It’s OK to say NO!
We would like to talk again about the subject of vocal fatigue. One way you can get into trouble is when you are touring or doing multiple performances without getting enough downtime and vocal rest. This can be very draining on you physically and vocally. It is incredibly important that before you leave, you are comfortable with your schedule. Many people will want you to sing more and more throughout your careers and while that is what we all are after, we must learn to manage our schedules and how often we sing. We tell our students NO, is an important word to learn. It can be very difficult to say NO to people when we want to please them and continue getting more and more opportunities to sing. Remember, when you say NO to something, you are actually saying YES to something you value more! At JVS, we offer a holistic approach for our students. We don’t just deal with matters of vocal technique, but rather the whole person, seeing each one of you individually and doing our best to meet your needs. Why don’t you send us an email and start learning not only a great vocal technique, but how to manage the many challenges of your career, successfully! Say YES to SUCCESS!!
Speaking in Your Optimum Range
It is very important to know how to take care of your voice. True vocal damage is very difficult to reverse so you want to avoid it at all costs.
One of the most essential ways to care for your voice is to learn to speak correctly as we speak much more in a day then we sing. If we are not speaking at the right pitch level or optimum range, we can cause major issues with our singing voice. The best way to find your optimum range, which is the pitch level your voice lies in naturally, is to bend over at the waist and let your head fall to a relaxed position and just say uh-huh to see where your speaking voice lies naturally. Chances are it is much higher in range then you might have expected. You can vary the pitch up and down from that optimum range, but never let your voice go into a really low guttural range which is called vocal fry. Women tend to go into vocal fry at the end of a sentence and men will often speak lower then their optimum range to sound more authoritative. If you speak in your optimum range, you will definitely find your voice sounding more rested through out the day. This is especially important for people who have to speak a lot on their day job. Speaking in your optimum range is something you will have to practice but the results will be fantastic! Remember to also practice supporting your speaking voice the same way as you do your singing voice.
Vocal Fatigue
In a recent lesson with a student the subject of Vocal Fatigue came up. After singing a lot of consecutive days, our student, was concerned something was really wrong with her voice. She said her singing felt low, heavy, and less easy. After working with her we realized there was nothing more wrong with her voice the simple vocal fatigue. She was vocally tired and probably physically tired as well from too much singing. The advice we gave her was to rest her voice a couple days by staying quiet. We told her not to sing or talk and definitely not to whisper! She told us that she absolutely needed to use her voice just one more time before she could take that necessary and important vocal rest. In order to help her, we worked her breath support by giving her warm-ups to help her re-engage her support muscles and get back to singing ON her breath not WITH her breath. We also helped her alleviate that heavy, low feeling, by making sure she was feeling her resonance high and forward in her face not in her throat or chest.