I am suffering from hoarseness while singing and i cannot sing in a soft tone anymore. I have chronic laryngitis, and its pretty annoying because that is causing a lot of problem to my voice. I have been to several ENTs but they all said my throat is fine, there are no nodules or anything. It is just swollen. My falsetto is getting weird too, not strong like before.
I have a vocal coach before. I was with him for almost a year, he help expand my range from 9 keys to 21 keys. But then he asked me to sing loud, there are a lot of tension and it never improves, so I quit working with him. Another teacher thinks I am suffering from 1. A high larynx while singing(This is pretty true) 2.Chronic acid reflux.
I was with a speech therapist a month ago, and she said my overall vocal production is normal, except I am speaking too loud and high. And she mentioned something about my Glottis Attack was too strong.
My voice tires out easily now, even talking will cause this problem, but on the next day its getting better. My vowel placement is not right, even my voice therapy thinks so.
These are the major problems, and I really needed help on this, because I love singing, I gave up a lot of stuff for singing, and I want to learn the way to sing. I sing pop mostly, but I would like to learn classical methods.
Those are the problems I am having now, is there anyway to fix this?
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I think that teacher has given you a very good place to start your investigation. I’m sure with some understanding of proper vocal coordination and behavior your voice will improve. It is encouraging that you have already had a medical opinion come back positive. That tells us that we are most likely dealing with a function problem. These can be challenging, but are much easier to rehab than a medical/physical issue like nodes or something of that nature. You mention swelling and that is to be expected. The swelling is the impairment that is causing the hoarseness. It sounds like the observations of others that you mention make sense based on your symptoms. Now we just need to help you understand how to remedy these habits that are hurting you.
A basic observation from me would be it sounds like you have gotten into the habit of trying too hard to make you voice work and be heard. This is especially a problem if you are too attached to hearing yourself. This is very common and always unconscious. So we first must become aware of the problem of trying to hear ourselves.
When we do this a common tendency is to place the vowel very forward or even out in front of the mouth. (This is obviously an illusion. But we can sense it.) The physical way of accomplishing that placement is by closing the pharynx, which is the same as a high larynx position. When we do this it alters the form of the folds and impairs their ability to vibrate. It also causes an irregularity in the vibration form which can be irritating. So you would need to learn how to sense the difference and then make the healthy form a habit.
Trying to hear yourself would also lead you to talking and singing too loud. And as a result you over-work the voice by using too much breath to be louder. This also is irritating to the folds. The voice should have a natural intensity, which can seem like it is loud, but we should never try to be loud. The two mental concepts cause the body to respond in different ways, either healthy or not healthy.
The glottal attack being too strong would go along with what I’m saying about trying too hard. And this also causes irritation of the folds. This would affect your falsetto negatively because the irritation causes swelling, and swollen folds lose flexibility. It is a challenge to get this all straitened out correctly. It requires an increase in sensitivity to be able to coordinate the fine motor skills involved. But one thing that might help even before we work together.
Imagine the size of your larynx/vocal folds. The vibrating tissue is less than a centimeter in most people. Compare that to your lips, the reed of a saxophone, or the strings of a guitar. Think about how much air pressure, or how little, is needed to make these flexible little pieces of tissue to vibrate. It is so much less than any other instrument that we know. Most of us never even think about this relationship. But the voice requires much less air pressure than we tend to use. This is why the breathing is so important. Because without breath coordination we will over-tax the larynx with breath pressure. So start there and see what you discover.
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I have another question. About 2 Years ago, I was singing in school, and there was a high and long note, I think I over do it. Because in the middle of that note, my left throat suddenly feels painful. And now it will be painful sometimes too. The ENTs said there’s nothing there, are the cords damaged forever? Should I have vocal rest for few days now? Since my voice is kinda raspy.
When I place the vowels forward before, my voice became very high in pitch, is that normal?
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The pain you describe on the left side of your throat sounds to me like a muscle pull. If the ENT said there is nothing visually wrong then my guess would be something muscular. There is no way for me to know for sure. But I doubt the cords are damaged. Resting the voice is never a bad idea, but only for a short time. Long-term rest is not recommended. It is never a solution, only an avenue to get to the solution by allowing time for the swelling to go down some.
