A Voice Apart

I hope that you have enjoyed reading the “Vocal Buffet, blog. "Part 1” There, we were talking mainly about the amateur singers who were trying to sing anything and everything under the sun with no proper training, knowledge or even talent. In this blog, we will talk about the diet, nutrition and exercise for those who want to choose, or have already chosen singing and/or performing, as their career. There is a saying: “We are what we eat”. I would also say: “Because of what we eat, we are what we sing also”. How so, you may ask? The person who is at least reasonably fit and well-nourished would definitely sound much healthier i.e. much clearer and much stronger. There is also a saying that: “in a healthy body, is a healthy spirit”. My regular readers probably remember that in some blogs written in the past, I stated that the voice is a spirit, which has to be discovered, uncovered and then flown away from and on top off of the physical body. If the spirit is h...

To my knowledge, at least 90 percent of the population loves to sing. Some of them are doing it for recreational purposes; others say that they do it for recreational purposes, but secretly hope that one day, someday, they will become singing stars. And lastly, the other category simply consider themselves to be already professional singers , as they occasionally perform in different venues and sometimes, they even get some remuneration. In this blog, I will refrain from talking about the real professionals with names and reputations, however, even they could stand some extra mentoring and instruction and not only vocal instruction per se. However, out of 90% of singing lovers, only 3 to maximum, 5% would make it to the big stage. Why is that, you may ask? There is a bouquet of reasons, which pertain to that occurrence. First of all, before reaching any heights at all, the majority of those wannabe singers end up with a variety of vocal problems. Some of them ar...

Please Have Patience For A Complete Vocal Recovery!!! Over the years I have dealt with many vocal disorders and injuries, be it possessed by ordinary people with speech problems or by amateur or professional singers .  Almost all have had one thing in common, the absolute lack of patience with respect to their voice restoration and vocal recovery .  The minute they felt better about their voice and in general, they were ready “to run marathons”, so to speak. Those with the speaking voice , who have not heard their normal voice for some time, could literally not stop speaking (fast and loud) the minute they regained their voice. No matter how much and how long I have been persuading them not to start speaking too soon, too much, and too loud at all, none of them had listened.  The minute they came back home, they called all their friends and relatives and some of them even created coming home parties; and once again, some returned to yelling and screami...

Vocal damage hurts, but you don’t have to. It could be devastating when the vocal injury occurs for both speakers and singers . Interestingly enough, for speakers, it appears to be even more tragic, as they are absolutely unaware of that occurrence. While overusing and abusing their voice, they have no idea that one day, it can burst on them. They continue pushing and pulling until their voice literally “pops” (as had been literally described by one of my voice repair clients ) and then becomes hardly usable.  Clearly, the above had not happened at that moment; The, so to speak, ‘stage’ (the precedent) had gotten pre-set for some time. Those voice-injured singers/speakers were (almost literally) ‘developing and gradually building a bomb’, and it was only a matter of time before the now-ready 'bomb’ would eventually detonate.   Given the above, needless to say, regardless, of whether they were amateur or professional speakers, they were sensing the change in ...

Non-Surgical Voice Repair has been my forte for 4 decades and counting... I’ve worked with both - regular people with speaking/singing voice problems , ‘wannabes’, so to speak, and, of course, professional speakers and singers . This blog is mostly about professional singers who have done nothing but sang and performed most of their lives. Understandably, the voice is their prime ‘instrument’ and, nevertheless, those artists’ livelihoods would very well depend on it. However, down the road, their voices would experience natural wear and tear, in a manner of speaking. Obviously, these people would become alarmed and, nevertheless, frightened - rightfully so! Usually, it would start in the later stage of their professional lives, as their voice would not be able to withstand the same workability and, nevertheless, sound pressure on their vocal anatomy, as they were able to in their younger years. Needless to say, most of those artists have been naturally quite talented, b...