How to take care of voice for singers: physical advice

For the healthiest singing environment, your voice, body, and mind need to be healthy and safe. Improving your vocal development is more than scales and exercises. Instead, you’re making an invisible instrument visible through self-awareness and dedication.

To become an exceptional singer, you need the proper foundation and training. If you run a marathon with ill-fitting shoes and no training, you wouldn’t perform your best. The same principles apply to sing: With steadfast training and the right tools, your voice will be poised for a lifetime of incredible singing.

Tip for singers: Finding your voice

Your voice is more than the sound you create: it’s the core of your system. With VoixtekVR®, you’ll become deeply familiar with the emotional and physical benefits of singing. By becoming more self-aware, you’ll reach a sound mind and healthier overall life that will benefit you far beyond singing.

Benefits of singing regularly

• Live a happier and healthier life
• Boost mood by stimulating your entire body and brain
• Develop good habits for rewarding results
• Balance production of dopamine, oxytocin and reduce stress through brain stimulation
• Better sleep and increased energy
• Safely develop your voice without nodule or unwanted conditions
• Improve flexibility, strength, health, and stamina in your whole body
• Lower blood pressure and slow the heart rate
• Heighten self-awareness

Your voice is unhealthy if…

• Your voice becomes hoarse, tickled, or scratchy after singing just a few songs
• Hitting high notes becomes a struggle, or you sound pitchy
• Your body is compensating for sound inconsistency through unconventional physical movements
• You feel like something is wrong, but your ENT doctor can’t find a diagnosis
• Flu-like symptoms and diseases or disorders of the ears, nose, and throat

Care for your voice

• Drink water—it’s a necessity
• Try steaming, humidifying, and nasal washes, like a Neti Pot®, Neil Med rinse, or Navage to ward off sickness and keep nasal passages in good health
• Avoid all types of smoke
• Go easy on alcohol and caffeine, especially when training
• Limit foods that can cause acid reflux, like chocolate, spicy foods, cheese, and milk
• Avoid voice extremes—like yelling or whispering—and avoid frequenting loud bars near show nights
• Sleep for a minimum of 8 hours
• Eat a small amount of protein at least 2 hours before your show

After a regular warm-up, If you feel that your throat feels like closing all the time when you’re singing, or the singer wonders why does my throat feel tight and sore, why does this happen?

It is because you are not able to produce optimal amplification of resonance.
When the vocal tone is formed correctly by adjusting internally your acoustical chambers, the singer will find placements that create a pleasing and relaxed tone without affecting the sound and increasing the vocal power, at the same time avoiding muscular problems and incorrect projection patterns.

When the vowel is identified with precision, the resonance chambers of the body’s vocal instrument are immediately transformed so that the best amplification of the basic sound is achieved. The singer then has greater volume and understanding of this dynamic variation, as well as improved intonation and far greater ease of production.

Vowel modification must be mastered to help smooth transitions throughout the range.

Vocal protection is directly proportional to the acoustical chamber by opening the throat (acoustical space), as well as knowing how to release in healthy mode and modify the biggest muscle of all the tongue. When you free your throat space, it’s reflex changes the muscle positioning, and the projection of the vowel is strengthened (the strong vowel in the high and wide soft palate) and altered (modified) properly.

Shaping your throat and the correct positioning of the larynx in the upper-middle register allows you, as a singer, to feel a release in the base of the tongue, allowing ease of airflow into the high range. The resulting acoustical release, in turn, allows for a healthy balance of upper and lower overtones within a singer’s vocal production.

Avoiding vowel modification through vocal training leads to strain and tension, hoarseness, as well as many malfunctions and/or dysfunctions during the production of high notes; the notes should feel as they are in the floating position. Muscle tension extrinsic muscles connect all the way to the hyoid bone.

Not medical advice
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