with you? I wanted to share this with you because I understand that singing is not the only thing that you do. You also have jobs, families, other important commitments, etc. and you simply cannot cram everything into one 24 hour day. However, I can’t help but notice all the new areas of my voice that have been opened up during this time of stress. So here is my encouragement to you: don’t worry so much about if your voice sounds good when life is giving you all that it has. Just simply sing..that’s right, just sing – and take the time to reflect on what you felt when you were singing during those times. I think you will be surprised with the new things that you discover about your voice.

I’d like to hear about some of your own experiences with “singing on empty”. Feel free to share them here.

As always, sing on my friends!

Photo Credits: hectorir (flickr)

Related posts:

1. Singing With Stress

1) Singing on empty exponentially increases the risk of injuring your vocal cords. This is the absolute last thing you want to do when you have a passion for singing.

2) Our vocal cords stretch as we sing. Stretching them out too much (via singing for an extended period of time) causes them to become weak and fatigued. If you are wanting to sing in heavier tones, then it is even more crucial that you adequately rest your voice.

3) When we sing, our sinuses have a tendency to drain (at least in my case they do, and I here it is the same for many other people) as we progress through a practice or performance. As our sinuses drain, mucous begins to cover the vocal folds. This causes issues with properly connecting the voice. Singing in this state is one of the reasons we clear our throat, and clearing our throat is a pretty harsh remedy for the already delicate vocal cords. Do your vocal cords a favor and give them a rest!

4) Over practicing can negate newly learned muscle coordinations. I relate this idea to working out at the gym. If you do bench press 6 days a week, you are sure to begin building chest muscles. However, without proper rest, your chest muscles will never function at their prime. The same goes for your vocal cords.

As you can see, there are many things that can be harmful when the voice is not rested properly. One of the best ways to rest your vocal cords is to get a good night’s sleep. This is the body’s natural way of repairing any damaged parts, including your vocal cords. On days when your vocal cords have endured an increased amount of use, do your best to sleep for a full 7-8 hours that night.

Also, make sure to hydrate your body with plenty of water. This will keep your vocal cords moist and help them heal any damage they may have endured during a stressful practice or performance.

Rest your vocal cords to keep them healthy! Sing on my friends!

Photo Credits: 1

Related posts:

1. When I Practice Singing Too Much, I…
2. Don’t Push Your Voice!

Unfortunately for me, I suffer from what I call a stubborn voice. Simply put, my voice never does quite what I want it to do (can I get a witness?). If you also suffer from possessing a stubborn voice, here are a few things that I do in order to help relax my voice:

1) I massage my jaw and loosen it up thoroughly. Jaw tension can destroy vocal tone if it is not dealt with properly. In order to relieve some of that excess jaw tension, I massage both of my jaw bones for about 5 minutes. I also jostle my jaw bones from side to side and move it up and down. The idea here is to get your jaw mobile and agile. When your jaw is free to move around without tension, it makes it easier to sing with more freedom.

2) Hot tea also helps relax the voice and soothes the vocal cords. Sipping on a nice cup of hot tea can ease any excess muscle tension from the throat and soothe/loosen up your vocal cords so they aren’t so rigid and ornery.

3) Finally, I massage my neck in general for a few minutes to make sure I remove all possible muscle tension from the throat area. Gently pressing your fingers against your neck and rubbing them in a circular motion around your throat does wonders for relaxing your voice and preparing your voice to sing.

These ideas sound so simple, but I find that they are very easy to forget. Remember, when we are singing, we want to relieve as much unhealthy tension as possible! These are just a few more ways to help you achieve this goal!

As always, sing on my friends!

Photo Credits: 1

Related posts:

1. Don’t Push Your Voice!
2. Voice Lessons
3. Keeping The Voice Connected

-water!!! and lots of it!
-honey (honey can soothe the throat, but use it sparingly: too much can coat the throat and cause vocal issues)
-herbal teas
-lemon juice (in small amounts..too much can irritate the vocal cords, but a little bit is good for loosening them up and remove mucous from the cords)
-a very small amount of salty potato chips (I sometimes use this – just simple Lays potato chips washed down with water..they also remove excess mucous)
-fruit and vegetables in general (although you should over over consumption of citrus fruits)
-poultry and fish

As a general rule, you want to consume these foods regularly. Try to avoid over consumption of greasy foods, dairy products, and sugary foods. If you do decide to eat these foods, be sure to do it when you don’t have to practice or sing in the near future.