The solution is learning to understand your voice and how it works. Then developing habits that are in line with how the voice is meant to work. This requires knowledgeable guidance. All of the symptoms you described are pointing to a lack of healthy coordination with your voice. You are fortunate that no damage is showing up yet. That is great. Now you have a chance to change how you use your voice before there is damage done.
Your question about the vowel placement is normal. In fact it is very common for people not trained in using the voice to place the vowel more forward to accomplish higher notes. The reason for this is in order to place the vowels forward the throat closes. This is why we don’t want to place the vowels forward. The closing of the throat is a compensation for a lack of coordination in the proper way to tune pitch. And by doing the compensation the proper way will never happen. It is like it overrides the proper action.
These are the kinds of things I mean when I say you need to learn how the voice is meant to work. Then while you are learning to understand that you are simultaneously learning how to coordinate the voice to behave in that manner. Then we keep building on that developing positive habits. At some point the proper coordination will feel more familiar than the bad habits and you will be beyond the vocal difficulty.
Hello Alice. I replied to you by email. Just making sure you received it. Thanks.
Michael
Michael, I found you via David Jones. He has recommended that I contact you to pursue some vocal training. I have sung in various choirs over many years and love to sing. However, I’ve been disappointed in that I’m not able to sing with vibrato consistently..it seems to occur “at will” and not on command. David’s web site explains that this can be developed. I am hoping that you can help. I’ll look forward to hearing from you. thanks….Alice
Hi Bea. Thanks for your comments. I feel this is so well expressed that I am going to make it a post so more people will see it. Thanks again.
Michael:
I have been reading these posts, and I have a question which perhaps the questioner never mentioned: what type of teaching have they received? It is evident the person worked with a coach, but that is hardly receiving good method or teaching. There are basically four kinds of teachers out there, and all can teach a person to sing well, but all have many limitations as well.
1) The teacher who is an academic
This sort of person often knowns all there is to know about the functioning of the voice and can completely overwhelm us with their scientific information. But quite often they have no real idea how to coordinate all that information into a useful form for a student. Simply put, all those diagrams of muscles, larynx, tongue formations, etc. leave the student hopeless confused because they can see none of those things while singing and are quite unable to know for certain if they are actually accomplishing anything. Often this type of teacher can’t produce a pleasing sound either. They have understanding but haven’t really figured out how it works even with their own voices. But this sort of teacher can also be a god-send for helping fix real issues and problems that other teachers cannot fix because they simply don’t understand what is going on. The only issue I have with this sort of teacher, for the most part, is the academic confusion that results for an overload of information that ultimately doesn’t bring a clear picture to the student.
2) The teacher who studied as an opera sing but never had a professional career.
This sort of teacher has the training, but not the experience. They can teach proper technique, understand how things work, instruct on repertoire, and a whole list of things. What they lack is a real understanding of how it works on the stage and in the theatre. They are never certain of how much real physical energy is needed, or how strong the muscles need to be developed to accomplish and endure the workload of singing. And they really have no understanding of how to accomplish heavy dramatic singing, especially during loud passages, without really causing students to push. And this is simply because they have never had to do it themselves, and really have no understanding to fall back on.
3) A singer who was a professional for a while, even sang in major opera houses, but for whatever reason, left their careers.
This sort of teacher can be really quite good, providing the reason they left singing wasn’t because of bad technique and faulty production. Often if that is the case, all they do is teach their faults to their students and continue the bad teachings that got them into trouble to begin with. But if the teacher left for other reason, family issues, what have you, and the voice was not the cause or reason to quit, they can offer not only a sound technique, but also enough experience to help a student develop in the correct direction. They can often help students also meet the various important people who are needed to form a career. Yes, it is often WHO you know that opens the doors of a career. You may have the best teachers, the most wonderful technique, and the most impressive stage presence, but if you don’t know the people who can open the doors, or get you in to audition for agents and managements, you will go no where. Sometimes, what these people have to offer is something even more important than just good technique and that is help to actually form a career.
4) The teacher with a long and very successful career. I had teachers like this, and for me, they were wonderful and helped me not only with technique, but acting, understanding roles, understanding how to prepare a role, learning to pace myself so as to be fresh at the end of the performance, etc. And they introduced me to the powers that be that got me on the stage at 18. They could teach all that because they had perfected all that. BUT this type of teacher can also be an ego trap. You are there to prop up their egos. Their careers are at an end, their glory days are behind them, and so to relive the past they accept students. Most of the lesson time is NOT learning to sing, but reliving their glorious moments in opera. Or what happens that is even worst, they attempt to make a copy of themselves out of you, the student. And we all know that doesn’t work. Fortunately for me, that never happened with those who taught me.
