Vocal damage?

Awadi

Hello guys,

So yesterday I went to do some singing practice (I hadn’t done some practice in maybe 2-3 weeks) and everything went well. But when I came home, I realize that my throat is kinda bothering me. When I try to breathe in deep it hurts a little bit and even when I’m not doing anything it can start to hurt and then go away.

A couple hours after this, now I feel like I have a lump. Kind of like when you cry, you get this sensation that you have a thickness in your throat. When I try to sing it can start to hurt, when I do whistle, it’s like it’s gonna kill me, it hurts a lot. Although even speaking can trigger the pain.

So I don’t really know, is this something you guys have encountered before and is there anything I can do to make it go away?

Klaus_T

did you sing as in KTVA exercises? or more like metal screaming? you should do a light warmup after oversinging (the next day)

Awadi

I’ll be honest with you, when I sing, it is so loud that you could think someone is being murdered. In the same run, I can go from chest to mix then head then whistle then chest, all this under 10 seconds. I try to do screams, opera, pop etc. I’ll start in the 2nd octave then get into the 6th (C6 and D6 mostly, although sometimes I can squeak out an F6).

So umm, yeah

Awadi

The thing is all this took maybe an hour, and I have done this a lot before, once my school let me use their practice rooms from Monday to Friday, in which I did all of the above everyday and everything was normal the next day, no pain no nothing. This time I hadn’t been singing like that for maybe 2-3 weeks, I don’t know if that could be why.

Awadi

Starting to think that maybe I should stop doing this, although I’ve had no problems in the last, not even hoarseness (maybe once ). I’m worried, could I have just suffered some permanent vocal damage? Searching on the web really doesn’t help with the whole “not getting worried” thing.

Klaus_T

relax, i don't think you will have damaged your vocal cords permanently in this one session. are you even doing Ken' exercises then? it does sound like you should focus more on the course and less on whatever it is you are practicing there probably good that you got a warning sign from your body. monitor carefully how your voice feels, if you think something was damaged, go and see the doctor, if you think it is fine, just stick with the KTVA workouts, do them lightly, and follow Ken's regimen. if you want to sing all of these hard genres like scream and opera and what-not, don't try to take shortcuts. Ken's course is a safe way to get there, but not a quick one, because there is no shortcut to where you want to go. muscles need time to grow

Awadi

I have done the whole course (bought it last year) but it could be that I am impatient and thought “how can I get a chest mix fast?” Well. I will definitely start to do them though, but when you say workouts, is there a set list of what you do that like works every part of the voice?

I also remember Ken saying that you should do some days head voice and some days chest voice, since doing only one will tare on the other. I assume you do the excercises, do they build your mix and after doing them for a couple of years, can you belt and sustain high notes with power?

Thx!!!!

Klaus_T

what you mean you have "done" the whole course? in one year? the course and the workout means you work out every day (nearly). it builds all the pillars that you need for all that what you said. you bought the course so you will have all the material you need. the vol 1 pdf is where i would start reading

sjonrokz4u

I think what @Klaus_T is alluding to is the fact that if you did the entire course in a year you didn’t spend the time building up the strength and stamina to be doing what your doing yet. It takes three months each on the first two volumes and 6 months to a year on vol 3. And you’ve also cruised through vol 4 and 5 so you’ve probably rushed things quite a bit. There’s no short cuts you have to build the muscle. It looks like you got on the forum in November is that when you got the course?

Awadi

Got the course in November yeah, was done with all of it after 3 weeks. I am too impatient it seems and yeah this is probably a warning that I shouldn’t take for granted. I’ve been singing for a year now and I feel so behind. But I will start doing the exercises! You guys have any like “mix” of the excercises that one can do everyday that covers the most? I got no job or school arm so I can put a couple of hours per day!

Thx!

sjonrokz4u

Dude be for real! Your problem is you blew through the course at rocket speed built nothing strength and stamina wise. Thats only 10 months!! This is way more than a one year course. There’s no way you could’ve absorbed any of the important points. You need to go back and start over and spend the proper amount of time on each section. Your probably blowing up your voice. There are no short cuts or express tracks to this it takes hard work and discipline. You’ve skated over so much info. I don’t mean to sound like an ass but this may be the poorest approach to this system that I’ve heard. Start over and learn what your doing before you need throat surgery. I’d love to hear a lah scale by the way

sjonrokz4u

I misread....you did it in three weeks. For real? Three weeks? C’mon man that’s just dumb. You learned nothing but how to wreck your voice

Awadi

It wouldn’t be honest of me to tell you guys off. I’ll be honest, your comments really got through to me and maybe I deserve even more than what you guys wrote. It’s just that I try to be fast in everything I do, I want to be fast and efficient, in some things this is the right approach, but I have realized this might not be one of those things.

I’d love to show you a lah scale, but I won’t be able to right now as my voice is not responding in the way it usually does, but I believe next week I will be able to post a video here, stay tuned for it. Also, I am not one of those people that get hurt when people write the way you guys do, I know you are honest and that is exactly what I was looking for.

In some ways I must have been delusional, thinking that I’m young (I’m 20) and that I can do anything without getting hurt. Thank you guys a lot! I really needed to hear this, I’ve been feeling lost lately, and this just might have been a wake up call that maybe I didn’t want to hear, but definitely needed to.

My goal vocally, is to be able to do anything I desire and that will take time I guess

Klaus_T

well, it's great if we could give you a wake up call. at age 20, i would have never had the discipline to do this course. so if you have already learned that lesson, great. look at that volume 1 pdf and do what it says. you can always ask us if you can't figure something out. but you will have to put in the time yourself. you surely aren't the first one to look for quick fixes. now you know they don't work (and are actually detrimental to your goals), you can start clean and get the results

Awadi

Also, when you say '' do the exercises'', I get a little confused when I enter ''My content'. What I mean is for example Volume 1 has

Audio Workouts – 01. Audio Starter Workouts Divas
Audio Workouts – 02. Audio Starter Workouts Dudes

Audio Workouts – 03. Main Audio Workouts

Audio Workouts – 04. Audio Workouts Piano Guide

I do
''Audio Workouts – 03. Main Audio Workouts''
or
''Audio Workouts – 02. Audio Starter Workouts Dudes & Audio Workouts – 03. Main Audio Workouts''?

Does ''Main Audio Workouts'' contain all of the exercies in the whole volume? So it is that I should start with?

Just getting a little confused that's all

EDIT: wrote this before seeing your reply, I'll look into the PDf and thanks !!!!