Voice Tip #3

It may be raining, but there's a rainbow above you...The Eagles

A light rain is falling on the Fraser Valley. Don't worry, the sun will be back shortly!

Which brings me to a very good question: What is the best thing for a singer/speaker to drink in the heat? When having your mouth wide open for extended periods is a way of life, your throat dries out. Heat and dryness add to the problem.

To understand hydration, let me explain a bit regarding that drying process. Your lungs, throat, mouth, sinuses and nose are one large, continuous sheet of mucous membrane. To keep your throat moist, you need to hydrate your entire system. That's why the spritzing solutions you'll see on the Internet for singers work only temporarily. They moisten only the mouth.

When I smoked (ahem!) and sang in Manitoba's very dry atmosphere, I was desperate. I even tried a spray bottle of artificial saliva from the pharmacy. It worked! For about ten minutes.*

Think about this: Nothing you swallow or spray directly flows over your vocal cords. If it did, you'd choke! There are two separate "tubes" in your throat. When you swallow, a tissue "trap door" called the epiglottis closes the one leading to your vocal cords/lungs, so the substance goes straight to your stomach. Separate tube. Whatever you drink is processed through your digestive system before affecting your respiratory (breathing) system in any significant manner.

The solution? Drink water. Lots of it, all day. Don't wait till you feel dry. By that time, your entire system, including organs, has been negatively impacted by dehydration. Drink before you exercise, don't wait till you're thirsty.

You'll find you'll pee more than the average person. Just one of the perks of being a public speaker or singer. I find it's worth it. Better than having a "dry mouth crisis" in the middle of a set. Happily, you will find a visible improvement in the quality of your skin!

Warm, weak tea with a teaspoon of honey is also an excellent moisturizer. Be aware tea exacerbates the peeing problem :-D

If you're going to vocalize, make it room temperature. I cringe every time I see musicians drink ice water the kind wait staff bring. It's like throwing ice water on a marathon runners' legs! Everything cramps. You want the structures responsible for creating sound to stay warm and loose.

My students repeatedly tell me that just that one change in habit has sometimes made the difference between ending the gig with a sore throat or not. Be super polite to the wait staff when asking for lukewarm, and tip them. They work hard, and are helping you with your job. You may find yourself becoming a bit of a character at certain venues, and your glass of lukewarm H20 will be waiting for you---along with jokes about being a "regular"!
What about when a patron sends you an alcoholic drink? The two most drying substances are alcohol and carbonated sodas. Here are two things you can do to protect your voice and remain polite: (1) If you're determined to retain a certain image, make a deal with the wait staff to bring you warm, weak tea in a glass, with a teaspoon of honey. It looks like whiskey; or (2) smile and raise the glass of alcohol to the donor---then drink it after the gig.

If you "need" alcohol in order to perform, well, that's outside my area of expertise. If it's just common stage fright you're dealing with, I can tell you that Singers Yoga and a proper vocal warmup will put you in a "performance zone" that mood altering substances can't touch in terms of effectiveness.
Don't just drink water when you're about to sing. Make it a habit. Keep water by your bed, in your car, etc. You need more water than the average person. If the common nutritional advice to drink 6-8 glasses per day isn't solving your dryness problem---drink 10.

What about the old clunker, "Drink lemon juice"? Yesssss, IF you have a cold or excess mucous for other reasons. Even then, I recommend squeezing lemon into water, not actually sucking on the fruit, as some people do (!). Lemon is a mild acid that strips the healthy, thin layer of mucous that retains moisture. It can create more dryness, in a vicious circle. That large sheet of mucous membrane I described earlier is a moisture-retaining organism. Keep it balanced. Coffee is also overly acidic, and can cause dryness and mucous together, if taken with dairy. See the food post below for more info on acidic foods and how mucous is created.
Try adding a teaspoon of liquid glycerine to your glass of water. This is a sugar that helps retain moisture. It can be obtained OTC cheaply at the drugstore.

Have a wonderful summer, and keep that water glass tipped!


Copyright 2011 Reisa Stone. May be forwarded, but not reprinted or distributed in any format without written permission.

Voice Training Tip #2

"How you feel in practice is how you'll feel in performance." ---Marcie Zinn

Hello, it's a gorgeous summer in the Fraser Valley, BC, and I'm working anyway :-D Watch for Singers Yoga classes!

