I just finished teaching a full day of students.  Today I had a few Group Sing classes which are composed of a lot of young little singers full of energy and very important things to say (so cute).  The classes are in the late afternoons and sometimes after I teach them, my voice hurts.

Yes, me the voice teacher, creator of Voice Lessons To Go, can strain her voice from time to time too .

On the other hand, my voice does not hurt when I properly warm-up before the teaching begins, even if I sing hours before.

I can’t tell you the difference it makes between warming-up my own voice before I teach the class and teaching the class on a cold voice.  When I warm my voice up in the morning, it is set up to speak correctly for the whole day.  Whether I am teaching groups of 5 year olds or speaking on the telephone.

At the end of a working day, when I have properly warmed- up my voice feels good, when I haven’t it feels tired and out of whack.  Sometimes this vocal fatigue can lead into the next day as well, messing up a singing day.  The more often I have a tired voice day, the longer it takes to recover.  When your voice is fatigued from an event and then you have sing on it you can cause damage- something none of us want.

Sometimes, even I forget, or do not make the time, to warm-up in the morning, and I pay the price for it.  I think teaching groups of people is one of the hardest things on your voice, especially when they can be a chatty bunch.  I taught in a classroom for many years and found the same thing to be true; I needed to warm-up my voice to get through the class without over-taxing my vocal chords.

Look at it as a positive, the more often you warm-up and train your singing voice, the better shape it will be in for everything as well as singing.

Your singing warm-up will be of great benefit to your speaking voice. Remember they use the same larynx, chords, and muscle support to use them correctly.  If you are going to be speaking, do yourself a favor and vocalize beforehand.

Ariella Vaccarino

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Written by Ariella Vaccarino creator of  Voice Lessons To Go (singing lessons on CD) and author of  Vocalize!

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Just a quick reminder to all my football fans out there.  If you are interested in singing, then you need to think about protecting your voice.  That means all the time, even during your favorite Super Bowl party.  And if by any chance you actually have tickets to the event, amazing, but you are in triple vocal danger from the average party goer.

In general if you are at a super bowl party, just watch the screaming.  Make sure you are supporting your voice at all times from your diaphragm even during the craziest play.

Yelling or talking over a crowd to be heard is really one of the worst things you can do for your voice.  It completely knocks your voice out of wack and swells your chords.  Don’t try and yell over people to be heard.  Either wait for a quiet moment to speak, or speak at a normal volume closer to someone, instead of across the room.  Also, seriously, why not warm up your voice,  www.voicelessonstogo.com, before you go so that you are in a good spot vocally when you get there.

This advice is even more important if you have a singing gig coming up.  Your voice will recover from the event within a few days, but if you have some big singing to do afterwards, you could start the beginings of a bad problem.  If your chords are swollen and you sing on them you will use your throat muscles more than normally and create more swelling, maybe even vocal noduals.  So be careful.

Support with your voice when you show your team support singers!

A friendly reminder from:

Ariella Vaccarino- creator of of Voice Lessons To Go (singing lessons on Cd), and author of Vocalize!

www.voicelessonstogo.com

Need a professional opinion of your voice BEFORE your next audition, or just curious how you measure up in the singing world? Sign up for Vocal Assessment on my site- you send me a link or mp3 of your voice with your questions and I get back to you with a professional opinion right away.

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As I sit here and blog today, I am joined by a most sultry husky voice…mine.  Not my usual sound I assure you being a coloratura soprano. Even though I am secretly enjoying my va va voom sound, it is a pretty serious problem if a singing engagement was on hand.

My advice, don’t sing if you have any semblance of laryngitis. There is no “singing through it”, rather you will damage your voice if you persist to sing when you have this virus.  Of course if you do have a performance coming up you can get steroid shots from a ear nose and throat specialist who could probably get you through the experience.  I had that happen to me once singing for LA Opera in Journey To Cordoba.  I got through the performance but it was at about 45% of my usual ability, it took weeks to get back on track after that.

Actually try and be as silent as you can during such a trauma to the voice, this way you will not risk over speaking or singing on swollen shut chords.  I’ve said enough!  I hope many of you are enjoying healthy singing voices this week.  Keep sending your vocal assessments through, I would especially love to hear some new pretty voices this week after listening to my own!

I recently had someone confide in me that their speaking voice is just not what it used to be.  That it stays “grovelly” for longer stretched throughout the day, and is missing the “quality/brilliance”  that it used to always have.  He was telling me that he has noticed this in the past year or so and was concerned that he just had to resign himself over to his voice aging, (he is 37).

You know, the voice does age.  But our lifestyles also change that contribute to that “aging”.  Their is a lot we can do to keep our voices fresh and buoyant.

Speaking, like singing, when done properly takes support of muscles in the body, mainly abdominal, to be done correctly. As we get older, our lifestyles become more sedentary and so does the activation of the proper support muscles.  If you are sitting at your computer all day with weak posture, and then you go to your car, and then your couch, and then your bed… You are probably not getting good vocal support.

My voice exercises, Voice Lessons To Go, which are made up of singing vocal warm-ups, if done regularly can help your voice become alive again, bringing back the vibrancy and luster of your supported sound.  Regular vocal warm-ups will activate your abdominal muscles to dissuade your larynx from taking over alone which can cause lazy speaking.

Just like anything that takes muscles tone, the voice needs to be worked out as well.  If you are uncomfortable singing and still want to improve your speaking voice.  You can do regular breathing exercises to workout your diaphragmatic muscles and help your use your air flow properly.  There are great breathing exercises on my first volume, Vocalize and Breath, of Voice Lessons To Go.

Yoga and swimming also provide great workouts for both breathing and muscle strength which is great for your vocal upkeep.

Another tip, if you catch yourself speaking lazily, stop.  Put more energy and effort into producing a quality sound every time you speak.  Try and stay low on the whispering and yelling, which both can be tough on the speaking voice as well.  Speaking over loud noise is also very harsh to your vocal chords.

written by: Ariella Vaccarino creator of Voice Lessons To GO, and author of Vocalize!

www.voicelessonstogo. com- bringing quality healthy vocal instruction to the masses…