A Voice Apart

Lately, we are hearing more and more about people’s vocal tragedies. Some of them have been suffering for years with the loss of their regular voice, speaking and/or singing . Majority of them went to all kinds of doctors and specialists and have been diagnosed with all kinds of health problems related or, most of the times, not related to their vocal performance . The loss of their original speaking and/or singing voice had been blamed on all kinds of the person’s internal health.   Yes, granted some of the internal health problems may be related to the quality of the voice.   For example: If the person practising an unhealthy diet i.e. consumes a lot of dairy products, that person most likely will possess a lot of mucus everywhere in the body, vocal anatomy included. If the person eats a lot of acidic products like tomatoes, oranges, red meats and others, no doubts this person will suffer from acid reflex . That said, if they do have a problem with their range a

We all know that whichever health problems we have, the best way to conquer them is, first of all, to prevent it. However, if it already happened, the second best way to deal with it is non-surgically , if possible. The third apparent way is to embark on a surgical procedure. However, the latter is much more dangerous than the other two options. Look at the case of Julie Andrews; after undergoing a botched vocal surgery in 1997, she lost her ability to sing forever and never regained her real singing voice ever since.  Joan Rivers , not too long ago, went to a prestigious New York hospital to the outpatient ward to remove a simple polyp and, as a result, she never came out of the operation room.  And lastly, there is Sam Smith , who luckily came out of the O.R, but with no ability to speak for quite a few weeks. The rest remains to be seen. I wish him all the best and a full recovery of his vocal injury . However, with the best scenario, what is going to change afte

Indeed, should you give up or rather do something which will (at least) improve the quality of your life? What are those untretable, nasty voice disorders ? It definitely is vocal paralysis (paresis) or both vocal cords, the severe forms of spasmodic dysphonia , the severe forms of muscle tension dysphonia , scar tissue on the vocal cords , damaged vocal box and it’s anatomy due to/or during the surgical procedure and many more others . Once, not too long ago, in my office/studio walked in a middle-aged, pretty handsome Asian man with his wife. It was very sad to try to speak with the man, as there was nothing else coming out of his mouth but mooing. I could not understand one word he was trying to say. Then his wife took over the “conversation”. She told us a story that her husband had a cancer of thyroid. Then the doctors first were trying to get rid of the cancer, they conducted a surgical procedure , which had paralyzed one of his vocal cords ( vocal p

Firstly, the answer for the question whether or not you can prevent a vocal surgery, in majority of cases would definitely be yes. We have seen and heard a lot of artists with great talents and beautiful songs , but the majority of those artists, unfortunately, did not have much of an idea about proper vocal technique, which actually would prevent those beautiful natural voices from, in some cases, severe damage. They’re usually picked up by the industry based on their talents, looks, and in some cases, well-written songs. Also, I will never forget, “until the day I die”, when I had an appointment with Sony Music Canada, and before starting the conversation about my own artist, the two Sony executives, almost, right away, when I sat down on the chair in their office, exclaimed: “Where have you been when we needed you last night? We flew over an artist from Vancouver and could hardly pull out any vocals out of him! It was more like we were pulling out our own