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22 Feb 06 - 11:23 PM (#1676490) Subject: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST,Eva L istruggle with vice strain as it is, my ent refused to give me voice therapy with the diagnosis and i cant afford it withou insurance. but to make it worse about a monthago i came down with laryngitis that lasted three weeks, tabout 2 weeks into it i got strep throat. the day i took my last antibiotic for that i developed a chest cold with a ahcking cough. now the cough has dies down adn i need to perform in 3 days. my power is gone, my range ahs been cuz in half and i feel so week- like someone knocked the wind outa me-no breath control to speak of.HELP? |
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23 Feb 06 - 08:04 AM (#1676703) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Sue M Hi Eva L, Sounds like you need something powerful but free to help you. Go to www.emofree.com (couldn't get the blue clicky thing to work so you'll have to type it in) and download the "Free Get Started Pkg" (see the left hand side of the emofree web page for the link to the free package). Have a read through and use the EFT technique to work on how you feel emotionally and physically about the laryngitis, strep throat, voice stain and feeling so weak. Also use any emotional issues that are happening in your life at the moment (or were happening just before the laryngitis started). I know that it promises a lot - but it does deliver a lot as many people have found out. Have a look at all the different issues that people have used EFT on. Let us know how you get on :-) Sue (who uses EFT on MANY areas of her life). |
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23 Feb 06 - 08:28 AM (#1676723) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Sue M Hi Eva L, I've just found another web site that has simple to follow instructions for EFT: www.thrivingnow.com/for/Health/category/Learning%20EFT (have to copy and paste again) Kind Regards Sue |
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23 Feb 06 - 11:44 AM (#1676879) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST no idea wht eft is but ill check it out thanx. |
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23 Feb 06 - 12:33 PM (#1676919) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Mallaidh Sounds to me as though you need better diet, large doses of Vitamin C (at least 1000mg/day) Alexander Technique and sort out the shit in your life which is causing you stress and unhappiness. Qu. Do you sing because you love it or just to make a crust? |
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23 Feb 06 - 01:25 PM (#1676945) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: stallion I have had terrible problems with my voice, diagnosed as reflux, i didn't have any pain but extended bouts of "throat infections". DR. prescribed omeprazole (to cut down stomach acid) and tilting my bed by 4" so that my feet are lower than my head and also eaqting lots of fruit with high vitamin C content. It has helped enormously. |
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23 Feb 06 - 01:39 PM (#1676956) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Bert If you're not fully well by performance time then you'll have to let your microphone do the work. Get close to it and sing quietly. Adam Faith had a very weak voice but had a good career doing just that. |
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23 Feb 06 - 02:38 PM (#1677000) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Linda Kelly I sympathise -I had influenza 3 weeks ago, and even now can barely speak. i think the answer is don't try when you know you can't and take on lots of vitamin c. |
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23 Feb 06 - 03:09 PM (#1677020) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Windsinger Well, when illness strikes, performance date looms, and the voice threatens to not show, here's my tried-and-true remedy. Three weird, wonderful little words: "Tom Yum Koong". Is there a Thai restaurant anywhere near you? If so, I recommend ordering and ingesting the above menu-item once a day until you feel better (twice, if you can afford it/stand the heat.) It's hot-and-sour shrimp soup. It can kick the hindquarters of ANY upper-resp infecton. It's also just generally nourishing and psychologically bracing. I believe they make the same basic recipe using other varieties of meat, if you're allergic to seafood. Slán, ~Fionn www.geocities.com/children_of_lir |
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23 Feb 06 - 03:18 PM (#1677024) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Don Firth Eva, it sounds to me like you need a new ENT. Don Firth |
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23 Feb 06 - 09:20 PM (#1677277) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST Don, no kiddn'.i was stumped at his refusal to prescribe the therapy. but i cant afford one right now. i sing because love to. my range at its best is just over 2 ocatves with a bit of a classical/pop sound and alot of power. my tone quality is my biggest asset. it adds versatilty where my very limited range lacks it. but right now, no matter how much air i take in i cant sustain a note. i warble. i have no power. my upper range is kaput, my lower range sounds like lois armstrong and my midrange is touch and go. i feel a sense of straining when i speak, not pain, but a feeling like somone is slooooowly turning the volume down as the day goes on. bert, there will be no microphone. im on my own. i was counting on my power. fionn, no shrimp soup for me. i keep kosher. but thanx for the suggestion. i notice everyone here seems to recommed fisherman's friend. my ENT said that menthol can irritate the vocal chords even if it provides temp. relief.anyone know? |
