Home The Singer's Lobby

Instant hoarseness at a certain point in the vocal range after a few minutes of singing

TudorTudor Pro Posts: 8
edited April 2016 in The Singer's Lobby
Hi!
These last three days I've been really concerned with this problem that I've never experienced before, and I'm not sure what to do.
Lately my voice has come to a state where if relaxed enough, I can sing almost anything I want, without tension or much effort. Maybe particularly because I have truly started to use my voice the way it is meant to sound.

Nevertheless, I have had two mild colds with the climate changes of the spring, which have been interrupting my usual singing. After the second cold, I had a few days break and then I started recording a really easy song (apart from a crazy scream I didn't even try) - Billy Idol's White Wedding.
Just after recording, my throat felt so strange that for the next day I didn't talk at all to make sure that the cold isn't returning. I blamed this on the fact that I hadn't warmed up enough before recording. The following days my throat was so dry that I'd wake up every morning with a sore throat, which would disappear within minutes after waking up. I bought a humidifier, started taking a spoon of honey and propolis every day. One of these days I even gave it a try at a few songs I was listening to and they sounded really good. However my throat continued to feel dry and I continued to wake up with this temporary soreness. During the day I had to talk at school and felt a continuous vague hoarseness, so I decided to wait until it went away.

These last 3 or 4 days, I just wanted to try and sing an easy song, in the lower register, no effort, no tension, but to my surprise within a minute or so, I caught a really bad "hoarseness," if I could call it so, which made it impossible to pass from the lower register into head voice, only on full voice, not on muted voice or quiet falsetto. Going up, my voice goes into this complete distortion, but if I try to sing above that point, it seems to have almost no problem. Now of course, this generates a vague general hoarseness and I can easily, almost involuntarily do a vocal fry when talking low. I feel no pain when this happens, and it is virtually impossible to sing in that area of the vocal range. For three days after a minute of relaxed singing, this occured.
What does this mean? Is it because I haven't been warming up enough and my throat is weakened from the colds? It has never happened before and I cannot find anything about it on the web. Should I go see a doctor?

Many thanks!

Comments

  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    A visit to the doctor may give you some more answers. I've had illnesses that settled into my throat and lingered long (months) after the other symptoms have gone. I'm just getting over an allergic reaction to the spring tree blossom pollen that can be seen all over the streets and on cars everywhere around here. The feeling that gives me is the "sore throat" that goes away, but comes back every morning. My singing voice was OK last weekend, but not in top shape. I felt really cruddy, though. I'm better now, but it's still in my sinuses. I don't have the gap of notes you're having.

    A trip to the doctor would be a good idea. Your doctor may be treating others with the same symptoms you are having.

    Besides that, you might want to send in a demo. Otherwise, we are less likely to really know what might be going on with your voice.

    I hope you get better soon.

    Bob
Sign In or Register to comment.