9 ways to save your voice
Whether or not you care to admit it, at parties, you're
a professional speaker. If you get paid for talking on the air, even if your
mother is your only regular listener, you're still a professional. You may love
your voice or hate it, but you still need to find a way to make sure that it
lasts all day and night, and that you never get hoarse or lose it, especially
when you're on the air. My name is Roger Love, and at least for this minute
in time, I'm your new vocal coach. Throughout my career I've taught singing
stars like The Beach Boys, The Jacksons, Def Leppard, Chicago, Matchbox 20,
Phish, Mandy Moore, En Vogue, and Eminem, as well as famous actors like Reese
Witherspoon, Joaquin Phoenix, Martin Landau, Esai Moralis, Rebecca Romijn, and
John Corbett. Somewhere along the way, non-singers started coming to me and
now I coach some of the biggest and most recognizable speaking talents on the
airways. My clients include Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Suze Orman, Glenn Beck,
Bill Handel, Michael Reagan, The Satellite Sisters, Phil Hendrie, John Gray,
and hundreds of other on air stars. There is one major thing most of my clients
have in common, aside from making a lot of money; they never have to worry about
losing their voices. If they stay with the simple program I put them on, they're
voices remain in incredible condition, no matter how difficult their schedule
or show might be. My students can talk day and night without ever having vocal
problems. Along with that, they've created vocal personalities that go perfectly
with their individual message and style. In a world of impersonators and copycats,
we're about creating something that's special, one of a kind, and unique.
I'd like to offer you some of the same information and tips that I give my regular
students. I'm going to help you separate fact from fantasy, and figure out just
which of the wives tales you've heard are good or bad for your voice. If you
follow even a few of my suggestions, you should improve your voice and your
career. I need you to feel like your voice is your best friend, not some evil
mutant who lives in your throat and thrives on torturing you and your listeners.
Tips:
1. Pretend that you have a balloon in your stomach
Whether or not your beer belly is the size of a compact car, I still want you
to learn how to do diaphragmatic breathing. It'll make everything else work
and sound better. Put your hand on your bellybutton and when you breathe in
through your nose try and fill up your stomach area as if there was a balloon
in there. Then as you exhale let your stomach fall back in to its normal position.
When you breathe like that, it sends an even amount of air out of your mouth
that the words can ride out on. When that happens you sound a lot more resonant
and powerful, and the tone of the voice changes from nasal and harsh to warm
and commanding. Most people miss the most important element of the breathing
thing…you have to let your stomach come back in the whole time you're speaking.
If you're not letting your stomach come back in, you're actually holding your
breath. Do you really think it's a good idea to do a three or four hour show
holding your breath whenever you try to speak? Fix that and a lot of your voice
problems will be history. Swallow without water, fine. If not, take a sip and
then swallow. By the way, you won't need to be clearing your throat that much
if you follow my advice and drink a half gallon of water a day and lose the
coffee and the caffeine. That diet will make sure that you always have just
the right amount of lubrication on your cords.
2. Only breathe in through your nose
There are little filters in your nose that purify and moisten the air that comes
in that way. Every time you breathe in through your mouth, and most of you do,
you're making your vocal cords dry and red. When they get really dry, you'll
start to lose your voice. Do a little experiment for me right now. Take a big
breath of air in through your open mouth. Do you feel how that makes the back
part of your throat feel dry? Now, take a big breath in through your nose. Do
you notice how that doesn't make the back part of your throat feel dry? Keep
practicing that and remind yourself during the off air breaks.
3. Drink at least a half gallon of water a day. I know that most of you would
rather drown than drink regular water all day long. But water is the number
one way to keep your vocal cords in great shape. The cords are basically slamming
into each another hundreds if not thousands of times a second when you speak.
And all of that is happening while air is being blown at them. That's why they
get dry so fast. You can't just drink water and expect that to go right to the
cords and make it all better. When you drink, the water actually goes down a
different hole in the back part of your throat and doesn't even go near the
cords. The only way to get the water to the cords is to drink so much of it
that the blood stream carries brings it to them. To make that happen you need
at least a half gallon a day. And when I say water, I don't mean the water that's
in coffee or tea or soft drinks. I mean plain ordinary water. When you think
about it, drinking water is really not that much of a price to pay to keep your
voice in great shape.
4. Lose the excess coffee, tea and caffeine. When your mom brought you hot tea
with honey and lemon to comfort you when you had a sore throat, she was obviously
trying to help. If you're still drinking that daily now, you need to make some
changes.
Here's why:
* The tea is too hot and it can make your vocal cords change size, even though
they live down another hole in your throat. Haven't you ever looked at your
hands after you get out of a really hot bath? You don't want to make your vocal
cords look like prunes, that's not going to help your show.
* Caffeine speeds up the production of extra thick phlegm. When your phlegm
gets too thick you end up having to try and clear your voice all the time. I'd
rather you spend more time talking and less time choking on junk that shouldn't
be in your throat.
* Lemon and any other citrus makes you salivate more. When you salivate that
end up creating the extra thick phlegm you don't want.
