Vocal Health

Our outlook on vocal health follows these basic premises:

1) We are not doctors. If you feel like something isn't functioning properly with your voice, seek medical advice.
2) You have the opportunity to know a lot about your voice. Experiment, get to know how it functions most efficiently, and notice when it feels less efficient, so that you can avoid overtaxing it. Be a scientist, not a tourist, in your experience.
3) Miracle cures tend to be too good to be true. Hydration and efficient use of the body to support vocal function are your best tools for healthy engagement.
4) Understanding how the voice functions gives you the information to help guide your practice and address questions as they arise.

Special Thanks to our Guest Editor on this page:

Megan Walker

M.S. CCC-SLP, cert. Vocology

Speech-Language Pathologist; Associate Researcher
ENT Specialists; National Center for Voice and Speech
Salt Lake City, Uta

On this page we are going to cover~

Voice Habits that Contribute to Vocal Fatigue
Length, Effort, Loudness, Pitch, Efficiency

Vocal Rest: When is Silence Helpful?

The Warm Up Target: Stretch & Unpress

Staying in Vocal Shape & Avoiding Injury

My voice has been hurting, what next?

voice habits that contribute to vocal fatigue

Singing and speaking can very easily be compared to clapping your hands. To clap, our hands come together and interrupt the surrounding air, which creates a sound wave. This is exactly what our vocal folds do to create sound. They clap together, except at much faster rates than our hands are capable of.

Think - how fast do you clap your hands during a typical applause? Twice per second? Our vocal folds clap together on average 200 times per second during speaking and beyond 1,000 times per second during some singing.

Unlike our hands, we can't feel our vocal folds clapping together, perhaps the body's way of protecting us.

The same factors that make the tissues in your hands sore after clapping are the same factors that can create vocal fold fatigue when making sound

1. Length of time

2.How many muscles are involved

3. Loudness - how hard

4.Pitch - how often per second

5. Efficiency

1. Length of Time

Most audience members get tired of clapping after a 3-5 minute encore. And yet, the vocal folds are asked to collide together for hours during the day. A strenuous vocal activity that is performed once may be much less fatiguing than one that is repeated. Just like our hands, the vocal folds can become swollen, irritated, and dry if asked to collide for long periods of time without rest.

Solution: Vocal folds need rest. Tissues need to time heal, cells need the chance to regenerate. The two hour performance may not wear you out, but the 3 hours of yelling over music at the after party may be impeding your chance to recover.
But is total silence always the answer? Scroll down to read about vocal rest recommendations.

2. How many muscles are involved

Imagine clapping your hands with your biceps flexed, your fingers curled, your head jetted forward, and your teeth clenched together. The clapping sound will still occur, but none of those external muscle groups involved are actually aiding in creating the sound. In fact, they are making the clapping experience much more fatiguing and unsustainable.

Many people create sound while over-engaging external muscles around the larynx. While these muscles are important in setting up the shape of the vocal tract, their overuse contributes to tension and subsequently, fatigue. These are often the ones that feel tight while singing, since we have no direct sensation of muscles inside the larynx. Muscles of the neck, jaw, tongue, pharynx, and head can all be over-engaged while singing and add to fatigue, while also impeding the larynx's ability to create free vibrations.

Solutions: Unfortunately, muscle tension does not always disappear just because we tell it to. There are many types of exercises, massage, stretches and therapies to help in this process. The first step is to notice~

-Do you feel balanced? Often times muscles in the neck will engage if your body is leaning off of its center
-Do you see any muscles engage? When you breathe in and start to sing does anything grip, move or flex in your head or neck?
-Swallow, and notice what happens to the larynx. Are any of those larynx-raising muscles engaging during singing?

3. Loudness/ How Hard

The way humans perceive loudness can be complex. The way most people perceive how to create loudness is even more complex. The instinct is often to squeeze the vocal folds together with excessive force, increase the breath pressure hitting the folds, and involve many of the external muscles mentioned above.

Imagine the vocal fold tissue is slightly inflamed and swollen - either from coughing, a long day of talking, dehydration etc. It is much more difficult for swollen vocal folds to vibrate together to create a strong sound. The voice user may perceive their sound as weaker and breathier than usual and want to increase the level of effort and "pushing" to get the volume they are used to. This sound would most likely be perceived by the listener as having a harsh or pressed quality, effortful to produce. This is counterproductive to the overall healing process.
Find out more about this process on our Vocal Folds page.

Solution: If the folds are swollen or irritated, and you cannot create the sounds you are used to, this means they need time to rest, and should not to be forced to create extra volume. A sprained ankle will slow down your running pace, but trying to run even faster to make up for it will most definitely prolong the healing process.

4. Pitch - how often per second

We perceive pitch by how often, or how frequently, a sound wave displaces air molecules. The more times per second the wave displaces the air, the higher the pitch. To create a C6 (a high C in the soprano range), the air must be displaced 1,046 times per second, or 1,046 Hz. For an A4 (A in the middle C octave), the air is displaced 440 times per second, or 440 Hz. For a G2 (bottom line of the bass clef), 97 times per second, or 97 Hz.

In order for the air to be displaced that many times per second, something actually has to vibrate that many times per second. For voice users, this is the vocal folds. To create the pitch C6, 1,046 Hz, the vocal fold tissues must collide together and interrupt the airflow 1,046 times per second. The more collision per second, and the more muscles involved to position the vocal folds into a stretched out shape to create high frequencies, the more fatigue may occur i.e. high notes may be more fatiguing than low notes.

