A Voice Apart

How The Suppressed Emotions, Lack of Talking in the Childhood Years (Due To Strict Upbringing), And Enormous Stress, Can Effect Your Speaking Voice Down The Road To Your Adulthood? Due to my profession and extensive practice, I meet all kinds of people; all heights and weights, all colours and cultures and (in general) people from all walks of life. Being situated in Canada for over 36 years and running my Professional Vocal School for nearly 33 years, surprisingly enough (and especially lately) my business took a different turn and became at least 95% international. Our primary market for voice repairs happens to be American. Quite recently, I completed two voice repair projects, one of which was from Seattle, US, and the other from the State of Minnesota.  Needless to say, both of those adults (nevertheless with speech/voice disorders) very-much-so succeeded in their voice recovery with intense implementation of the Vocal Science technique . They had different voice disorders

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

When somebody suddenly experiences difficulties with their speaking or singing voice, they usually get really concerned, but are still hoping that the problem will go away by itself. Weeks, and sometimes months, will pass and the voice problem not only hasn’t gone away, but has actually become worse. This person ends up trying to push their voice harder and harder to make it work the way it used to, not realizing that it is doing more harm than it’s worth. Eventually, after they seem to have tried everything, they end up getting a referral to an ENT specialist, hoping that the specialist will shed light on their problem and offer them a quick and “magical” fix.  And yes, after the diagnosis, especially with polyps, nodes, nodules, or cysts, the ENT specialist usually offers a quick laser or scalpel operation to remove the growth on their vocal cords or their throats. That operation seemed to also be offered to Joan Rivers, who evidently had some problems with her voc

When the vocal injury occurs it’s definitely not a “picnic” for every party involved. If it happens to a regular person, who is not a singer at all, and not at all prepared that one day he/she wakes up and will sound with the hoarse raspy voice which is hardly resembling the voice which the sufferer originally possessed.  Not being in agreement with that, the person starts to push all surrounding muscles – like throat, neck, shoulders and chest,   trying to extract some sound familiar to them. Unfortunately, the more they push, the less they accomplish. Moreover, the sounds actually gets pushed more so down and may easily get stuck at the neck, which in a short while may become an indication of what’s called Muscle Tension Dysphonia.  Now, clearly, the real vocal injury has occurred.  Naturally, the first thought that comes to the sufferer is to get referred to ENT doctor.  They wait for months for the appointment and finally arrive to the ENT specialist’s office. Af

Sometime ago, I received an e-mail from a, seem to be, very frustrated, aggressive and, probably, very loud in the past, woman. She was, sort of, inquiring about her damaged voice, but in the tone of her e-mail, there was a lot of anger and blame. As usual, I asked her if she wanted to speak on the phone, so I could hear her voice, first hand and then make my assumptions and outline the best course of action for her particular case to be. She agreed and I dialed the number. The minute she picked up the phone, she tried to “scream”, with her broken voice at me, blaming everybody and anybody and saying, with anger, that she could not scream anymore at her two teenage sons while they were on the field, playing soccer. Go figure! To me, even with her voice issue, she sounded very loud, rude and obnoxious, and also, interestingly enough, she, instead of wanting (for real) to fix her voice , wanted to learn a sign language…? Usually, people with a hearing impediment are using s

Let's Find Out! Lately, more and more voice problems sufferers are coming to me with the most, seem to be, common diagnoses; Such as acid reflux negatively affecting vocal cords, and also (by osmosis) affecting voice performance, which, in turn, often leads to  muscle tension dysphonia  disorder, as well as to many other kinds of voice disorders...  Are there, perhaps, any additional voice/ vocal problems that people also experience? You may ask, my reader? The answer is:  Of course, there are!  The rest of them, however, are much more tangible; Those include  nodes, nodules, polyps , lesions, cysts, etc, usually located on one or both vocal cords.  However, what appears to be interesting is that the person, let’s say with the hoarse/raspy voice, and not diagnosed with any growth on their vocal cords, is immediately labelled with one or the other diagnosis; either gastric acid reflux which is burning the sufferer’s vocal cords or muscle tension dysphonia (MTD), which