Drainage - Voice Cracking

alancr

This has been a rough season for allergies and drainage. Late last week, with all of the drainage, my voice was insanely low. Literally, I could hit the lowest C on the piano with authority. Over the past couple of days, my range has mostly returned to normal. One problem though. I can't seem to move from chest to head voice very well at all. On the workouts, I'll be fine for most of the scales. But with the highest 3 or so runs, my voice cracks terribly. It feels like I have no control and I end up overshooting my target. I would equate this to walking on the sidewalk and unexpectedly hitting an icy spot.

Then, it's hard to go back into chest voice, which was really easy before. I was able sing fine yesterday, but felt like I had to intentionally keep myself in chest voice to keep from cracking. Nothing was super high, so I don't think I strained anything. Any suggestions?

highmtn

It's hard to say when you are being affected by allergies or post nasal drip. Sometimes that stuff lingers on the voice long after the main symptoms go away.

In many cases, it's best to continue working out, but just keep it light. In other words, don't pamper the voice, but know that perhaps you won't be able to do your most spectacular notes. When we go ahead and sing through illnesses or allergies, we tend to recover more quickly, or at least minimize the setbacks.

That would not be the case if you had laryngitis, hoaseness, or bronchial infection. But for many other instances, we are affected the least vocally when we sing through our minor colds and sinus problems. Yes, we are diminished a bit, but usually less than we would be if we simply stopped singing. Light singing is often better than no singing.

You may be best off if you practice going from chest into head and back into chest at the lowest possible volume you can. It probably will continue to crack, initially, but doing so lightly can help retrain the voice to mesh from one register to the other. It can take some time if your voice is having issues like you describe.

Be patient with yourself. Keep it light through the passaggio. The voice will recover in time, if you don't push it.

DakotaMalinowski

Your Not alone in this battle I just posted about my sickness as well. Just hang in there! both you and i will get our voices back!