Solutions: Budget your time in the high range. Don't be afraid to practice an octave down during multiple repetitions. Experiment with singing a lower part in the choir for certain pieces. When planning a concert program, think about the range and level of fatigue for each piece and where in the program order it may feel the least fatiguing.

The other piece of the equation - vocal fold shape
In order for vocal fold tissue to vibrate at such high frequencies, the tissue itself must stretch, lengthen and thin. Similar to other elastic substances, like say, taffy, once it has been asked to stretch and thin multiple times in a row, it may be difficult for it to return to its original pre-stretched state. This is why singers may find it difficult to sing in a lower range after singing multiple high notes. The vocal folds may need some time to "un-stretch" if you will, and can be encouraged by cool-down exercises that ease the singer back into a lower range.

5. Efficiency

Voice use, like many things, involves balance. It may be tempting to look at the previous information and say, if pressing and squeezing can cause fatigue, why not just use a breathy sound, where the vocal folds collide as little as possible? But this is where we lose what could be called "volume for free", or the most efficient way for our voices to be heard - the higher harmonics.

Higher harmonics in a sound give the sound volume, but not in the way we think of volume, as something that has to be worked for or pushed. Higher harmonics are the 'clear' part of the sound, the part of the sound that cuts directly through and excites specific parts of the ear canal that grabs the listener's attention.

To create higher harmonics, the vocal folds need a certain amount of closure, or adduction. The breathier the sound, the less higher harmonics available. Extra breath in the voice may sound like white noise, muffling the clarity in the part of the sound that carries. The balancing act is to get enough closure to create the higher harmonics, but not to go so far as to create excessive pressing and squeezing that causes fatigue.

Vocal fry, breathy, grumbly, talking excessively low in the range
All of these qualities in a sound may not in themselves be fatiguing - but they are inefficient. When someone speaks only in vocal fry or in a low grumbly part of their range, they lose the higher harmonics in their sound. They are not able to cash in on the "volume for free" or the harmonics that "do the work for you". So when they do want to create more volume, they have to work for it and their only option is to push and add more breath pressure, which can be a fatiguing and inefficient solution.

Solution: There are many exercises and approaches for bringing out upper harmonics as an efficient way to create volume. The first step may be to notice when you hear extra air, vocal fry, or texture in your sound. The second step may be to rewire what creating 'volume' feels like to you, it may be embracing a 'ringing' feeling in your voice, or focusing on new physical sensations that indicate easy adduction (for many this is a buzzing sensation in their nose and face bones). Visit our Warm Ups & Exercises page for exercises that can target efficient adduction.

vocal rest: when is silence helpful?

If a doctor or speech language pathologist advises you to take complete vocal rest, that is what you should do. If you are feeling fatigue or difficulty creating sound, you should allow yourself to be silent as much as possible. Vocal fold tissue needs time to rest and regenerate and cannot do so when it is colliding together.

However, complete silence for a long span of time is not necessarily helpful in typical situations.

As tissues in the vocal folds heal, it is important that the tissue strands heal in the proper direction, which requires them to stretch while healing.

Examples of potentially unhelpful complete vocal rest:

A singer taking 2 days of complete voice rest before a big concert in order to "prepare" their voice

A teacher spending the summer doing small amounts of public speaking or vocal exercises and starting a full week of 8 hour teaching days in the fall

A choir member who feels exhausted during a weekend retreat and skips warming up to "save" their voice

In all of these cases, of course, yelling, coughing, long hours of voice use, and screaming, should all be avoided. BUT, easy exercises like semi-occluded glides and slides spread throughout the day will encourage the vocal folds to stretch while they're healing. This can prepare the voice for the possibly taxing, upcoming experience that complete silence will not.
Visit our SOVT Exercises page for more ideas.

Whispering

There are many different hypotheses about whispering. Some professionals say if you are in a position where that is the only easy way to make sound, go for it. Others say it is too forceful on the vocal folds and you are likely to use excess breath pressure in order to be heard. Here is an excerpt on whispering from the National Center for Voice & Speech:

"..you may be better off using your normal voice gently and quietly rather than whispering. Whispering can alter the manner in which your vocal folds come together, often compressing the vocal folds in the middle where your tissue is most likely to swell when your are sick. Whenever you have a sore throat, you should minimize your voice use if possible. If you are uncertain whether you are safe to use your voice, it is always best to see an otolaryngologist who specializes in voice care."

-http://ncvs.org/e-learning/faqs.html

Dry Practice

Much voice work can be done without using the full voice. Important learning can still occur without the fatigue of creating sound. Instead, try practicing-

Each inhale and vowel shape preparation for the beginning of each phrase
Mouthing or speaking lyrics with connection and inflection
Higher phrases an octave down or in lower keys
Choreography and staging
Memorization work
Playing melody lines on the piano while thinking the text
Singing each phrase through a straw

the warm up target: stretch & unpress

A phrase coined by Dr. Ingo Titze, Stretch & Unpress is the key to healthy, functioning vocal folds.

Stretch: Do exercises that allow the vocal folds to smoothly stretch as you slide throughout your range

Glides
Slides
Connected arpeggios
Through a straw, lip trill, tongue trill, vowel, consonant

The goal isn't volume, it's about an easy, fluid sound connecting low notes to high notes

Unpress: There are so many things that want to press into the vocal folds' space!

The false folds pressing down on the vocal folds
The tongue pressing back on the hyoid bone
The vocal folds pressing too tightly together
The pharynx squeezing in around the larynx

Exercises and intentions that free up these areas are key in the warm up process.