Comments on: How to Trash Your Voice

By: garymckinney

garymckinney — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:24:59 +0000

I really enjoyed this article. Lot of meat in it. Besides its emphasis on proper hydration to enhance vocal performance, it touched on a series of points regarding vocal health that were like a revelation, particularly the gastro intestinal point about avoiding eating within three hours of retiring for the night. I like specific points like that. Here's another – one cup of coffee equals one cup of water afterwards. Excellent!. Finally, it explained what I think we all knew at least intuitively — smoking is bad for a lot of things — including vocal performance, but it explained how it's bad — drying of the larynix. I think most people who smoke hear the mantra all the time — “smoking is bad for you” but it doesn't bother them because it's too vague. Now a dried out, nicotine-drenched, cancer-stricken larynix — nothing vague about that.

By: robcooksley

robcooksley — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:49:49 +0000

I found this article a great help in maintaing the voice, however one of the biggest problems I have come accross (and this will not effect a singer who has stong back up singers in her/his band) is taking on songs which require strong backing harmony vocals.
I have left the last two bands due to the fact that not one one of the band members could do backing vocals, which put a strain on my voice which in turn made the songs sound flat and undynamic.
The band were a great buch of people who were skilled enough to play the songs well, but covering songs by Journey, Bon Jovi ect, required some layred vocals, in particular during the chorus of songs which would allowe the main vocalist to improvise over the top (rest his/her voice)
To help with this situation I purchased a TC.Helicon Double Voicetone which during a chorus gave the vocals harmony, and depth. To enable us to get the best sound I spent many an hour seting it up with the PA system and practicing. However it became a diffrent situation when having to use the Voicetone with an in-house PA, the engineers had such a difficult time balancing the sound it became impossible to use it, which left us with a below standard vocals, my fault.
Doing gigs one after another without any backing vocals on songs that rely on them, is hard work, and can damage your voice. My advise is do not attempt to cover songs within your set list which require backing vocals unless you have other singers in the band, or a dam fine engineer who knows what he is doing. I am now looking for a band, any takers.

By: Help! My Voice is Getting Worn Out! | VoiceCouncil Magazine

Help! My Voice is Getting Worn Out! | VoiceCouncil Magazine — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:54:22 +0000

[...] We also need to talk about reflux – watch my column in coming months – but in the meantime read this: How to Trash Your Voice [...]