Am I Damaging My Voice?

By Donna Flynn, Vocal Coach (more articles from this author) 2006-08-18

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Perhaps you have sensed that something is wrong with your voice but are unable to identify the problem. You may feel soreness when singing or afterwards. You are able to sing notes some days but unable to sing those same notes other days. You may have lost a portion of your range completely. What is normal and what is not? Let me tell you….

When your throat feels tight or hoarse it is because incorrect vocal cord adjustments occur when moving from one note to the next. Support is lacking, such as breath, to produce sound correctly. Power, fullness and style are attempted by shouting, pushing or forcing the sound into place. Your body is tight when singing causing your throat to become restricted. This produces vocal cord damage. You may grow nodes on your vocal cords; lose a portion of your voice or all of it, permanently.

The main culprit is a lack of balance between the individual components necessary for singing. These include your mental thoughts while singing, correct posture, breath, tone production, vocal cord adjustments, understanding chest and head registers, resonant sound, and creative expression used to create your distinct style.

Many singers focus on scales only. Doing scales that are redundant or isolated from other areas needing focus will result in some areas being over-developed while other areas remain un-developed. Yes, scales are extremely important and need to be practiced on a regular basis. These simple routine exercises will greatly improve the quality of your voice. When first beginning to sing, focus may be on scales in order to develop precision when producing sound and to make the act of singing look and feel effortless. Once mastered, this allows you to get the most results with the least amount of effort.

If scales, however, are the only thing you are doing, you are wasting your time. You need to know how to activate and build every aspect of singing and deactivate everything that is not used to produce the desired sound. This may appear to be common sense, but with conflicting information available, most find it confusing. You must maintain a balance between each component in order to reach your full singing potential in a safe and healthy manner.

Those who experience damage often rely on improper instruction, copy singing techniques from other singers whose training is not appropriate for them, or worse, are self-teaching themselves through CDs and books. None of these methods allow you to identify your specific problem areas. They provide general information for all voice types whether they are male or female, sing high or low, soft or loud, etc. They use buzzwords and terms making their explanations difficult to understand and apply. While CDs and books can greatly enhance the learning process, the opposite is true if they are not used correctly. If you are relying on these methods, you are playing a dangerous game.

While it may be common for your throat to feel strained while singing in groups, such as choirs, it is not normal. This happens when you cannot hear yourself clearly and attempt to be heard by singing over other voices or instruments. You may adjust your singing style in order to blend with the group. To alleviate this, work on your material individually, allowing imbalances that are occurring and unable to be heard by the conductor due to the group environment to be corrected before bad habits form and damage takes place.

So what is normal? When you learn to sing in a way different from what you are used to you will engage muscles that feel unfamiliar. If you currently sing with tension in the throat you could feel the jaw muscles as you learn to redirect the sound. This may happen during class time, which is focused and intense. This is normal and safe when monitored by a professional. If, however, the tension continues when practicing on your own, you may be causing damage. To help relieve this, practice for shorter periods of time, such as 15-minute intervals. Sing at a softer volume until your voice is conditioned, allowing you to sing louder.

If you hold tension in your body you will project that tension to new areas as you learn to sing correctly. This is normal but difficult to overcome for those who sing primarily from their intellect. The tension will be elevated once a solid foundation for singing has been achieved. If your throat feels dry it may be due to the constant flow of air passing through the vocal cords and windpipe. Drink lots of water to minimize this. If it persists, see a doctor. At times you may feel you are not progressing or progressing as quickly as you would like. This is normal for most singers. You will hit plateaus where additional work is needed to break through the block. As your technique improves these temporary problems will be eliminated.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated about understanding voice damage. Having a voice that sounds good is different from having a voice that is healthy and that functions correctly. Many singers give up just as they begin to make noticeable progress and fall back into old harmful habits. They hold onto outdated ideas and resist breaking through barriers that will elevate them to a higher level. You can achieve all your singing goals and build a stronger and healthier voice in the process. Don’t give up!

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