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Talking and resting

KaiEllisKaiEllis Pro, 2.0 PRO Posts: 215
Hi dudes and divas!

Would love your help getting a better handle on two subjects.

One, how do you handle your vocal health when it comes to talking? What I mean specifically is two things.

1. When you've got to sing later after a day where you've had to spend most of it talking, talking, talking and your voice just feels tired after hours of use

2. In environments like karaoke bars where you'd like to interact with people, but to do so requires talking at crazy volume levels.

My second subject is about how to include rest in your regimine of training.

On the one hand, I'm all about making the time to train every day.

But I also know that rest must need to happen at some point.

Can you help me understand what's a healthy schedule to keep about when you train the voice and when to rest the voice?

Thanks to all of you!

Kai

Comments

  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    If you want to preserve your singing voice, you will have to learn to speak without wearing out your voice. That may mean lowering the volume of your voice. Same thing for noisy bars and conversations. You may have to choose. Talk loud or sing. Which is more important?

    Your voice is part of your body and it needs rest, especially if you are talking all day in loud environments. So you just have to look at your priorities and find a balance that somehow includes physical rest, vocal rest, work, play, and singing.

    For training purposes, you want to sing about an hour per day, about 5 or 6 days a week. You may want to cut that back on your karaoke or performance days, so you'll have something left when it's time to do your singing.

    There are also breath techniques, like diaphragmatic breathing that can help you to preserve your voice by cutting back the air. That takes a bit of training in order to master that.
  • KaiEllisKaiEllis Pro, 2.0 PRO Posts: 215
    Ahhhhh this makes sense!

    Thank you so much for your guidance. I'm so new to doing this with advice from pros that things like this only seem obvious to me in hindsight. You know? Rest days and cutting back on performance (ha! Karaoke!) days makes sense to me, but I also don't want to be the guy who took a week off from the gym just because his legs got sore
  • Furious_PhilFurious_Phil Moderator, Pro, 2.0 PRO, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 1,421
    This really rings true... Just came back from a family wedding in another province. There was always a loud din of people talking, or (at the dance) having to continually shout over the music.
    (Why the hell do people want to discuss the minutia of their lives at these events??? For the love of god, Shut up and dance!)
    I knew it was going to have an effect, but when I went to do phase 3 the next day, I sounded like frikking Joan Rivers! My high register was obliterated, and everything was wildly raspy. I heavily cut back on the air, and just went through the rest of the routine as gently as I could.
    2 days later, I am back to normal range and timber, but I think I learned a valuable lesson.
  • KaiEllisKaiEllis Pro, 2.0 PRO Posts: 215
    Phil - how have you handled this since then?

    Now that I've gotten the program, I realize Ken actually teaches how to TALK more effectively! My job often requires a lot of talking from me, and now I just see it as more time to practice breath support and cutting back the air across my cords. And voila... now at the end of my day, my voice just feels super warmed up :smile:
  • Furious_PhilFurious_Phil Moderator, Pro, 2.0 PRO, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 1,421
    Normal speaking doesn't hurt my voice whatsoever... its just loud-talking over the din of a pub/dancebar etc that gets me. I can usually sustain it for a fair amount of time... but night after night (family wedding/get-together) for a week straight... well apparently that is excessive LOL.
  • KaiEllisKaiEllis Pro, 2.0 PRO Posts: 215
    Lol! No doubt!!!
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