Some people are overly oppressive on vocal health. I, however, like to apply the principle of moderation. While it is good to exercise often and eat healthy foods, I simply cannot follow this all the time. You have just have to keep in mind that you will reap what you sow.

Vocal health is always important to keep in mind. Keeping your vocal cords healthy is a critical step in preserving the longevity of your voice!

Photo Credits: 1

Related posts:

1. Breathy Singing Is Not Healthy Singing
2. The Vocal Warm Up Is Absolutely Necessary
3. Vocal Compression

Stress also has a dastardly way of destroying our confidence, causing us to doubt our own singing capabilities. The thought creeps into your head: “I….can’t…do this..”

I struggle with these thoughts sometimes. Even though the recordings sound good, I still have the tendency to doubt my own skills.

Maybe you are in this boat too.

In order to combat these unhealthy tendencies, I have devised a motto: “When I can’t, I sing!”

That’s right. Even when I am struggling to hit a certain note or keep my pitch on target, I just keep singing. Why? Because working through adversity creates perseverance and steadfastness.

My caveat is this: when I am struggling with singing, I always go back to singing something that is light and easy. Never attempt to sing something challenging when you are all wigged out. Sing something that you know is approachable and won’t cause stress. Then, if you feel up to it, work your way back into singing slowly.

I always notice that when I follow this method, I come out a better singer in the end (and have learned something new in the process!).

Because we are human, we have to keep this in mind: some days we have it, some days we don’t. But don’t ever let one failed note keep you from working through your technique. Recognize trials as an opportunity to train your singing perseverance and endurance!

As always, sing on my friends!

Related posts:

1. Singing With Stress
2. Singing On Empty

Take Medicine

If you are having trouble with your allergies, or perceive that you will have trouble with allergies in the future, be proactive! Start taking allergy medicine as soon as you feel an attack coming along. Out of all the medicines I have tried, Claritin-D seems to work the best for me. I take my 24 hour Claritin pill every day, but when I sense my allergies will be bad on a certain day, I move to take the Claritin-D in lue of the 24 Claritin. It has a more immediate and powerful effect for clearing out my sinuses. Taking allergy medicines dry up your sinuses, allowing you to sing without have to worry about mucous covering your vocal cords and hindering you from singing to your full potential.

**Precautionary Warning: As I said above, medicines will dry up your allergies. To help counteract this, please drink plenty of water after taking the medicine. Not drinking water after taking allergy medicine can be just as bad as singing with allergies. If you find that medicine dries you out too much, you may want to forgo the medicine route and use a more organic medicinal approach to relieving allergies, such as taking Vitamin C pills.

Drink Herbal Teas

Herbal teas have a wonderful way of clearing out your throat of any excess mucous. Add a touch of honey to your favorite herbal tea to enhance the experience. On days when I struggle with allergies, herbal tea is the best organic remedy I can find (chamomile tea is my favorite!). It soothes my vocal cords and allows me to approach singing without a fear of cracking or breaking.

Take A Shower

If all else fails, take a long and hot shower. This will get your sinuses flowing and hopefully release all the excess drainage from your system. Drink some water after the shower (or even your favorite herbal tea) to remove any leftover drainage on your vocal cords.

I hope these tips have been helpful. What do you do when you are suffering from allergies? I would love to hear from you!

Photo Credits: 1

Related posts:

1. The Vocal Warm Up Is Absolutely Necessary

After a long day working, thinking, sweating, and the like, our bodies are exhausted and need a good night’s rest. When we wake up the next morning, our bodies are stiff, movements are weary, speech is groggy…you get the picture. But for some crazy reason, we have this notion that our vocal cords are immune from these weaknesses and will be able to perform at a moment’s notice. Guess again, my friends. Our vocal cords, unfortunately, are not immune to the everyday aches and pains of the body. In fact, the vocal cords have some unique aches and pains of their own.

