One very important thing that can be easily overlooked:

Yesterday I went to my ear, nose, and throat doctor for a follow-up appointment after he removed enough wax from my left ear to polish a bus with and had me putting antibiotic drops in the ear for the past two weeks.

The ear, he tells me, is coming along fine. But I asked him, since I was there, if he would take a look at my larynx and vocal folds. Being 78 now, and having lost a note or two on the top of my range (gained a full step on the bottom, though), I just wanted to make sure everything was ship-shape.

I was expecting him to grab my tongue and pull it out of my mouth as far as it would go (and a bit more), and poke what looked like a long-handled dental mirror into the back of my throat so he could see the vocal folds. But no. He squirts some kind of bitter-tasting anesthetic up each nostril, leaves the examining room, and comes back with a box-shaped gizmo with an electrical cord and another thin tubular thing sticking out of it.

He plugs in the electrical cord, then runs the thin tube up my right nostril. I presume it was an "endoscope" or something like that; small camera attached to a fiber-optic cord. The thing was quite flexible, and it was only about an eight of an inch in diameter—but big enough to let me know it was there, despite the anesthetic.

He peered at the box and said "Hmm" a lot. He had me sing a few notes on different pitches (lots of fun with a cable up your nose and a television camera down your throat). Then he removed the tube and told me that my vocal folds looked okay to him. They do tend to lose a bit of flexibility with age (which accounts for the slight drop in range), but there are no nodes or any other anomalies or causes for concern.

Good news!

Except—   they appeared to him to be a bit dehydrated. He said that drinking enough water is a major factor in maintaining vocal health (not to mention general health). At least the recommended eight eight-ounce glasses per day. That's two quarts of water per day (I don't know how this works out in liters and Imperial gallons).

Anyway. He got me. I must confess that I've been somewhat negligent in that department. So I've upped my water intake considerably.

This, of course, is also a good workout for the kidneys. . . .

Uh—before you crack open that beer, the doc also reminded me that he's talking about water. Coffee, tea, and alcoholic beverages all contain diuretics, which draw water out of the body.

Sorry—

Damn the rust! Drink a lot of water!

Don Firth

P. S. But you might want to be judicious if you're about to do a two-hour concert. You don't want to have to stand there on the stage writhing while you sing until intermission.

Hey! Could that explain Elvis?