Email: singersyoga (at) gmail.com

One of my students asked me what she should and should not eat on days she performs. This is an excellent question, as what we ingest certainly does affect the voice. I can't even answer it all in one post. Here's the beginning of a series on foods and substances that impact the voice:

-Dairy creates mucous. For some people more than others. It can cause that phlegmy feeling on the vocal cords. Many classical singers in Europe don't eat dairy products at all. Try rice or soy milk products. Chocolate is counted as dairy. It can both muck up your voice and make you hyper. But really, does anyone care? :-D I save it for after the show.

-Peanut butter dries the mouth and throat. Its high in protein, and sucks the moisture right out of you. Again, how long the effect lingers depends on your system.

-Because the thoracic diaphragm presses directly on the stomach, spicy, greasy and heavy foods will cause, at best, discomfort. At worst, you'll burp, get heartburn or vomit more than usual from stage fright. It's always best to let at least an hour pass between eating and singing, but a plate of fries with ketchup won't digest as quickly as, for example, skinless chicken breast or tofu on rice.

-Some good things to eat on a singing day are fruits and veggies (without butter), cereal with non-dairy milk, pasta with a bit of olive oil and lean meat, cooked beans and legumes: lentils/chickpeas/mung/black beans, but without a heavy or spicy sauce.
-Carbonated drinks wreak heckerola on the voice. The carbon dioxide which forms the bubbles, dries your throat. I'm not moralizing, but alcohol is just as harmful. Save it for after the gig.

Bon appetit, and sing your heart out!


Copyright 2011 Reisa Stone. May not be reprinted without written permission

Voice Training Tips

"Music gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything."---Plato
This is the first entry on the Free Your Voice blog. I'll regularly post questions and answers regarding voice training and vocal health. If you have a question you'd like answered here, please email me at: lessons (at) reisastone.com.

Q: I keep hearing, "Sing with your diaphragm. Use your diaphragm," and I don't have a clue. Is this something everybody else knows, and I'm just stupid?

A: No, you're not stupid, but that advice is, uh, misinformed. You can't sing 'with' your diaphragm, and you can't use your diaphragm on its own. It's a flat sheet of muscle whose squeezing on your lungs depends on other factors. "Use/sing with/support from your diaphragm," has been causing misery to singers for way too long.
What the diaphragm is not:

-A "singing organ" you squeeze to produce sound
-A shelf with which you support your voice
-A something or other you can "sing from"
-Easily felt from inside, as it has no nerves running through the portion that acts on the lungs
-Possible to feel from the outside, as it has no external face

What the diaphragm is:

-A horizontal sheet of muscle underlying the lungs. It divides your body in half. It attaches to your lumbar spine, and to your sternum and pericardium (heart sac).
-A muscle that pushes on the bottom of the lungs upon exhale, squeezing out the air. Remember that your lungs are 360 degrees. When the doctor checks your lungs, where does he/she put the stethoscope? On your back! You're 3D, my friend.
-Only part of the system of muscles and bones that regulate breath and sound. It's more a 'middleman' than the "support system." Your diaphragm helps control the quantity and velocity of air that rushes through your vocal cords, producing sound. It is not the starting point.

How it actually works:

-Your thoracic diaphragm is triggered by the movement of the entire network of abdominal muscles, starting with your pelvic floor. Also called the pelvic diaphragm.
-When you inhale, your diaphragm flattens. It pushes down, moving your internal organs out of the way of your lungs. When you exhale, this thin sheet of muscle rises in a dome shape, pressing your lungs.
-You know how your tummy pops out when you breathe? That's not air! It's organ displacement. Which is why you don't eat before you sing. We'll cover that topic later.
-The more in shape your vocal anatomy is in its entirety, the stronger and more controlled the squeeze. When I say, "in its entirety," I mean the pelvic floor and surrounding muscles, your '6-pack', your intercostal muscles/your ribs.
-The more control you have over all this, the more strength and control you have with your voice.

As Randy Jackson's book, What's Up, Dawg? says, "If the teacher starts talking about the diaphragm as a support mechanism, you should think about leaving. Thirty-eight years ago, Dr. Frank Cornell at the Juilliard Convention in NYC medically proved that it is not the diaphragm that supports the human voice..."

After thousands of years of guessing how the voice works, we now have MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, etc. to tell us for sure. If someone's still guessing, they're not paying attention. Randy J's book was published in 2004. So if someone is still telling you to, "Use your diaphragm, they're 44 years behind!



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Copyright 2010 Reisa Stone. May not be reprinted without written permission