Voice Preservation

[mythbuster]

Since Christmas, I've been dealing with a nasty sinus bug that has lingered and lingered. Early on I fully lost my voice. We are now at the end of week 2 of in person teaching and my voice is really struggling. Raspy and low- when I try a few choice warm ups the high notes are the issue. Having to fill in for faculty out because of COVID does not help.

Other than tea with honey, does anyone here have suggestions on treatments to help preserve and restore my voice? My classes are small enough that it's not an issue of projection, but rather me sounding hoarse.

[the_geneticist]

Drink lots of water, don't whisper since ironically that makes it worse.  And try to minimize how much you have to talk.  I had a colleague who completely lost her voice and her students were really good about it.  She carried a small whiteboard to write questions & comments, spent a lot of time having the students discuss things, & used a portable microphone + speaker even when her voice was mostly better.

[mamselle]

From a voice instructor: you've possibly either strained your vocal cords or have some inflammation: you may have pharyngitis, an inflammation of the pharynx, or laryngitis, an inflamed larynx.

The classic suggestion would be to just rest your voice for a very long time. Realizing that that's rarely practical, and having had to sing myself in such cases, here are some ideas (others might have other suggestions or disagree with some of mine; you'll want to find out what works best for you).

1. Bend over, bouncing the knees gently, arms extending downwards (no need to touch the floor, this is to relax, not for calisthenics) and breathe in and out gently.

Tiny, breathy puffs, then slightly larger ones (unvoiced), then add some voicing (light 'huh's,' 'pah's,' 'buh's', 'tah's,' 'dahs,' etc.) then engage the cheeks with 'wah's' Do that for a few moments in the AM before you even speak to anyone, alone, in a warm space.

2. Some people find gargling with a bit of salt, lemon, or honey in water; others use a prepared gargle, or just warm water. Again, lightly voice a breathy 'ahhh,' head back, spit, repeat a couple times. If you have dry heat in your home, you may be getting stuffy, with secretions gumming up the works overnight; gargling can help to clear some of that. I'm also a fan of a tiny bit of Vicks, just to penetrate the sinuses, but that may be counterindicated if you've had sinusitis, check with your MD.

3. You're probably trying to use the throat to support your sound instead of the abdominals. (Diaphragms are involuntary muscles; the abdominals can support the diaphragm, but telling people to 'use the diaphragm' for speaking or signing is useless, you don't control it directly). To avoid this, there are a couple things you can do:

   a. Pinch your nose and read a couple of passages while standing up with, say, the book or pages resting on the top of a dresser (so you're not engaging/using upper body muscles to support that weight). Nasality (I find) correlates to throat tightness; by pinching the nose the airstream is re-directed and the throat takes less of the burden of support.

   b. Breathe in by expanding the lower rib cage sideways, imagining a pyramid filling up from the bottom to the top. Exhale and inhale again. Do this a couple times, then cycle back through 1, 2, and 3a above. As you produce sounds, engage the abdominals gently, you can also bend over and engage hem as you rise, while doing light crescendos (increased loudness) on the way up, and decrescendos (decreased loudness) on the way down.

   c. Locate the spot under the sternum where the diaphragm lives, touch there lightly, engage the abdominals, and do stronger 'huh's' (with a loose throat) to see if the diaphragm responds by popping out ('like a little football,' my voice teacher used to say; note that you can't 'make it' or 'will it' to do that, if you're breathing and vocalizing correctly, it will do it; if not, it won't)

Also--

Do some more reading while standing, this time see if you can let the nasality go without physically pinching the nose (or alternate, to get the feeling of it).

Walk in a small, slow, steady circle, swinging your arms low, then over your head, while using the 'bah's', pah's, tah's and dah's' again.

Stand in one place, swinging your arms around you until they cross in front, again using the syllables on a light breath, and letting the opening of your arms behind you coincide with your inhalations.

Further: Alexander Technique can help with larger muscle tightness in the upper thoracic area; positional placement could be causing strain since the head is the weightiest part of the body and your neck, back, and thoracic muscles are all working 24/7 to keep you upright, so spasms, unfortunate cross-spinal patterns, and knots can also cause vocal fatigue. Its not something you can figure out alone, you'll need a practitioner, but they're available in most places.

Massage might help but without the concomitant work described above, and/or Alexander work, the knots and grabby spots will just come back again; if it's reached this point, it's not something a pill or muscle relaxant alone can help, you've probably got some unhelpful vocal habits going on that are building on each other, and on whatever small bits of stress you might be under from any other everyday life stuff going on...

A vocal coach for a six-weeks session might be a good investment; there are folks who will work remotely/online as well as in classes/in person/privately.

It can be worked out, but it's a bit of a re-learning process. It's possible with good re-training to project to the back of a room (think, Shakespearean actors do it!) but until you get your apparatus in better order, consider a microphone to use in class, or recording lectures for the moment at a low voice level, which you can increase in volume on the play-back.

M.

[sinenomine]

Great advice, Mamselle! I'm a trained singer also, and a recent Covid bout left me breathing totally wrong — all from my upper chest. Once I started feeling better, I had to be very conscious about breathing with my abdominals again; thankfully, it only took a couple days of very mindful breathing before the muscle memory kicked in. And voila, my raspiness went away.

[mamselle]

Glad you got it back!

M.