Hi Newbie!!
Well, for starters, 5 hour gigs seems excessive to
me!! If you were a Wagnerian well, perhaps, but any
kind of pop/rock singer uses their voice much more in
an evening than a classical one does. For starters,
cut that down!
Any amount of exercise like blowing up ballons etc
will do absolutely nothing at all, just probably make
you hyper-ventilate!! Any 'so-called' exercise that's
good for the voice, generally isn't in any case! What
the voice does need, is just to be 'allowed' to
happen. All the best singers, be they pop, opera or
musical bods do just that. It's as if the sound just
appears! Hard to obtain correctly you may think?
Perhaps, but probably not as hard as blowing up
balloons!
Smimming's a great exercise of course. Just watch
you'e not allergic to chlorine. I love swimming, but
will only do it in Ozone pools (which in England are
few and far between)or in the sea. I couldn't sing a
note after being in chlorine.
Any sort of exercise is naturally going to be
benefitial to anybody, so by all means do whatever you
think you need to do. However, do be careful about
heavy weights, as lifting those makes you jam up your
larnyx!
Any singer of note will find the more they warm up,
the more the bottom of the voice will lose in sound.
Most sensible composers will put the lower notes
towards the beginning of the opera, as 2 hours in
you're by no means as likely to have such low notes as
when you started. That's the nature of the voice I'm
afraid. However, it could mean you're singing in the
wrong range in the first place. You should be able to
comfortably sing any note at the end of a performance
as you could at the beginning. You ask why, well, it
could be that your roaring your head off at the top
end of the voice: difficult to say without hearing
you!
There are a number of teachers out there who could
possibly help you (I don't know where you're based)
but most classically oriented teachers have no idea
about modern singing and the extra demands put upon
the voice, so you must choose wisely. Having done both
styles of singing, I know it isn't the same performing
Wagner and Shirley Bassey. Actually, Wagner is far
easier!!
All the best,
Ian Voice wrecker to the stars!
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