5) The teacher who never formally studied voice, but has spent a lot of time accompanying singers and even coaching singers.
This type of person can often teach a singer what the correct style of any type of music is, whether you are in tune or pushing the voice too much, but more often than not, they cannot really tell you in good technical terms HOW to achieve the goals they want. They know what sounds correct, or what makes good effect in the theatre, but they have no clue HOW that is achieved through good technique. Often people who study with coaches learn good style but have destroyed voices because no one really working with them has a clue what should be done, what coordination must happen to achieve those results they are seeking. Now days, in all branches of music, more and more students are working only with coaches. They learn what is needed to succeed in the various formates they are singing in, but they seldom learn any real technique that will keep them going. Also, in today’s modern way of singing, there are many features of classical singing that are not required, even though those very features are what help us know a voice is working properly. Vibrato in modern music, pop music, is often created falsely by a pumping of the diaphragm, which ruins the voice and puts great strain on it, however, since few singers have to even attempt to achieve anything remotely called vocal beauty, this damage is often overlooked. Blowing the winds of stormy weather across the vocal folds is often considered a “safe” way to sing by such coaches, and it also damages the vocal folds because they become lazy and simply don’t work as they should. Many such habits are considered “good style” in popular music, but are completely terrible on the voice and its function. So, often a very unsuspecting student works with a coach, and learns all the worst habits imaginable so as to “give a certain sound.” Students who study with a coach may learn valuable lessons on style, but often at the expense of good form. And for some reading this, even good sounding popular music is much improved with good form, even though it seems to not be a requirement to succeed in this style of music. And students are really left entirely to their own thinking and figuring to develop much technique when working with a coach. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
I write this only because you have students questioning what is wrong with their voices, who have worked with some sort of teacher or coach. It is time they had some understanding as to HOW to select a teacher. Teachers who know no technique cannot teach what they don’t know. Teachers with only a smattering of understanding can often do more damage than good because they really don’t understand the whole picture of vocal production, teachers who know everything but cannot explain it clearly can leave a student more confused than when they began, and teachers living off their past glories may try and create a “second-them” out of the students they teach. These are the pitfalls of finding a good teacher.
But each one of those types of teachers can teach very valuable lessons that no student should be without. The key is understanding what the teacher really has to offer, and what shortcomings may also be evident.
If you work with an excellent technician, make sure you really understand the explanations. Ask questions if something isn’t clear, and if the explanation uses too many words that are so anatomical you are lost, demand clear direct explanations that make sense. If images are used to help you understand a feeling of singing, then make sure that image actually gives you a clear picture. What works for some is mud to others.
If you work with someone who has studied by never actually sang, make sure that opportunities are arranged for you to sing in larger venues, in large churches, in places like that, so you get the feel of singing in a large place, and learn to NOT push the voice, but use the theatre as your friend imaging it moving the voice forward out there to the audience. If your teacher will not arrange practice times in larger places, then seek opportunities yourself. Sing at church, etc. (a studio is really very deceptive when it comes to giving an idea of what you sound like, and it also trains a singer to listen to their sound rather than be aware of how the sound feels; that happens because you are constantly surrounded by your own sound; a large room, chapel, or what have you, will suddenly put your sound in a different place, far away from your ears, and you will have to pay more attention to the feel of the sound than what it sounds like).
If you work with someone who had a career, and good technique (if they are the type who ended their career because of their own vocal failings, make sure they are not teaching to failings to you, if you feel they are, then move on) then take advantage of the things they will teach you, not only about singing, but about interpretation, career, and a whole list of things. Get to know the people they recommend you get to know.
If you work with a former great singer, make sure you are learning how to sing. If your lessons are too much “what I did back when I was young” with no real instruction, either politely request that you learn HOW to accomplish that wonderful thing or move on. Your time is money, and you are not paying for the privilege of basking in someone else’s limelight.
