I am quite sure I have swollen vocal chords/nodules and need help.

Arvidpersson

Hello! About a year ago I discovered that you actually could train your voice.. before that I just thought it was talent. Now, I had some talent before I discovered this, but I've always tought I had a weak and boring voice until I saw one of Kens distortion videos (support, holding breath etc.) and it worked instantly for me. At that moment I was so excited about it so I totally missed that you need to build up the voice and muscles before you do this, and that you really need to be careful. When I got the sound I wanted I just thought is was 100% bullet proof and I was ready to go. So now a year after I have begun to feel like I'm loosing it. Everytime I try to do the heavy distortion like Ken does, it's starting to hurt, and drying out my vocal chords, especially affecting my head register as I feel the soft notes just becomes air (even some short squeaky whistle sound here and there). Of course I don't do the distortion anymore and have begun to train the voice properly, but I feel like the problems haven't stopped, even tough they have become less critical. If I sing for 10 minutes with just a little compression/twang to my voice (no heavy rock distortion) I sometimes get hoarsy/raspy/husy whatever.. and even sometimes it gets so hoarsy it's drying out my vocal chords. Part from this I also feel like an air leak in my head voice, especially when I have used distorion. This is why I now believe it all points to noduels or at least swollen vocal chords. So I'm wondering if Ken or anyone else here that know about this stuff can help me heal my voice again, so I can regain my voice with full condition and with that cool distortion I could do before, without hurting or drying out my throat. I've stopped all the singing at the moment since I'm not sure how to heal my voice if there really is something bad going on. Maybe I have to do some special workouts to first heal my voice before I continue with the training or something.. I don't know. Now, just to point out, I can still sing great, probably greater than I have ever done before (also another vocal coach has told me there is nothing wrong with my voice even though I find it hard to believe), and therefore I am still uncertain what to think, even though my gut and voice tells me there is something wrong going on. I miss being able to sing all the rocks songs I could do before, and sing with confidence and joy.. Please help me get that back.

Thank you for the time and understanding!

highmtn

@Arvidpersson,

It's not like someone can tell you "don't do this" and that will be enough. You need a complete vocal course and to do it properly. Mixing and matching different components of different vocal courses is a bad idea, because you aren't following anyone's complete advice. You could have any number of incorrect techniques that you are using. You could have your voice heal, and then go right back to using random vocal methodology, and irritate your cords again.

Distortion can be rough on the voice. Ken holds off teaching distortion in his course until you have been through volumes 1 and 2 and have learned a number of techniques that will help you to protect the voice. He mentions that in his videos on distortion, that you can hurt yourself and that you need to use safe methods.

You probably have not hurt your voice permanently yet, but you may have given yourself some setbacks that you need to rehabilitate from, through very quiet, soft scale-singing. If you are worried about any real damage to your vocal cords, you should have your cords scoped by an ENT. Then at least you can put your mind at ease.

People want to be given the secret to instant vocal techniques, but it's actually a slow process of building the strength and resiliency of the voice, and then only attempting safe methods of distortion, using safe techniques that do not wear on the voice. AND, as Ken says in every video on distortion, you HAVE to ALWAYS go back and clean up the sound, singing with clear tone after using safe distortion.

You can post a demo of your voice and your problems and maybe we can tell you a little more about what's happening with your voice.

There are a lot of wrong ways to create distortion in the voice. There are only a few ways to distort safely, and you have to do ALL of the right things to prevent yourself from doing any of the wrong things.

All the Best!

Bob