What does Ken mean by "Like pouring oil in the cords"?/Moisture in the cords/vocal rest

Esteban22

This is kind of related to the voice repair course. Or, voice repairing in general.
I was binge watching the webinar recordings, and I heard Ken say somewhere that when you do exercises gently with a bright sound ( or something along those lines), is like pouring oil in the cords. I guess he meant moisture.
But my question actually goes beyond that.
How does this actually work? Because I have the voice repair course, and wrapping all these concepts together seems really interesting for me; as well as knowing what it means for us as singers.

So, is there some sort of moisture substance that gets poured into the cords, or somehow gets there, and this helps reduce the inflamation in them? And I guess as Ken says, this moisture gets the elasticity and resiliency back into the cords.

Which I guess makes me think of the more general question.
Do the voice repair exercises help with swollen cords? I guess they do. How does it work?

Also
I watched one of the student demonstrations and Ken told the student that he made him rest between scales a minute or two, because it puts moisture into the cords.

So, we may think it actually works like putting oil in the cords? Like when you put oil on a door plate, keyhole, or whatever. It has an immediate effect on loosening up things, but also has the progressive, overtime effect, even if you're not pouring oil anymore, oil is getting to all the deep places and making everything looser.

So I guess we put oil by doing the exercises, and then rest, let the "oil" do its work.

Sorry for being so thorough, but I hope others can find answers to this too, and they can be useful for others too. Also, these questions have been formulating on my mind overtime.



Ok, I also wanted to say this. The general moto of KTVA is work 5 or 6 days a week, and leave time for rest. I've found rest to be good in my experience. The voice, oddly enough, grows during those rests, like the gym. I've also had times when I absolutely needed to rest my cords, I "hit a wall" and had to rest, no way around it. But I came back much better, not just in terms of vocal health, but also in terms of vocal quality.

Also, it's the general recommendation, "if you're hoarse, rest" (not a bad recommendation at all)


But, then again, I hear Ken say things like "We don't take days off at KTVA (muahahaha)", "I still workout everyday and I'm 60" (maybe he's 61 now), "We always sing through cold and flu", "I'd rather you do your exercises gently the day after blowing your voice from shouting, and then rest the day after that (instead of resting the immediate day after blowing the voice)

I guess after having trained for a while, you can get to the point you don't need days off?
Maybe a day with a super gentle workout is a better version of a "Day off"?
Maybe a better version of a rest after blowing your voice, is doing gentle exercises?
Maybe all of the above AND a day or two of rest if you feel like you could use it?

I know now, singing is way too complex, even more complex than it looks like when you get to KTVA.
So I understand some truths are simplified to get us going.
But what is the more accurate and nuanced truth here?

Any help is greatly appreciated, even if it doesn't answer all the questions.
Thanks a lot, keep on rocking and God bless you all

Klaus_T

i think you are taking the metaphor a little bit too literally, or trying to make it work in too big a context. i don't remember Ken saying this (i have the voice repair course but thankfully never really had to use it). and of course, I cannot say for sure what Ken might have meant, but most likely, it is just a figure of speech. the exercises stretch and strengthen the muscles, and as far as i know, this process is completely oil-free. i would understand this to just be an image for elasticity, smoothness, suppleness, which is what you get from doing the exercises correctly and regularly.

as for swollen cords, if this is an inflammation, i would be very careful and see an ENT before engaging in any kind of vocal exercises.

as for the rests, yes it is exactly like going to the gym, and you should rest your voice for 1 day a week. after over-singing, a light warmup the day after is better than full rest.

i don't know where he said that we don't rest? i am currently doing a guitar course, where the teacher said something like: if he tells you to do the exercises 5 times a week, you aim for these 5 times, then life will interfere and you end up with only 3-4 times, which is not enough. if he says do it 7 times a week, you might end up missing it a few times, but then you still did 5-6 times, which is enough.

so in a way, just a bit of a "trick" to arrive at the 5 times which are necessary for developing any kind of skill. maybe this is also what Ken tries to say here?

in my personal experience, i sometimes come back from a "forced" vocal rest (holidays, work assignments) of a few days, or sometimes a week or two with only the occasional half-assed 20 min workout here and there, and more often than not, i feel like there was some kind of improvement happening during the break. but being consistent wherever possible, is still the main key to progress.

i am not sure what exactly you mean by you hitting a wall vocally sometimes, to me that part sounds a bit like over-singing, which you should avoid

hope this helps, not sure if i really answered your questions

Esteban22

Hi Klaus, thanks a lot for the response.
Ok let's leave the, likely metaphorical, oil aside for a second

I guess I'd reformulate it like this.
You blow your voice,
So, doing a gentle warmup will help the process of the body recovering itself, even after the warmup?
As in
The body will heal itself faster if you do a little gentle warmup, rather than if you just rest.
Maybe with the latter it would take a week, whereas maybe the first one would take 4 days, just to set the example.

I think you already answered saying that a gentle warmup the day after is better.

The oil thing was mentioned randomly by Ken in a webinar recording; my guess is he meant moisture, and I was curious if anyone knew the anatomy of it and how it works; and what it means to us as singers.
The same with saying we don't take days off, it was at a random webinar recording. He said it in a playful tone though.

So I guess that does help me and covers my questions pretty well, thank you.

I'll aim to rest a couple days a week.

Thank you, God bless and keep on rocking.

I actually didn't think my post would get answered at this point, so thanks a lot again

Terence

The 'oil' is mucus which coats the vocal cords for moisture and protection. It's produced by the glands in the laryngeal mucosa to keep the cords lubricated. Hydration of the vocal cords is crucial for their flexibility and to prevent irritation or damage during phonation. And like anything vibrating up to ~1000 hz, much heat can be generated.

And the water we drink is not available to the mucas glands for 20 or 30 minutes (provided you're not so dehydrated that some other crucial body function needs the water first.)

As to singing the next day after blowing out your voice, I would trust what Ken says but listen closely to the context of his comments.

Klaus_T

thanks for your comment, @Terence so i guess it was not purely metaphorical

@Esteban22 glad the answer helped you a bit.

one thing to add, listen to your body, if rest seems better, and doing a warmup feels not good, don't do it. the "having over-sung" part should really be a rare phenomenon (can happen when you can't hear yourself well in a band situation), but not the rule. and therefore, doing a full rest once when maybe a light warmup would have been better, is not gonna "kill" your voice, i would hope

i recently started running/jogging, and there is this thing called a recovery run. after a more intense day (sprinting or hill run or long distance for example), it is said to help the body heal quicker and flush out metabolites etc. i think this is kind of the equivalent of our topic here

Esteban22

Thanks a lot Terence and Klaus for your comments, absolutely wonderful and helpful!
Thanks guys