Vocal Recovery Techniques

Ay Cee

Was doing a gig last night and even during rehearsal i could feel my vocals straining. For the two hours prior to "show time" I was drinking honey in hot water.

This seemed to help a little but mid way through the set I was running on empty. I actually had to just drink the honey out of the bottle before the next song! One problem, I'm not Winnie The Pooh - I don't like honey! I nearly threw up but it seemed to be working a few minutes later.

I can talk fine but I can just feel that strain in my throat, niggling away at me, knowing full well it's gonna come back!

We've a gig on Tuesday night, again on Saturday night. Has anybody got any tips on how to cure this before then? Any words of wisdom ye have picked up over the years?

smelltheglove

man the only thing i can say is warm up properly before gigs run through some scales but shape you mouth with word and evry note you produce but i think your main problem by the sounds of it is your singing from the gut and your straining your vocal chords by using your throat,just rest as much as you can and i know this is hard but if your still not up to it come your next gig dont do it because you will **** your vocal up nad youll sound ****e aswell as damaging your chords.....like your back man there precious you only get one set of pipes look after them ive often done 3 nights two hours on the trot doin the maiden stuff and it aint no easy feat i found that out the hard way best of luck man

smelltheglove

oh ye forgot to mention stay away from any form of dairy produce at least 5 hours before the gig this creates mucas on the vocal chords and that aint good!!

Wurly

It sounds like you are singing from your throat a lot and not your diaphragm. this is so important cos you'll wreck your throat if you constantly sing from it. Place your hands under your rib cage and pant in and out (I know it sounds silly) so you can feel where your diaphragm is and where you should be singing from. If you dont feel that pull in your stomach when you are singing, do the exercise again and eventually it becomes second nature.

In terms of warming your voice up, I usually do about an hour of training beforehand. Do your scales from your lowest comfortable note to your highest and repeat using different speeds, sounds and styles. After that, run through your set.

On the morning before the gig, put a few drops of eucalyptus/olbas oil into a basin of boiling hot water, put a towel over your head and breathe in the steam for about 3 minutes. Peppermint tea is also great. That poster was right when they said about dairy. Its an absolute no no. I would stay away from it the whole day of the gig.

Lastly, best of luck 'winnie' youll be fine. And stay away from that honey or you'll have teeth like Shane McGowan in no time!! (O:

gracehopper

Do vocal warm ups-

Take the scale of C - (8 notes)
I use a dictaphone with piano played by my singing teacher. i dissappear back stage for about 10 minutes before i play. I know its not very RnR and i was a bit reluctant to do it myself but its defo worth it

-get your guitar player to play it for you or piano even better.

-Take the 5 vowels A,E,I,O,U
- Sing "A" (in one breath) casually the whole way up the scale (sing along with your guide be it piano or guitar, Take a breath when you get to the top and sing "A" thw whole way down. Do this casually and deliberately in your own accent for all 5 letters.
-Repeat the process as if you want your voice to reach the other side of a room.
-Repeat it again in a loud voice.

So basically you are singing the vowels in the C scale at 3 different levels of volume. The reason the vowels are chosen is because the vocal chord makes diff shapes for each one so you're exercising the muscle in different positions.

I had you're problem aswell, I sing in a sort of blues style so my throat does tend to get dry but since i've been doing lessons and warm ups i've been able to sing for an hour and a half without as much as a crackle. Another tip is to where possible try and breathe with your nose. You cant do this while singing but say in the solo or bridge where there's no vocals. I know this will sound mouldy but the hairs in your nose moisten the air and you wont dry up as quick as you would breathing through the mouth.

Sometimes however if you have a bad sound eng you can shout without knowing, if the sound is poor on stage or whatever there's nothing you can do, If you cant hear yourself the temptation is there to scream. The only thing you can do is sing and hope that the sound at the front is better than on stage.

anyway try and do the above exercise, it works for me.

good luck!

gracehopper

smelltheglove wrote:

oh ye forgot to mention stay away from any form of dairy produce at least 5 hours before the gig this creates mucas on the vocal chords and that aint good!!

"smelltheglove" What a great user name.

can i raise a logical question at this point?
Are we doin stone henge Tomorrow?

Ay Cee

Thanks for the replies people.

I probably should have pointed out from the start that I'm actually a rapper (I know, I know) and my throat is probably as a result of a bit of a cough I had/ still have a trace of. Even in rehearsal I was only giving 25% I'd say.

Those pre gig techniques I'll definitely give a try to. Dunno about the singing scales though, that could get a bit hairy

I'm guessing I should look torward menthol/ the honey in hot water for now to help before then?

Anything else to do in the mean time?

I don't think anything from a chemist is going to do much good, is it?

smelltheglove

lol yes grasshopper we shall but make sure the stage props are the right height for gods sake lol

mada

I' am a singing teacher. I do not recomend to use hot water with honey and with menthol. This is suicide for your throat! Maybe for few minutes it work, bring relief, cause it warm up, but finnaly result - dry your throat. better drink normaly, clear warm water. If you wish specially medicine - eat the vitamin A+E or gurgle throat with water and oil (1 spoon olive oil on 1 glass of warm water).
I thing warm up before the gig is importand, but everyone need different exercises. Everyone have different scale of voice, different breath habits, different kind of throat.
I guess that your problems are connected with bad technique, uncorrect breath habits...
cheers
mada

tj-music.com

Reiki helps a great deal