On Fri, 16 Aug 2002 Greypins@a... wrote:
> i just started taking beta-blockers and i think my voice is acting a
> little on the bizarre side (easier to sing upper middle, over shooting the
> top, etc.). anyone had any similar experiences or, some real info on the
> subject?
>
If you are taking the beta blockers for "performance anxiety", it may be
that the fact that your nervousness has been reduced is allowing your body
to relax more, so that the upper register is easier to produce than it was
before due to lack of jaw, tongue, neck, torso, etc. tensions. Your
technique previously may have involved doing things to compensate for
those tensions so that you could sing the upper register notes. Now that
the tensions are gone (or reduced), the compensation techniques are no
longer necessary, and are in fact causing you to sing sharp.
Even if you're not taking the beta blockers for "performance anxiety", but
for another medical reason, the above may still be true. I found, when I
was being treated for hyperthyroidism and taking beta blockers for same
that much of the "edge" was taken off of my former propensity for "panic"
symptoms when I performed in public. I discovered, once my late lamented
thyroid had been "killed off", that those panic symptoms were, in fact,
directly related to the hyperstimulation of my nervous system that was
oversensitised by having too much thyroid pumped into it (resulting in an
average resting heartrate of 100 beats per minute, which soared as high
as 130 when I had an adrenalin-induced panic attack), and then having
an adrenalin surge on top of that. Once the thyroid was worked out, the
adrenalin surges did little more than simply "energise" me - no more dry
mouth, sweats, tremors, trembling, etc. which had been the usual state of
affairs when I was overproducing thyroid. But before the thyroid was
treated, I did find that beta blockers also successfully "took the edge
off" the adrenalin rushes/panic attacks.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
______________________________________
I will sing with the spirit, and I
will sing with the understanding also.
1 Corinthians 14:15
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