A Voice Apart

Recently, we had an inquiry from a singer situated in Europe who had been diagnosed with Spasmodic Dysphonia. …………………………………………………………………………… “I was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, and the doctor wanted to give me Botox injections, but I refused because the risk of not being able to sing well afterwards (I am a singer) was too great! So my question is, Can you help me get my voice or a better voice back? Is it possible to get instructions via Skype. I live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands!” …………………………………………………………………………… Below is my answer. Hi There, I have to note that it is a little unusual to be diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, when you are a singer. Usually, it happens to people who are not singers, but just regular (or professional) speaking voice users. But, nevertheless, it is a very serious problem and in conventional sense, cannot be treated, let alone cured. And yes, the only treatment they could offer is the Botox, which in majority of cases, will not work or

Approximately a month ago, I received a student from the US who has been a professional singer all his life, but for the past while, he had begun experiencing some vocal problems ; like a loss of high range, a raspy/hoarse voice and a collection of excess mucus in the throat, coupled with minor acid reflux . He was experiencing fatigue with his voice and could no longer sing for prolonged periods of time. That made my client very insecure and resulted in him refusing and cancelling upcoming gigs. He originally arrived to me, per-registered for 20 hours of non-surgical voice repair sessions, but ended up taking 30 hours to learn the new vocal technique and to lose the bad habits adopted for the last 40 years being on stage.  The voice repair was actually complete within 10 (maximum of 15) hours; the rest of the sessions were dedicated to mastering the actual singing performance . It was not easy, as I told him, jokingly, even before we started, that

It is, indeed! However, like any of the human body muscles , the voice muscle has to be approached with a ‘working smart and not necessarily hard’, attitude and knowledge. If some body builder is trying to lift the weight which is above his capacity and way beyond his capability, or expertise on how to do it in such a way, so he would not end up hurt, he actually might get injured in no time and his body building career may end in a split second. Likewise, if a singer (or wannabe singer), will start working really hard on his vocal pieces and not realizing that he is excessively using , (and abusing for that matter), his vocal anatomy, he may end up with a vocal injury which pretty much could jeopardize his singing career. The majority of vocal damage could be approached and treated non-surgically ; some may require a vocal surgery.  The latter is definitely not desirable, as any surgery of any kind may do more harm than good. In my previous blogs, I described