When we wake up in the morning and attempt to speak, we generally have groggy speech. The grogginess in the voice is normally caused by mucous drainage during the night. When the mucous drains from your sinuses, it has this uncanny ability to latch onto your vocal cords. Since the mucous causes interference between your two vocal folds, your speech and singing will “hit and miss”, and thus grogginess occurs.
**Note: this is different from hoarseness. Hoarseness occurs when the vocal cords have been overused and become inflamed. When the vocal cords become inflamed, it becomes painful to bring them together. Hence you are forced to talk very light and breathy – aka, you are hoarse.

This is why the vocal warm up is so vitally important. If we do not warm up the voice to loosen the vocal cords and remove excess mucous, we are being mean to our precious folds because they are not ready to take on the task of singing. Herbal teas are very good for removing excess mucous from the vocal cords (chamomile is my favorite). Also, if you struggle with allergies, I sympathize with you because I do too. Take medicine (Claritin-D works the best for me) on days where your allergies are really getting to you.

As for exercises, use vocal fry and that grogginess to your advantage. Vocal fry is the lowest sound singers can make. Your vocal cords vibrate very slowly when using vocal fry – just think of Elmer Fudd. When he speaks, he speaks in vocal fry. Vocal fry is an excellent vocal warm up because it gently loosens the vocal cords and helps remove mucous. After you have used vocal fry for a few minutes (I generally do five minutes of vocal fry), I do some slow lip roll exercises. For an example on lip roll exercises, please click here. Once I have done enough lip roll exercises to get my voice loose, I move on to “nays”, “mums” and thin edge exercises on different scales (generally octave and arpeggio). These exercises prepare my voice to sing in all of my registers: chest, head and mix. All in all, I spend anywhere from 20-30 minutes warming up my voice before I begin to practice or sing.

You may have a different vocal warm up routine. Just having some type of vocal warm up is better than nothing at all. If you do not have a vocal warm up routine, please consider implementing one for the safety and health of your vocal cords. Vocal warm ups will vary from singer to singer, but each singer should have some sort of vocal warm up routine.

Warm up those vocal cords and sing on!

Related posts:

1. Vocal Health: Eating Healthy Foods
2. Vocal Compression
3. Vocal Exercises For Singers

Breathy tones are dangerous to your vocal cords because they employ the augmented use of breath support to create tone. Because breathy tones lack the vocal cord closure and vocal compression needed to “climb” the range ladder, the singer has no other option but to push out more air to try and sing higher notes. When more air than necessary interacts with the vocal cords, the cords become inflamed and begin to swell. It is no wonder, then, that so many singers experience hoarseness after a performance. It is the body’s way of saying, “Please stop! Your are killing your precious vocal cords!”

Breathy tones can be extremely hard to overcome because they are reinforced by other bad singing habits, such as:

1) the use of outer throat muscles to attempt at compressing the vocal cords;
2) a raised larynx to try and “reach” for the high notes; or
3) a forward jaw position to try and “give the feeling” that more space is available for the tone to resonate.
(there are other bad habits, but I find these are common to the average singer)

To overcome these bad habits, correct technique must be learned and exercised. Neutralization of the larynx, cord closure and vocal compression are key elements in relieving excess throat tension and pressure on the voice. When each of these techniques are employed correctly, the breathy tone in the voice will disappear, giving way to a more powerful, clear and consistent tone. Only when you can employ these techniques should you attempt to use breathy tones for stylistic purposes, and even so, you should still use them sparingly. Add breathy tones in for style, but be sure to always return to correct and healthy technique to avoid potential vocal cord damage!

Related posts:

1. Vocal Health: Eating Healthy Foods
2. Don’t Push Your Voice!
3. How To Breathe Properly

Remember, vocal health is vitally important to successful singing. If you ever begin to feel pain when singing, stop immediately!

Related posts:

1. Relaxing The Voice
2. Keeping The Voice Connected
3. Breathy Singing Is Not Healthy Singing