15th October 2008 - by Chris Chew
How to Maintain and Preserve Your Singing Voice
Most people think that singers with good voices are born with
them. Yes, although some people have better singing voices than
others, most, if not all good singers undergo vocal training to
improve their voices.
Most of the singer's training is done through specific vocal
exercises to achieve certain effects such as singing
powerfully, getting vibrato into the singing voice or even
expanding your vocal range so that singing higher notes is a
breeze.
Unfortunately, this article cannot do that as the exercises
must be physically demonstrated and manually practised. So
instead of learning how to get a good voice, this article will
show you how to protect and preserve your singing voice because
your voice quality can be destroyed by bad habits that you may
not even know you have.
Your voice is produced by a delicate mechanism and when used
correctly, it rarely gives you any problem. So take good care
of your precious voice and will serve you well for your
lifetime.
The first golden rule to having a good voice quality is not to
take up smoking and if you are already a smoker, do quit
smoking before this nasty habit destroys your singing voice
further.
The thousands of irritants and chemicals in cigarettes damage
your voice and will certainly shorten your singing career and
even your life unless you are a rock singer and need to have a
raspy and coarse voice.
Always stay hydrated and as such, you need to stay away from
caffeine, alcohol and other substance that dehydrates you. The
vocal folds must be hydrated at all times to stay healthy and
lubricated. So drink plenty of drink as much water everyday to
keep them hydrated.
If you are on medication, check with your doctor or pharmacist
whether the medicine you are taking is dehydrating. As a
general guide, your body should be well hydrated when your
urine is clear and not cloudy.
Everyone's voice has its own limitations. So get to know yours.
Shouting, talking loudly or even singing forcefully is damaging
to your vocal cords, this is sheer common sense, but many
singers still abuse their voices this way. So don't shout.
Unfortunately, some people think that to sing powerfully, they
have to shout. No, they don't have to. You can develop a
powerful voice with the correct vocal exercises without having
to shout.
Your vocal cords collide with each other more than a million
times everyday when you produce a sound and so, any extra harsh
activities like shouting puts further strain on the already
overused vocal cords.
When recovering from a coarse voice like say, from a sore
throat, avoid any unnecessary conversations or phone calls to
let your voice fully recover. Otherwise your recovery will be
slower and even then, small permanent damages may occur.
You need to know that your vocal cords are muscles and
therefore like any muscles, they need a thorough warm up before
it can perform at its peak when you are singing. By the same
token, they need to be cooled down with vocal exercises after
your performances.
Just because you get away without warming up or cooling down
now does not guarantee that you will not damage your voice in
the future.
Next on the list is to avoid late night eating because this may
end up with your stomach acid spilling into your larynx when
you lie down to sleep and causing a hoarse voice and over the
long term, permanent voice damage.
These are just some of the many things that you should not do
to preserve, protect and maintain your voice producing
mechanism so that you can have a good singing voice
permanently.
Article Source:
http://www.megamusicsite.com
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