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23 Feb 06 - 10:15 PM (#1677331) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Bert Fisherman's Friend or any other kind of cough drop only work for a few minutes and will make matters worse in the long run. If you keep kosher then you should try chicken soup. My favourite remedy though, is five pints of Whitbread trophy. Unfortunately I've never seen it in the States. |
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23 Feb 06 - 11:03 PM (#1677360) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST oh yeah chicken soup does wonders but the relief stops when the bowl is empty. grrr! |
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23 Feb 06 - 11:53 PM (#1677372) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST what about menthol vaporizors? would that damahe the voice as well or is it only oraly a problem? |
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24 Feb 06 - 08:24 AM (#1677590) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Grab I was prepared to take EFT seriously until I read:- (1) time-honored Eastern discoveries that have been around for over 5,000 years and (2) Albert Einstein, who told us back in the 1920's that everything (including our bodies) is composed of energy *cough* Bullshit! *cough* I don't have any idea whether it works or not - I've never tried, so I can't say. As a sceptic, I remain to be convinced until evidence is presented. If it works for Sue, it might work for you. However, I *can* say that the Einsteinian concept that matter can be regarded as frozen energy has no relevance to tapping someone on areas of the body. E=mc^2 is very clear that destroying matter releases vast amounts of energy, and equally that it would take vast amounts of energy to create matter. Tapping with fingers simply cannot do this. The only other thing you can do is store energy in a different form, and tapping parts of the body ain't going to do that either. So this part of the reasoning is pure bullshit. It's about now that many people say "ah, but it's spiritual energy". OK, so since when did Einstein study spiritual energy? And since when did anyone show that spiritual energy even exists? Sorry, but no. Similarly the "5000-year-old discoveries of the East" are a staple diet of many pseudo-scientific theories, of which the overwhelming majority are scams. Simply providing evidence that it's 5000 years old would be difficult enough! never mind proving that it works. As far as this goes, I'd like to point out that powdered rhino horn for erectile problems is also a "time-honored Eastern discovery". Reading the case studies, I found the "fear of flying" one. In it, the EFT practitioner goes over every possible element of the flying experience with the sufferer, getting them to visualise it before it happens. Excuse me, but isn't this *exactly* what every other phobia treatment does? Graham. |
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24 Feb 06 - 12:54 PM (#1677847) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: kendall The diagnosis is "strain", ok, what is the prognosis? If it is really just strain, you could do serious damage by pushing it. |
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24 Feb 06 - 02:05 PM (#1677906) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Don Firth Eva, if you have a singing engagement coming up, this is probably not what you want to hear, but the best thing you can do is just stop using your voice until the condition clears up. I've had to dice with this particular issue on two different occasions. The first was when I continued singing over a cold and sore throat and wound up having pitch problems. I went to a voice teacher to get some help, and after listening to me, he immediately sent me to an otolaryngologist. The doctor told me I had chronic acute laryngitis: an angry red line along the edges of both vocal folds. He sprayed my throat with something that anesthetized and basically paralyzed my voice box. He told me that it would wear off in a couple of hours, but that I was not to use my voice—no singing, no speaking, not even whispering (which, surprisingly enough, can be harder on the larynx than talking)—for six weeks! It was either that, or quite possibly do permanent damage to my voice. I had a regular singing job every weekend, and during the week I gave private guitar lessons during the day and taught folk guitar classes in the evenings—using my voice all the while. I cancelled everything. My income took a hit, but it was either that or possible do permanent damage to my voice. I checked in with the otolaryngologist once a week, and in six weeks he told me that the condition had cleared up. He further told me not to sing or talk until I got back with the teacher, who would basically "rebuild" my voice. The teacher got me speaking again (softly) and gave me some easy singing exercises that lay well within my range, telling me not to go beyond specific high or low notes until he said it was okay. The whole process took about three months before I was able to resume my singing engagements and teaching. And even then, I had to be careful of what I sang: nothing that would strain my voice in any way. It was about a year before my singing voice was back to normal, and I could belt 'em out as usual. The second time was a couple of decades later. I had a day-job as a telephone operator (using my voice all day long). I recognized the symptoms and went to an otolaryngologist