From: Karen <kjensen@c...>
From: Karen <kjensen@c...>
Subject: Voice Cuts Out
"I have a 50-ish female student who has a lyric voice which has been
technically secure in the past, but occasionally it just cuts out, like a
candle suddenly being snuffed out by a sudden gust of wind. It just simply
stops, usually on a highish sustained note(SNIP)"
Dear Karen and List:
Because this has happened to me - also a lyric with well-established
technique and no previous difficulties, I'll share my experience and
thoughts. My voice began cutting out occasionally about 6 years ago
(hmmm...I got married that year). Weird. It could happen in any part of my
range, but most often at the end of a phrase as Karen describes. It didn't
happen often enough to really concern me until about 2 years ago, when I
also began experiencing hoarseness, loss of low range and other vocal
changes. At that point I sought out an ENT as others have suggested. The
upshot was that I had no nodes , polyps, etc. but did have considerable
scarring from symptomless reflux. Since then I've been on a referral
merry-go-round - from ENT to GI to ENT/Allergy specialist, three different
internists, 2 of whom told me to give up singing - with no lasting
improvement, until...someone finally suggested a speech therapist.
Now I don't doubt that I have silent reflux or nasty allergies and I'm
grateful (though poorer) to have had these diagnosed and now managed. But
none of those treatments alleviated the vocal problems. When I went to the
speech therapist, she had me sing, read, and converse with her. Then she
said these very important things:
1. You're stressed. Go have two massages and see me in two weeks.
2. Your timing is off. When you read or sing, you are breathing well, but
your coordination when you're just sitting there or describing your problem
is really off. You hold your breath, have to think to breathe low, etc. So
10 times a day, I want you to take 10 relaxed, abdominal breaths.
So I duly had my massages and actually followed through with the physical
therapy for my shoulder injury which I'd been putting off.
And I put signs all over my house reminding me to breathe. I made myself a
rule: Whenever I saw one of the signs, I had to stop and breathe 10 times,
even if I was in a rush. I found that I'd been hurtling through my
over-scheduled day without stopping to breathe. I held my breathe while I
ate, as I herded the kids out the door, packed their lunches, clothes, swim
clothes, my lesson plan for school, the instruments I needed that day, any
medicines they needed...and then finally breathed when I got behind the
wheel.
When I was single and did as I pleased, slept well every night and had only
my own needs to be concerned with, I never had a problem. When the demands
on my energy increased exponentially, I had a panic response in terms of
breathing. I stopped breathing because I didn't have time.
The end result: After two years(!!!!) of being scoped from here to there,
$160+/month of medicines and endless Dr. visits, I focused on breathing well
during my daily activities for a week, and did exercises to free up my
injured shoulder, and my voice returned in all its glory (when you haven't
been able to sing consistently for 2 years, it does seem glorious when it
comes back!).
So I'd like to suggest for your student that in addition to being scoped to
rule out any damage (always a good idea, plus you get to see
pictures/video!), you don't wait around for all of that to get worked out.
Follow your good instincts as a teacher. All the exercises I did with the
speech therapist were embarrassingly the same as what I do with beginning
students. Easy onset; beginning with a sigh and adding vocalization; adding
m, h to the vowels as we sustain them; gentle movement through the
shoulders, neck and head as you sing; lengthening across the shoulders.
Forget that your student is older and experienced and return to basics and
see if that doesn't help her. I think Mike was on to something in suggesting
that she may be holding. After the physical therapy for my shoulder, my
ability to sing page-long phrases returned, so clearly I was bracing against
the shoulder pain. Perhaps that contributed to the disappearing notes too.
Knowing how to sing and what to do and not to do, doesn't mean we can't
forget sometimes, especially in the face of added physical stress. A very
fine singer/teacher I sing with has been to chiropractors, ENTs, AT, REALLY
expensive teachers and doesn't seem to realize that she has extraordinarily
tense shoulders that brace backwards, then rise to her ears whenever she
negotiates the 2nd passagio. You know she'd see it in one of her students,
but she clearly doesn't know she's doing it herself. I sure didn't know
what I was doing to myself. Especially since the muscle stress was being
exacerbated outside of singing and teaching. You know I always say to my
students that it's not enough to sit, stand, and breathe well during a
lesson or practice. You need to do it all through your day so that good
usage becomes the habit you fall back on. But I felt so secure in my
technique that I didn't listen to my own advice.
And I would emphasize to your student that having problems such as she's
experiencing doesn't mean she's any less of a singer, or suddenly at age 50
has faulty technique. As I wrote to John Link, it had been bothering me that
with all my experience I couldn't sing around whatever was going on. I was
really humiliated in front of my students, my children's choir, in my
church gig and other paying jobs when this started happening. And what I
learned was this: I don't know how to sing with tension. And I do think
that's a very good thing. I know how to sing freely and effortlessly. But I
didn't have a clue what to do when I couldn't fix/release/free up the
physical stress of the reflux or the allergies or the shoulder injury.
Best wishes to your student,
Laura Sharp
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