Difficulties singing louder, vocal fatigue

dlm1991

Hi all,

I've been singing in rock bands, including gigging and recording, for quite a long time. Recently I've had several colds, which haven't helped my singing voice.

I've noticed a lot of vocal fatigue. Last weekend I stayed up with someone and had 2 drinks after singing and the next day I was feeling pretty hoarse speaking. However, I can sing everything quietly quite comfortably, with virtually no hoarseness. It's when I start to add volume, particularly around the g#4-d5, that I get problems, with the sound coming out very inconsistently, sometimes for a few days after a (not very heavy) night out. I'm giving up on alcohol but I'm worried about there being something bad going wrong with my voice. At the moment, that part of my range is still not great, but I have zero speaking hoarseness or hoarseness when singing quietly, just a fair bit of phlegm.

What exactly is going on here?

Furious_Phil

@dlm1991 Well, I'm not a doctor... but this does sound familiar.
Are you getting any post-sinus nasal drip, especially at night? (residual from the colds)

I always find talking over noise in a bar (or wherever) to be harder on my voice than belting!

D5 is pretty high to hit well if your throat is in a compromised state... how well are you hydrating yourself? Are you in an arid climate?

Lastly, when you say "adding volume"... how loud do you sing? In the KTVA program, when using Hyper-glottal compression, the volume actually isn't very loud... Say in the vicinity of 85-90 Db or so. (I used a free Db meter for my iPhone to test myself and a bunch of other singers to arrive at that figure)
Its a little of the smoke and mirrors of being able to rock out night after night without tearing yourself up. So if you are full-on belting it out every night, you can only do that for so long before it catches up to you, and of course that probably isn't contributing to your vocal health.

Just my $.02

highmtn

With KTVA, we learn to manage our air pressure and volume to prevent blowout. That comes from learning a number of foundational principles that we learn to rely upon to govern the volume of our voice in various modes of singing. It's kind of a progressive, step-by-step process that eventually builds a reliable base to maintain the voice over the long haul, whether singing with distortion or with clean tones.

Colds will come and go, but with these measures in place, we get through the ups and downs with less recovery time and fewer compromises or interruptions, and eventually, an end to blowouts entirely.