right away. Same story, although it cleared up a lot faster because I caught it before I pushed my voice. Six weeks on disability for 85% pay and check into the job every week with the doctor's report that said "not yet." Fortunately, I came out of both of these incidents okay because I was determined to take care of my voice. Never ever push your voice beyond what is comfortable. Always use good breath support and never try to stretch your range beyond what feels comfortable. And if you come down with a cold or sore throat, clam up until it clears up! Then, when you're back to normal, go very easy on your voice for at least a couple of weeks. I learned this the hard way. If Luciano Pavarotti or Renée Fleming feel it's necessary to cancel a concert because of a cold or sore throat and possibly lose a four-figure fee in the process, I can sure as heck cancel a coffeehouse gig or a house concert for the same reason if it means preserving my voice. Think hard on this! Take care of your voice. Best of luck, Don Firth |
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24 Feb 06 - 05:24 PM (#1678066) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Windsinger fionn, no shrimp soup for me. i keep kosher. :) S'okay, they can make it with chicken instead (in which case it's called Tom Yum Gai). Slán, ~Fionn www.geocities.com/children_of_lir |
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26 Feb 06 - 11:15 AM (#1679341) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST,Eva L well, it went OI. by no means a smash, but OK. my voice has mostly reovered, but stage fright constricted my throat and i felt like i had half the lung capacity. how does one overcome that? |
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26 Feb 06 - 02:20 PM (#1679508) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Don Firth Glad to hear you got through it okay! Sort of like tight-rope walking. As long as your doctor gives you a clean bill of health, the best thing you can do right now is rest your voice for awhile. Maybe some easy deep-breathing exercises. Hang in there! Don Firth |
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26 Feb 06 - 09:26 PM (#1679901) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Alice I agree with Don. Rest your voice. You can cause serious damage by singing when your vocal cords are strained. There are some styles that can cause you to "push" your voice to get get volume or a particular pop sound. If you are pushing, STOP and learn to get volume with better breath support. You can ruin your voice permanently. Your voice will last a lifetime if you learn to protect it with good technique. More info here: http://www.gemmadenman.com/voicedoctor.htm http://www.anthonywinter.com.au/singers/advancedtopics/vocalstrain Hope this helps. - Alice |
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26 Feb 06 - 09:37 PM (#1679910) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Windsinger Glad it worked out well for you! While you're resting the cords -- which is good advice! -- maybe in addition to breathing exercises, try some cardio? Some faithful work on the treadmill can really do wonders towards extending your lungs' stamina. Especially if it's supervised by a professional. (When signing up for a new gym membership, many clubs offer a free session with a personal trainer as part of the introductory package. If you tell him/her your specific needs, they can give you some great pointers!) A friend of mine sings while jogging, just to make sure he's always got that lung-power at his command. But then, he's also a bit of a madman. :D Slán, ~Fionn www.geocities.com/children_of_lir |
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26 Feb 06 - 11:48 PM (#1679992) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST,Eva L thanx everyone. i dont do the pop pushing sound. i hate pop. i seem to have an Ok breath control at home. not great but OK. i didnt realize how crippling stage fright could be. everything was so tight ans tense and i couldnt losen it up. |
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27 Feb 06 - 10:14 AM (#1680244) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: vectis Swimming helps with breath control and helps to increase lung capacity over time. Get some singing lessons from someone who does not teach the operatic style. They will pay off BUT select your teacher with care. You might be able to find a "Natural Voice" coach near you. Good luck |
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27 Feb 06 - 12:12 PM (#1680307) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Sue M Carefully putting my head over the parapet...... 10/10 Grab (alias Graham) for taking the time to look at the EFT website but 0/10 for kneejerk reaction! Question - have you actually tried the technique for yourself - or spoken to anyone who has? As a level-headed person who has a degree in biochemistry I would not have recommended this to Eva L unless I was 100% sure that it was not a scam. I personally have got rid of a BIG fear of wasps and bees and have used it to remove my stage fright and fear of public speaking. I know lots of people who have used it successfully to deal with their own emotional issues. OK - you read about a LOT of weird thing on the Internet - but this is the emotional version of penicillin - it may be new but it works very well in 80-90% of cases. Conventional doctors and nurses are starting to use EFT in their work as it can work a lot faster than many conventional treatments. It goes without saying that you should check any symptoms you may have with your doctor and make use of all the normal medical treatments available (I've put this in before someone else gets their knickers in a twist). EFT can be used alongside tradional medicine to deal with the emotional issues. I do not believe in 'spiritual energy' - EFT is phyical energy. We are still deciding exactly how EFT works - but we know that it does. So lighten up Grab - this was meant to be a friendly suggestion to Eva L with a solution that she may find useful (and a free one at that). I'm sure that she is a big girl and can make up her mind about things and if she (or anyone else reading this) doesn't want to try EFT then she doesn't have to. If anyone wants to find out more about EFT please feel free to pm me. Kind Regards Sue :-) |
