Vocal Health

naimahbk

I have a very serious question. I am a singer and I don’t smoke nor am I a smoker, but it is difficult for me to stand secondhand smoke. I have found myself in various situations where I have been around marijuana or cigarette smokers and if breathing that air wasn’t bad enough, the next day my voice was COMPLETELY SHOT and hoarse. What are your thoughts? Is second hand smoke really bad for your vocal cords? Does it affect the voice the same as if I smoked? How do I get my voice back to its prime? How do I prevent this from happening again?

HuduVudu

Yes, second hand smoke is bad and it sucks, but I am very sure that it isn't causing the problems with your voice that you are having. To my point almost every singer of note starts out in a bar type environment. This isn't as much as it used to be because of the new anti-tobacco laws but older favorites started out in smoky bars and guaranteed this in and of itself did NOT affect their voice.

Some thoughts on what might be a problem. First, you said you don't smoke (good), but do you drink? Many people (myself included) have used alcohol as an anesthetic to numb the vocal pain of improper singing. You may not be doing this but alcohol will affect the chords the same way. It dries them out. So avoid alcohol when you are singing either for people or as practice for yourself. My other thought, and I believe that this is most likely the case, is that you don't correctly understand support. It is IMPERATIVE on every level that you use as little air as possible when you sing. Doing this REQUIRES that you correctly apply diaphragmatic support. A good way to test your knowledge of your support is to do burbles with a candle and makes sure that the candle is in your breath stream. You should be able to do the burble without blowing out the candle.