Maintaining A Healthy Voice
Task 2 - Maintain a healthy voice
Alimentation and Hydration:
What drinks - It is important for your voice to be hydrated, water is obviously the best thing to drink, it can be cold but also hot, mixed with honey which will help warming up your voice. Other than water, fruit juices are excellent for the voice especially pineapple juice as it contains a natural anti-inflammatory which will help soothing the voice. It will also moisten and hydrate your moth and oesophagus. Shortly, it will make your voice sound clearer. Note however that for a full effect, you must drink it around two hours before the show. Decaffeinated tea is also commonly drunk
What food - eating healthy is the key thing. But some particular foods will help soothing your voice such as chicken, fish, almonds, rice, eggs and yellow vegetables.
What to avoid - dairy products, they produce phlegm and make it harder for you to sing high notes. Anything that dries your throat or irritates it such as alcohol, lemon, coffee, tea, spicy food, etc. Fried food, so any kind of fast food which will make your throat feel sticky, especially if you drink anything cold afterwards. Sodas are also to be avoided, they will put a lot of unwanted air in your stomach. Finally, anything ice cold is to be avoided as it will tighten your throat and make it a nightmare for you to sing at your potential.
When? - it is important not to eat just before a show, having a full stomach makes it hard for the diaphragm do its job with your breath. However, it is also important to have energy to get through the show. A normal meal would be eaten from one to two hours prior your show, two hours being the best time. However, if you need to eat sooner to the show, it is recommended to eat easy to digest food such as eggs.
Bad Habits That Will Affect Your Voice:
While some habits are well known for being bad (smoking for example), others can be a surprise to some people.
Rest your voice - your voice needs a few "naps" during the day, especially if you are using it a lot (show or teaching). Over used vocal chords will get irritated and using a tired voice will result in a bad performance/higher risk of infection.
Sleeping - Sleep is important to maintain a healthy voice, a lack of sleep will result in a stressed voice and a stressed voice will be more likely to get injured, your voice is a muscle and works like any other muscle. Try to aim for 8 hours of sleep per night. Make sure you don't fall asleep with a fan blowing on you, this will dry your voice.
Use of the Voice During the Day - do not scream or stress your vocal chords, again, this will irritate your throat. Avoid noisy places as much as possible, if you can't use a proper amplification technique instead of just screaming to be heard.
Clearing your throat - Clearing your throat is really bad for your vocal chords. What happens when you do it is they slam together and then are pushed apart and slammed again, etc. Eventually, clearing your throat can result in nodules. (explained in the "smoking" paragraph). When you feel the need to clear your throat, try to take a sip of water or swallow your saliva. This will make you feel the same way and will not damage your vocal chords.
Smoking - This is an obvious one. Smoking provokes a lot of damage to your body, and your voice. People who tend to smoke a lot will develop vocal nodules (small swollen spots on both of your vocal chords), this will not only be painful but with the time affect more and more your vocal chords and damage your voice. At times, they might even stop you from talking at all, some nodules (large ones) can only be removed thanks to surgery. Smoking will also decrease your vocal range and dry your vocal chords, making them swollen and irritated which will provoke mucus to build up, this means you will constantly feel the need to clear your throat. Not ideal. Finally, smoking also affects your breathing, and as actors or singers, breathing is obviously probably the most important part. Someone who smokes will finds its ability to take deep breaths highly decreased.
Use Correct Techniques
This is why vocal technique is so important. If you follow every advice listed above but use a bad technique when you act or sing, it will result in the same problems.
Exercise regularly is also very helpful for your voice, it'll especially help with your breathing. I personally find exercising really helpful as it forces you to take deep breaths from the diaphragm and really engage your abdominals while releasing the air.
Clearing your throat - Clearing your throat is really bad for your vocal chords. What happens when you do it is they slam together and then are pushed apart and slammed again, etc. Eventually, clearing your throat can result in nodules. (explained in the "smoking" paragraph). When you feel the need to clear your throat, try to take a sip of water or swallow your saliva. This will make you feel the same way and will not damage your vocal chords.
Smoking - This is an obvious one. Smoking provokes a lot of damage to your body, and your voice. People who tend to smoke a lot will develop vocal nodules (small swollen spots on both of your vocal chords), this will not only be painful but with the time affect more and more your vocal chords and damage your voice. At times, they might even stop you from talking at all, some nodules (large ones) can only be removed thanks to surgery. Smoking will also decrease your vocal range and dry your vocal chords, making them swollen and irritated which will provoke mucus to build up, this means you will constantly feel the need to clear your throat. Not ideal. Finally, smoking also affects your breathing, and as actors or singers, breathing is obviously probably the most important part. Someone who smokes will finds its ability to take deep breaths highly decreased.
Task 1 - Voice production and association with vocal technique
This is why vocal technique is so important. If you follow every advice listed above but use a bad technique when you act or sing, it will result in the same problems.
Exercise regularly is also very helpful for your voice, it'll especially help with your breathing. I personally find exercising really helpful as it forces you to take deep breaths from the diaphragm and really engage your abdominals while releasing the air.
Voice Production
There are two essential elements needed for your voice to work: breathing and your vocal chords vibrating together.
Breathing - when you take a breath in, your diaphragm does down until it is flat, to have more space for the air in your body. When you exhale, your abdominal let the air out and the diagram expands again. Of course, to make a sound you need to use your vocal chords
Vocal chords - sound is created by the vibration of your vocal chords and is carried (heard) thanks to the air coming out of your body. The more vibrations there are, the higher the pitch will be.
Therefore, voice production can only happen when the two elements are combined.
Vocal Technique
Vocal technique will make it easier for you to sing/act but will also help you maintaining a healthy voice. Again, it is mostly related to the two elements I mentioned above. The air is probably the most important element of vocal technique as it controls everything else.
Using a correct technique (engaging the abdominals) will help you maintaining healthy vocal chords. When you sing from the throat, your vocal chords will get irritated and hurt. It can get more dangerous if you continuously use a bad technique and provoke serious voice issues such as nodules. Taking enough air inside your body (using breathing correctly) will help you engaging your abdominals properly and therefore have a better sound and vocal health.
Everything is related when it comes about vocal health.