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27 Feb 06 - 07:12 PM (#1680696) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Don Firth A great exercise for developing breath control: Take a good, deep breath without overfilling the lungs (don't turn blue!). Feel like you're inhaling all the way down to the bottom of your abdomen, like filling a glass with liquid—the bottom fills first. Then blow a soft, steady stream of air, as if you're blowing on a candle-flame, not to blow it out, but to make the flame lean over at a forty-five degree angle. A steady stream of air. Keep it going until you're about to run out of air, but not to the point where you collapse and gasp for air. Then catch another quick inhale (all the way down) and do it again. And again. But don't overdo it. You could wind up feeling sore around your midsection. But this shows it's working. One of my voice teachers once told me that it doesn't take all that much strength to yell real loud. People do it all the time at sports events (and come home hoarse). What takes strength is to sing a long, steady note, softly and on pitch. This requires strength and control. Here's a doozey! Sing a note which is comfortably in your mid-range. Start it softly, swell until it's good and loud, then slowly reduce it to soft again until it's barely audible. The trick here is to keep the tone steady and on pitch—no wobbling—as you back off on the volume. This, among classical singers, is called messa di voce (MEH-sah dee VOH-chay), and it's a real challenge for even some highly trained opera singers. That's breath control! Don Firth |
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28 Feb 06 - 08:35 AM (#1680986) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Grab Lightening up, as requested... ;-) What got my goat on that EFT site was the 100% pseudo-science explanation. I really don't mind if people say "we don't know how this works". There's tons of stuff that we don't know fully how it works, or under what conditions it does/doesn't work, bcos the research hasn't been done to check it. If people are honest about this, I'm actually *more* prepared to believe them. But I object very strongly to people trying to snow us by throwing us a load of old crap and expecting that we'll swallow it blindly. "Einstein proving matter is energy and 5000-year-old wisdom of the ancients" is pure unadulterated pseudo-science crap of the first order... I obviously can't say if it works or not. You say it works for you, which is a point of evidence in its favour. To be more sure about this would need a lot more points of evidence (for and against), but in the meantime I don't mind putting it in the category "could be true". As I said, it seems to be tapping into a lot of the same features (eg. visualisation) as regular anti-phobia therapy does, so there'll likely be similar benefits; whether the same also applies to physical ailments is unclear, but the *belief* that you're healing is certainly a powerful healing tool in itself. All I *can* say is that the EFT site is spouting a load of bull, and as far as I'm concerned that's a strong point of evidence against it. Hope that clears it up, and sorry for the off-topic rant! :-) Graham. |
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28 Feb 06 - 09:37 AM (#1681031) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Alice If you want to learn the most about voice technique and preserve your voice for a lifetime, DO find a voice teacher of bel canto technique (what you call operatic). You don't have to sing everything like you are in an opera role, but knowing how to use your voice with the technique learned by opera singers is the best way to preserve your vocal cords. Studies on the stress on your vocal cords have been done with singers of different styles of singing, and bel canto (opera) singers can sing without straining their voice compared with gospel singers, rock singers, etc. I used to have links to this data in the old "threads on the singing voice". Not sure if those links still work, as it has been years since I put those threads together. Alice |
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28 Feb 06 - 10:04 AM (#1681046) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST,Bagpuss Therapies often work for reasons completely unrelated to the reason they claim to work. In the case of EFT, this looks very similar to eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) which is also regarded by some as a load of bunk, but I know some actual research has been done to determine why it might be helpful. It is often used for anxiety disorders and PTSD. Simply put, EMDR involves making deliberate eye movements while recalling traumatic events or things that make us anxious. One theory goes that we only have a limited amount of attention we can give to anything at one time. If we do something else which requires attention at the same time as thinking of the traumatic thing, then we have less attention to spare and therefore the emotion experienced is less intense. Gradually the negative emotions are decreased in this way. Finger tapping in EFT would seem to play the same role as eye movements, and this might explain any success there is with emotionally linked problems. Its sort of a way of doing graded desensitisation like they often use in phobias, but in cases where the initial exposure might cause too much distress for the therapy to work. In addition you have the placebo effect working too, which is considerably enhanced by talking about big overarching theories about energy etc. Here's a research paper into the theory. Bagpuss |
