A Voice Apart

Vocal Cord Disorders That Cause Voice Problems. Voice or vocal cord problems generally include pain and, overall, discomfort when you speak or have difficulty controlling the pitch, volume and quality of your voice overall, and your singing voice in particular. It may sound a little surprising, but a variety of medical conditions may indeed be very much the cause of most voice/vocal cord problems. The most common causes of hoarseness (generally speaking) are the vocal difficulties outlined below. Some of the more common vocal cord problems include vocal nodules, vocal polyps, vocal cord paralysis, laryngitis and nevertheless, GERD.  Laryngitis  & GERD are often defined by a raspy/hoarse voice because of the significant irritation of the vocal cords. Overuse or misuse of the voice, inhaled irritants, or GERD reflux (the backup of stomach acid into the throat) may be one of the big reasons for it. Vocal Cord Nodules are (most of the time) benign or no

- Yes... She was forced to cancel the rest of her tour! - You may wonder why this had occurred one more time again…? That happened because if nothing gets changed with respect of how the artist is using his/her voice, it will inevitably reoccur again and again… unfortunately. The very first time it happened to Adele was in the year 2012 . At that time, losing her voice, she had to cancel her concerts and tour dates due to a bleeding polyp on her vocal cord.  She was transported to Boston, US, to undergo a vocal surgery which was successfully completed by one of the renowned ENT specialists. Adele was not allowed to speak for 5 months after the procedure. After that, her voice healed and returned “back to normal”, and thus she was scheduled to perform at the upcoming Grammy awards.  Right before that, she was interviewed by Anderson Cooper and during that interview, she was asked if she thought whether or not that could happen to her ever again? Without any he

The Right and Healthy Modality of the Vocal Behaviour for Non-Singers. Being in the music and voice business for over four decades, I've met a lot of people with good voices, bad voices and also, so to speak, broken voices.  Some of them were singers, some of them had nothing to do with singing. Those who had nothing to do with singing, however, had a lot to do with a lot of speaking; and thus sometimes, they had been forcing their voices out and screaming from the top of their lungs and from the bottom of their throats...(basically, purely screaming)! Outside of the regular people, we are also talking about some professionals like: fitness instructors, martial arts instructors, teachers, lawyers, crown attorneys, public and motivational speakers to name a few. Due to their occupational (in a manner of speaking) hazard, they have been forcing their voices to serve others and one day, someday, their once precious voice seized on them "unexpectedly and out of the blue&q

Nevertheless, I have been getting a lot of calls regarding the non-surgical voice repair program. The people who are inquiring are usually very desperate and very emotional, which is quite understandable. They're pleading for help and, at the glance, appear that they would do anything that would be required from them; would drop everything and anything (including their vocal and voice performances) and would rush to Toronto to fix their voices in order to continue their performances, recordings and whichever other careers which are directly connected to their voices' health and their overall well being. Some of them are diagnosed, some of them not yet, and some of them are hiding their diagnosis (to my dismay...) But what is more surprising is that a lot of them are till singing (more like faking) and thus being in denial, while at the same time, their singing (and voices in general) and quite compromised! Go figure! They are actually singing on their nodules and p

Has Your Voice Been Compromised Due To The Above? You had a stroke… and luckily, you survived! In a lot of cases, after the stroke occurs, either the right side or the left side of the body ends up to be paralyzed.  Also, in a lot of cases, the speech centre is also greatly effected, and thus the survived-patient’s speech is very much so compromised. In some cases, it is still recoverable, but in others, unfortunately, the speech remains to be permanently impaired.  For those cases where I could use an alternative approach to voice mechanics , the recovery is still going to be a slow and tedious process, which will require a lot of patience from the person in question and myself.  Usually, a stroke survivor has a very slow and quite slurred speech, not to mention usually pretty faint. Obviously, there is not much enunciation, pronunciation or articulation is precent in those cases. So in order to enhance the above, a lot of special speech exercises have to be admini

Had Your Voice Been Compromised Due To The Above? Unfortunately, after being diagnosed with such a nasty disease like throat cancer and then, as a consequence, having to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments, the voice could be very easily compromised and the vocal anatomy could also end up damaged.  The medical doctors, in this case, are usually trying to convince their patients to be grateful that they survived (never mind their damaged voice or anything else which ended up being damaged for that matter).   They usually say: “ Be grateful that you are alive and don’t worry about your voice ”. It’s easy for them to say, but the person who use to speak (or even sing) with a normal voice, feels quite inadequate, as he/she has a communication breakdown via a raspy/hoarse voice , or sometimes, even no voice at all. Nevertheless, that person is affected with everyday life challenges, not to mention work challenges and… even the loss of the latter due

Hardly finish your tour? Does your throat hurt after performances? Voice sounding hoarse? If your answer is yes, the above are the symptoms of an overused and abused vocal anatomy. The worst part is if you continue doing it without changing your manner of speaking and singing, it will lead to the need for a serious voice repair and not necessarily a non-surgical one. By that time, if you attempt to attain the non-surgical voice repair, it might be too late. Then you are facing a laser or a scalpel operation, which could result in scar tissue, which by itself could be more detrimental than the original damage... This could be your worst nightmare. The reason I am writing this blog is to prevent you from that possibility. The prevention is definitely far better than dealing with serious vocal damage . What does prevention entail, you may ask? Learning the proper skills for speaking and singing before you embark on any performance or that nasty tour which m