APRIL 2022 •
Avoid oral antihistamines and decongestants: Tese medications dry out your nose, but also dry out your throat and vocal folds. For vocal health, nasal treatments are better. If you have nasal congestion or allergies, talk to your doctor to see if you can use a nasal antihistamine or nasal steroid
• spray to treat your symptoms. Acid Reflux: Gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) and more specifically, laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) can negatively impact your voice and may need to be treated with reflux medications, diet, and/or lifestyle modifications (avoiding trigger foods, avoiding lying down for three hours after eating, avoiding eating before singing or exercise). Having said this, reflux is over-diagnosed and over-treated, especially for hoarseness (Cohen and Garrett, 2008). If you do not have heartburn and are told reflux medication will solve your voice problem, you may want to consider getting a second opinion from a vocal health team, especially if your voice isn’t getting better with reflux
• treatment. Take good care of yourself: Sleep, exercise, and healthy diet are all important for vocal health.
Vocal pacing Vocal pacing has a dual nature: avoiding excessive, inefficient, or injurious voice use while also maintaining vocal strength and conditioning through regular vocal exercise. Tese days, when I work with singers on vocal pacing, the focus is often on gradually increasing their singing voice load to recondition the voice after prolonged interruptions in performance due to the pandemic.
If you have high vocal demands, particularly if you are singing a lot, directing choral ensembles, teaching, and so forth, you may still need some old-fashioned work on managing your vocal load.
Set vocal priorities An effective way to take control of your vocal load is through establishing vocal priorities. Create a list of all your vocal activities over the course of a few weeks (such as rehearsal, performance, individual practice, recreational singing, voice lessons, teaching). Go through the list and number each item according to how important it is to you. Tis can be difficult at
first—everything may seem equally important—but carefully numbering each item can be very powerful in revealing your true priorities. If you’re having difficulty managing your vocal load, see if you can pare away some of the lower-priority items or at least reduce the amount of time you’re spending on them. You can resume or reduce these lower-priority activities depending on how your vocal load varies and how your voice is doing.
Plan your voice use Your voice is like a bank account: just like you have to budget your money to avoid going into debt, budgeting your voice use will help you avoid “overspending.” If you have a demanding vocal load, take some time to plan your voice use each week or even months in advance. Tis includes planning how you will allocate your voice use in individual practice, rehearsals, performance, teaching, choral directing, and so on. If you are preparing music for performance, plan your practice time in advance. You can accomplish a lot with “mental practice”: thinking through the music in your head, playing your part on an instrument, or listening to recordings. Save your “vocal” practice time for the parts that need the most technical work. Plan how you will allocate your singing time in rehearsals whether you are a performer, teacher, or director of choral or instrumental music. For choral directors, minimize modeling parts and singing along with the choir—save your singing time for when it is really needed. Don’t forget to plan your speaking voice time, too. Build short voice breaks (ten minutes per hour) into your schedule.
Don’t talk or sing over noise Tis includes speaking in loud restaurants, the school lunchroom, or trying to speak or sing over your singers or players when directing choirs or instrumental ensembles.
Use amplification As singers and music directors, we sometimes have the idea that amplification isn’t needed. “I’m a trained vocalist—I know how to project.” Tat may well be true, but using amplification when speaking, teaching, or leading ensembles can save wear and tear on your voice. Small, personal voice amplifiers are relatively inexpensive, and using them regularly can help replenish your vocal bank account.
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