There are many things you should and shouldn’t do to keep your voice sounding good and your vocal chords in good condition.
Warm Up
First and most importantly, you should always do a vocal warm up before you sing or go on stage. Many artists do not do this and risk doing permanent damage to their vocal chords every time they sing. Your vocal chords are muscles and need to be treated with respect to avoid damage. Damaging these muscles can be extremely painful and may stop you singing for weeks or months at a time. or even stop you singing altogether.
Singers who spend years doing their acts with no warm up routine can find that after a prolonged period of time, nodules can form on the actual vocal chords themselves due to the excessive strain of hammering your voice without properly warming up.
If you were an athlete, you wouldn’t consider running a race without warming up first or you would be likely to pull a leg muscle. The same goes for your vocal chords.
You may get away with it for a while, but sooner or later as you develop as a singer, you will have a larger vocal workload and as you put more pressure on your vocal chords to sing more difficult pieces, you risk serious strain by not preparing yourself properly.
You should spend at least five to ten minutes warming your voice up before a performance. It should be nearer fifteen to twenty minutes, but sometimes you just don’t have the opportunity to do this, so just do as much as you can at the time.
Don’t Smoke
Pretty obvious huh ! The problem is, a lot of people out there who want to be singers smoke, and it’s not easy quitting, even if you are trying to follow your dream of becoming a vocalist. Rock stars are often seen smoking all over the place, and this leads us to think it’s possible to smoke like a trooper and be a great singer at the same time.
Well, it depends on what you call a great singer.
There are many famous pop/rock stars out there people consider to be great singers, but actually aren’t as good as they may seem.
Many have extremely limited vocal range and stay within the same octave or two throughout all or most of their songs. The skill they have is the way they make use of their limited vocal range by the expression in their voices and the songs they create around them.
I’m not knocking these guys, as they clearly have created great songs and are extremely successful, but just because you have a hit record, doesn’t make you a great singer.
If you can use the natural range you’ve got to it’s best ability then you can get away without having a fantastic vocal range, but if you want to start hitting notes all over the place, then you must keep your throat in good condition and smoking undoubtedly will limit your abilities.
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter how much Liam Gallagher drinks and smokes the night before a gig, it probably doesn’t make the slightest difference to his singing ability as his songs don’t require a huge amount of skill to perform. They just need that raw vocal tone that he belts down the mic.
Rappers are also lucky in their choice of music as they don’t really have to sing. They speak or rap down the mic and throw in a bit of a melody somewhere in the middle. They can get away with a lot.
But if someone like Celine Dion, when out and smoked a pack of fags the night before a gig, you would probably find she couldn’t hit most of her notes and her voice would sound like a horse with bronchitis instead of a professional singer as her songs require such a high standard of perfection to perform. And ‘No’, I’m not a Celine Dion fan.
I just know that if I smoke more than a couple of cigs in an evening, then the next day, I have much more trouble singing the hard notes in some of my most difficult practice songs. I can still get away with the easy songs, but as soon as something vocally challenging arises, you are in trouble. Even the easy songs are much more of a struggle to perform.
It’s funny, because you never realize how difficult a song is to perform, and how good the original singer really is, until you try and sing it yourself.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are, stop smoking and your voice will improve.
Even if you can’t stop, or don’t want to, cut down to one or two a day. This can be done over a period of time, and soon you will become conscious that every time you have a cigarette, you will be affecting your voice and will find it harder to hit those notes your are striving for.
Alcohol
Alcohol is almost as bad as smoking, so the same goes as above. If you can’t give up, then try to cut down.
Often, drinking and smoking will go together, so if you go out and get drunk, you will probably smoke more and double the damage to your throat. Even if you don’t smoke when you are out drinking, the strain you put on your voice shouting over the local band or dance floor to your mates until three in the morning won’t help your cause. Not only that, but the chances are you’ll not be able to practice singing the next day because your voice will be knackered and you’ll have a hang over. This effectively reduces the time you can spend practicing, and ultimately your vocal ability.
You don’t have to ruin your social life completely, but just tone it down a bit. You often hear singers on TV saying they have to behave themselves when preparing for a performance and have to leave parties early to gig the next day. It’s a drag, but the best singers out there, keep the partying to a minimum, and save themselves for a performance.
Guitarists can get away with it more if they’ve had a bender the night before and can still hold a rhythm or solo, but a singers voice isn’t so forgiving.
Look at the state of Amy Winehouse when she goes on stage or live TV after a heavy session the night before. She tries to wing it because she has a gruffy voice anyway, but you can hear it straining and croaking under the stress she’s putting it through to hit the notes. It sounds awful, she embarrasses herself and does herself no favours. Mind you, she’s loaded and doesn’t give a damn anyway. So good on her.
If you want a good strong, clear voice, with good vocal range, cut the alcohol and cigarettes. If you want to yell down the mike like a strangled cat, keep partying.
Caffeine.
Coffee and Tea contain caffeine. Both are supposed to have a negative effect on the vocal chords, so try not to drink either just before you sing. If you do, make it two or three hours before your session.
Dairy Products
Dairy products like milk and cheese also affect your voice so stay away from them for a few hours before you sing.
Chocolate
This one doesn’t help either. Coating your vocal chords in chocolate before a performance will definitely affect your ability to sing. Try to avoid until after your set.
That’s a few of the basics to start with. There’ll be many more vocal tips to come so check back here in a few days and see what’s new.
Other Posts of Interest
Complete Vocal Workout
Vocal Warm Up Techniques
Vocal Warm Up Scales
Vocal Products
The Importance of Vitamins & Minerals in our Daily Lives
