Vocal Science. Practice makes perfect… but not always.
Over the years, I have possessed a lot of singers (or wannabe singers), and also speakers who originally came to me for non-surgicalvoice repair to restore their speaking and singing voices.
Now, after certain amount of hours spent with me restoring their voices and re-learning how to really speak and/or sing, they naturally became
very excited and began to practice on their own, in spite of my warnings to
them to keep it in moderation.
I do understand that they are very excited to reach the new
higher grounds with their speaking and singing voices, but they do not
understand that the bad habits, which got them in trouble in the first place,
are still there and have been there much longer then the newly – found good
habits.
There is a saying: “Bad habits die hard”.
Indeed!
So what happens is; once my clients start practicing on
their own sooner than they were advised, the bad habits kick in and knock down the
newly-instilled good habits.
So the process begins all over again.
We have made three huge steps forward, but unfortunately,
one or even two steps back, which obviously had slowed down the process.
Everybody knows that if the alcoholic, while in recovery,
will try just a drop of alcohol, in no time, he will come back to drinking and
even heavier than before.
The latest example is our Canadian figure skater, Kaetlyn Osmond who,
unfortunately, was sidelined for 6 weeks due to a broken leg.
Prior to that, in September of 2014, she broke her ankle. She
went back to the competition and ended up with a broken leg. Just a few days
ago after a surgery, she came back to the Canada Skate Competition and ended up
landing each and every jump down on ice.
It was very painful to watch how this young beautiful girl was
desperately trying to prove to herself and everybody else that she is OK and
healed now and able to meet very high physical demands required by today’s
rules and regulations set by the Figure Skating Federation.
In my opinion, understanding how eager she was to come back
to what she does best, she came back too soon not once, but twice, got more
injuries and, no doubts, felt humiliated and extremely upset.
Her ankle, and respectively, her leg, simply could not
bear the weight of her body. At least not yet.
In my opinion, she should have stayed off of the ice a
little longer to make sure that her leg was completely healed and the strength of
the leg and the physical body overall had been fully restored.
The injured, (vocally or otherwise), people should
understand that they can not run ”marathons” right after the next day leaving
the rehab. Any injury requires proper healing and restoration of the strength of
the effected body part and recovery of the entire body as a whole.
So the conclusion of it is: If the unfortunate president happened,
please have patience to fully heal it and also, correct the bad habits which
brought you to the injury in the first place. Learn the new healthy habits and
store it in memory in such a way that you would not be able to act otherwise.
That will assure and insure your health and longevity… in
whatever you do.
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Well written and it makes some good points. So many students adopt the "more is more" philosophy when training (voice and other instruments) and don't realize that it can inhibit growth and coordination success because the brain and body can only absorb so much new information at a time.
ReplyDeleteThe same goes for recovery from injury or illness; while striving to get back in the game is an admirable trait, it has to be tempered with restraint and common sense.
The vocal injuries of young singers like Adele, Jennifer Hudson etc. are prime examples of trying to run before they could walk. Yes, they could sing and sing well, but neither had paid their dues of performing year and year on the circuit, singing night after night; through sickness and fatigue. They had no experience in how to listen to their body when it's saying "I've had enough". Combined with the pressures of sudden fame from outside entities like managers, tour promoters, record labels to capitalize on their success before someone else takes the spotlight; you're asking for disaster to strike.
For a young singer like Adele, in her early 20s, to be plagued with nodules at the start of her career speaks volumes of the deadly combination of untested voices and the demands of success. Gone are the days of singers toiling away for years in small clubs & bars, singing for hours every night, living out out of suitcase with little sleep and bad food. So you end up with singers like Adele or Jennifer Hudson having to take nearly a year off from their careers because they didn't take 1 week off, here and there to rest their voices.
It's a shame the music industry has come to this, but that's what you get in an instant gratification society.