If you are working with a vocal coach, and he demands you sing a certain way to achieve a certain affect, ask him HOW to perform that affect within the bounds of good technical training, or HOW to use your technique to achieve it. If he cannot help you, then you know you are completely on your own, you are your own teacher, you will be self-taught. That can be OK, but only if you are aware that if something really feels wrong, feels too tight, feels like you are strangling, and only then does that teacher approve of your sound, you can be absolutely certain he is teaching you things that will destroy your voice. LEAVE and find a real teacher. And don’t let fame of a coach mislead you. He may be quite famous, and even have a list of famous singers who have worked with him, but seldom was a great singers created by one person or one teacher. I have met so many people who have studied with this or that famous coach who claims to have taught this or that famous singer, only to know of myself that singer went to many various coaches, and had many teachers, and when that famous coach’s name is mentioned they speak about them with great contempt. He is using their fame to push his career, while they are contemptuous of his methods entirely and never consider him a person that helped create their careers. You cannot always trust a list of “the famous who’s who” that they supposedly taught as an indication of really solid ability.
And in defense of all teachers, learn to be a good student. THINGS TAKE TIME! It is so common for voice students to run from teacher to teacher. It is true you don’t want a teacher who is ruining your voice, or who after working with you for a time has reduced your voice to a shadow of itself, but you must not get into the habit of running to a new teacher everytime you have a vocal problem. Learning to sing is learning to confront vocal problems. Every singer had to face difficulties, challenges, and learning to control their instrument every step of the way. It takes work and discipline. Give your teacher a chance. If you were progressing well without strain, you will progress again when this issue is fully worked out, and as your muscles become strong enough to do the work. And LISTEN to what is said, make sure you understand what you are being told no matter who is your teacher. That is how you will learn. Also, not all teachers, no matter how good they are, are right for all singers, but make sure you are not the cause. Learn all you can, strive to do what you are told, and find JOY in the learning. In this day and age, it takes a while to find a good teacher, as there are so many people out there teaching. And in reality, be warned, there are NO QUALIFICATIONS required to be a vocal teacher or coach. Some teachers register with the American singing teachers group, but that hardly means they have any more qualifications than your average church organist to teach singing. Learn to do your homework. See and talk with people who have studied with the person you are considering as a teacher. Go and see if you can sit in their lessons (a good teacher will let you, and will have the approval of the students they teach to have you sit in) so you can see HOW their lessons progress, what format they use, and how they work with students. ALSO take the time to really listen to their students. DO THEY SOUND GOOD TO YOU? Is that what you want to sound like? Listen, if you can, to concerts given by their former students, and see if you can see where they are well trained and where they have their weaknesses. Is that what you want your voice to work like? If they push the voice far too much, is that how you want to sing? It isn’t a healthy way to sing. Do you understand what is good singing? Too many students are too unprepared for study. They want a great career and think endlessly of fame (neither of which may actually happen no matter how good you are). Are you willing to put in the time it takes to really learn all the aspects of singing? Are you willing to really study, practice, working through things, and learn? Are you patient enough to know and accept that it may take nearly 7 years for you to become really good? Students MUST ask themselves these questions. Too many want instant fame, or instant results. Good singing and technique don’t happen that way. Even when singing popular music well, it requires you really learn to sing. All these “learn to sing in five easy steps” programs out there and on the net are so others make money, not so you actually learn to sing. Sit down and evaluate yourself. Just learning to sing because you love to sing, though wonderful, is not enough motivation for the work required. And even if the only reason you are studying is because you love to sing (I have taught some really fine students who were that sort, only wanting to sing well so they could really enjoy the act of singing) make sure you are still willing to do the work. Whether your goal is a career or just to sing well in church without upsetting others, you still must have the desire to learn and to work. The end results will be extraordinary. But if you are willing only to give a half-hearted effort, then expect only a very half hearted result, and be adult enough to admit you were at fault not the teacher.
I only write this long post because it seems so many people write to you, Michael, with real vocal issues, even though they have worked with a teacher. The only problem I see is if their teacher really knew good sound, good technique, and a bunch of other things, these students would not be singing with such strain, and feeling they have destroyed their voices. All those things are brought about because they are doing many wrong things, things that really put too much pressure on all the muscles involved in singing. It seems no one is taking the time to really learn HOW to choose a teacher, or what to expect of that teacher when they get them. My heart just goes out to these special students writing you, as I am sure they want to sing and enjoy it, and yet, they sing and find it a burden nearly too heavy to bear. Singing should NEVER be like that, especially when working with a teacher. I wish you well helping them fix their problems. I only hope this post will help your readers take the time to prepare and research out what makes a good teacher so they can avoid the problems you are helping this student overcome.