* Stop Clearing Your Throat Like a Bulldozer. You need to stop trying to clear
your throat by making the same horrible sound as the monster from 10,000 Leagues
Under The Sea. All you're doing is making your vocal cords more red and swollen.
There really is no way to effectively get rid of the excess phlegm at that moment.
All you're doing is actually moving the phlegm from one place on the cords to
another; you're not getting rid of it at all. The best advice I can give you
is to simply swallow. That moves the phlegm around without hurting the cords.
If you can, swallow without water, fine. If not, take a sip and then swallow.
By the way, you won't need to be clearing your throat that much if you follow
my advice and drink a half gallon of water a day and lose the coffee and the
caffeine. That diet will make sure that you always have just the right amount
of lubrication on your cords.
* Your Headphones are Lying To You.
You might think that the headphones are your best friend but that's just not
the case. You're getting ready for the show, you're all psyched up, you put
the headphones on and hear a voice that is suddenly loud, powerful, resonant,
commanding and bassy. You feel bigger than life and ready to save the world.
There is, however, one big problem, what you're hearing has absolutely nothing
to do with what your listeners actually hear coming out of their radios. The
headphones create a false sense of what your voice actually sounds like. Once
your sound enters the microphone it's shaped and colored by all kinds of electronics.
That's why you need to make adjustments based on what you sound like in the
room before it goes into the Mic. The easiest way to do that is to have one
side of the earphones fully on, and the other side slightly off your ear. Then,
you need to concentrate on the sound that's coming out of your mouth, right
in front of you, instead of focusing on the sound of your voice in the earphone.
It might take a little practice but it'll be worth it when you understand that
you have to make your voice sound the way you want, and not rely on the electronics
to do for you. If you really love having both earphones on, and you feel that
you just can't hear the guests, or whatever when you have one partially off…use
my technique to practice before you go on the air. Make your voice sound the
way you want, and then don't change anything when you put both of the earphones
back in place.
* Stop Whispering. The worst thing you can do is whisper. As a matter of fact,
whispering is harder on the cords than screaming. The reason is, when you whisper
or speak too airy, extra air passes through the vocal cords and dries them up.
When the vocal cords get dry, they get red and swollen, and that's how you get
hoarse. If you have a sexy airy quality to your voice and that's your signature
style, you still need to find a balance between how much edge (pure sound) you
have, and how much air. Most people also think that if they speak really breathy
and airy on air that all of that sound will get to the listener. The truth is
however, there's only so much of that airy sound that gets picked up by the
Mic, the rest dissipates before it ever gets to the listener. So, try to pay
attention to whether or not you have too much of the airy/whispery sound in
your voice. If you do, say the word, "Brat", and hold out the "a"
sound like this, "Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat." The buzz you feel when you
hold out the "a" is what I mean when I say edge. You'll need to add
a little of that sound back into your voice.
* Practice Before you Preach. No professional runner would ever run the race
before they stretched. If they did, they would just pull muscles and shorten
their careers. What makes you think that you can just open up your mouth and
have incredible sounds come out without doing any warm up? I believe that speaking
doesn't effectively warm up the voice at all. You need a few minutes of vocal
exercises that'll make the cords move effortlessly all the way up and down the
vocal range. That's the only way to get the consistency you long for. If you
war up daily, you'll be able to count on the fact that your voice will be there
when you want and need it. Otherwise it's always going to be the luck of the
draw. I recommend that you get a hold of one of my warm up exercise tapes and
use it in the car on the way to the studio. It'll be a great gift to give yourself.
* What To Do if You Get Hoarse. If you're drinking the amount of water I recommend,
not whispering, not smoking (you thought I'd forgotten about that one), not
clearing your throat like a moose in heat, breathing in through your nose, cutting
back on the caffeine, and warming up your voice with a few good vocal exercises,
you're well on your way to having a much healthier voice. If however, something
happens and you do get hoarse, I suggest you learn to speak like Yogi Bear.
That's right, as if you weren't already enough of a cartoon character, making
that sound will actually help you lose the hoarseness. Put your finger on your
Adams apple and say the word, "No". Now add that funny Yogi Bear/
Sylvester Stallone in Rocky bassy quality. Did you feel your Adams apple come
down lower in your throat? That's called a "Low Larynx Sound," and
it helps to reduce the swelling of the vocal cords. If you play around with
that for a few minutes, or do the Low Larynx exercises on my warm up tapes,
it'll take care of the hoarse problem and get you ready to go back on the air
in minutes instead of days.
Roger Love is the author of two best selling books - Set Your
Voice Free (Time Warner/Little Brown), and MTV's Sing Like The Stars(Pocket/MTV
Books). He also created the winning audio program Vocal Power…Speaking
with Authority, Clarity, and Conviction (Nightingale-Conant), as well as the
best selling DVD Love to Sing With Roger Love (Razor & Tie). In the last
10 years alone, Roger's work in the studio coaching singers has resulted in
more than 100 million album sales worldwide. His success coaching entertainment,
music and business celebrities, along with his list of past, current, and future
products are unparalleled. Want him on your show? Book through Keith Leonetti
at keithl@mediapower.com--