Vocal Damage

This final chapter of the guide talks about vocal damage. About how to take care of your fragile voice, through lifestyle, food, and other health-related habits.

As mentioned at the start, your voice is a complex system, part of a larger complex system (your body). It’s hard to have good breath support if you have terrible stamina, or your posture makes breathing harder. It’s hard to relax your swallow muscles if you sing after you’ve just eaten. It’s hard to sing in general if some food, or lack of hydration, irritates your throat.

Below are the most common and useful tips I’ve discovered the past decade.

Water

Most people know this: drink a lot of water. The more you sing or speak, the more you drink. Just keep a bottle or glass nearby, always.

Don’t wait until you are thirsty or feel a dry mouth. That’s too late.

Also, abstain from any other drink. Sugar water, coffee, alcohol, basically every drink has a lot of components that are bad for your health and your throat.

Food

Many report issues after eating dairy products or chocolate. I know, this isn’t great, as many people love one of these (or both). Especially in the Netherlands—where I live—we’re all about milk and cheese :p

But I can confirm this: eating such a product basically makes singing impossible for me the next 30 minutes.

Spicy or hot food is actually recommended! It cleans your throat and your nose.

Besides that, it’s individual. People react differently to different foods. I know most singers have a list of “weirdly specific foods that don’t gel with my voice”.

Perhaps the most important part is eating food that doesn’t upset your stomach. Because breath support comes from your abdomen. If it’s hurting, if it’s filled with gas, singing well becomes near impossible.

Other substances

This one is also not surprising. Alcohol, smoking, drugs, all of these are terrible for your general health and your voice.

A rough voice may sound sexy, but only for the 5 to 10 years that it may last.

Vocal abuse

This one is often overlooked. Some people have jobs or environments that cause them to yell or scream a lot. Reduce this as much as possible, or take enough vocal breaks to let your voice heal.

Additionally, many people cough or grunt, usually because they think that “clears” their voice. It doesn’t really. You just slam your vocal folds together—aggressively—which hurts them. This is a subconscious habit that is hard to break, but it’s important to do so.

Even if your voice hurts, even if you feel “stuff” in the way of your singing, don’t start coughing or scraping your throat. Drink water, do some exercises to remove the blockade, go back to singing when it feels safe.

This “stuff” between your vocal folds is usually phlegm or mucus. This creates a raspy voice, one that is uncontrollable and might completely “disconnect” at some points.

General issues

Most issues, as mentioned, come from tension. You use some muscles too much, making them tired or hurt. Other muscles aren’t used at all, creating a weak voice that must compensate. You might use too much air, asking too much from your folds trying to work with it.

As such, most vocal issues are not permanent, but should be trained away gradually with the vocal exercises I mentioned.

When an issue does seem permanent, or more significant than what I described, please visit an expert. There are diseases or physical injuries that can’t be solved with simple exercises. They need intervention, or medicine, or a whole change in lifestyle.

When unsure, visit an expert anyway. We, humans, are very good at adapting. This means that a throat ache that started out terribly painfully … becomes just a dull pain after a few weeks. You’ve forgotten how terrible it is and might underestimate the severity.

When in pain, give yourself a few days of (full) vocal rest. If that doesn’t help, immediately seek help. The longer you wait, the harder it is to come back.