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28 Feb 06 - 10:09 AM (#1681050) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Alice It is amazing how many things affect our ability to have good breath support. I have been going to a physical therapist lately because years of working bent over a keyboard and drafting table have caused the muscles in my upper body to be inflexible. To be able to expand those "hinged" rib bones to bring in more air, the muscles need to be able to stretch and move. Mine are not in the flexible, stretched condition they should be. Using breath support is not only a technique to learn, but a physical conditioning ability that you gain like an athlete. This needs a coach (voice teacher) who knows what they are doing in order to assess your body and what has to be practiced and trained. Voice lessons are not for everyone, of course, but if you want to optimize your ability and get over blocks like tension and pain, lessons are the way to go. All the best, Alice |
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01 Mar 06 - 06:15 AM (#1682039) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Sue M Hi Grab and Bagpuss, Thanks for the replies - but I see that Grab is still reading and not trying EFT for himself. OK it sounds weird and you've got lots of theories of how it might or might not work. But the acid test is to try it on yourself seriously and see if it works - then you can come back and say that its a lot of bull or not. So why not just try it for yourself as the manual is a free download and see what it does for you. By the way the current EFT usually just uses the Karate point and the tapping points down to the Under the Arm point and leaves out the fingers and the eye rolling stuff as people thought it was TOO WEIRD (and they kept laughing) and it seems to work just as well without. Kind Regards Sue |
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05 Mar 06 - 12:54 AM (#1685385) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST,Eva L oh golly i would LOOOVE to go to a voice teacher and my favorite genre is classical crossover (josh groban, holly stell,enya types)so an operatic teacher would be ideal for me but unfortuanately i am not in a financial position to take lessons at any price right now. i already do that blowing excersise. it halps a bit but not much. im not sure what to do about jaw/thrat, tougue trenstion that seems to make my high notes fizzles and keeps my range very limited. |
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05 Mar 06 - 12:43 PM (#1685695) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: Don Firth What works for one person doesn't always work for everyone, but as far as tension in the jaw, throat, and tongue is concerned, I find that it helps if I start a practice session (or off-stage, before a performance) with a couple of good yawns. You may already do this, but if we keep tossing stuff out there, we might find something that works. Don Firth |
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05 Mar 06 - 05:13 PM (#1685917) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST,alf@chantey.net Hello, Here are some books I recommend you read. Change your Voice, Change your Life by Morton Cooper Mr. Cooper's books are usually available at the library. He has several all basically on the same topic. He writes more from the perspective of speaking than singing, but all of his advice is very helpful for general care of the vocal apparatus. Discover Your Voice by Oren L. Brown, Voice Faculty Emeritus, The Juilliard School This book delves deep into the physiology of the voice and singing Chi Running by Danny Dreyer with Katherine Dreyer This book is about running, but the concept of chi, the effortlessness of running properly can be applied to singing. A few other words of advice: If you are recovering from illness you may have a lot of phlegm. Throat clearing is very hard on the vocal folds and should be avoided. Habitual throat clearing irritates the vocal folds and is a self perpetuating problem. If you feel the need to clear your throat trying swallowing or pushing air through the folds without vocalization. When you sing do it gently. Get enough air behind the voice but do not push. Proper technique is about getting out of the way. The sound should float out. When you start practicing do it in front of a mirror so you can see any tension in the face. Tension in the face suggests tension in the voice. You don't want to stress your voice. Whispering is more stressful for the vocal folds than talking. Treat recovery of your voice like you would treat recovery of a sprained ankle. Start gently to build back up the strength. Singing is an athletic endeavor. It is using the mind to control the vocal apparatus which is made of muscles, cartilage, membranes and all the same stuff the rest of you is made out of. I hope this helps. Alison |
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05 Mar 06 - 09:05 PM (#1686068) Subject: RE: triple whammy! my voice needs help! From: GUEST thanx everyone. |