Your Voice

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Your voice and the way that you sing is as much of you as your fingerprints and your DNA and it is very important to treat it with respect and a lot of TLC. After reading a lot of posts on social media from singers that I respect who have been finding it difficult to maintain their vocal stamina and accuracy, I thought that I would try and share some of the practices and techniques I have used over the past 50 years of singing. 

First and foremost, because you know your own voice so well, you must decide the difference between a sore throat and when you are in pain when you sing and talk. A visit to the doctor is recommended for that as my qualifications allow me to diagnose why a cow died and how a crop has a certain root fungus. There are many voice coaches and singing teachers that you can contact throughout the country who offer a fantastic service to help you maintain your own vocal health and vocal well-being. I have taken the time to experience, on Zoom, a broad selection of their lessons which were informative, fun and a definite boost to my confidence and understanding of how and why we sing. I was given tailored exercises to improve my posture, breath control and attitude to singing and I would absolutely, whole-heartily, recommend their services to anyone. 

The initial idea was to give a bit of practical advice and a few anecdotes but, as I talked and worked with several people whose profession is to give you confidence and control over your own, natural voice, I realized that this was a wide-ranging and very important subject. 

Before we start, not as a way of a warning more of a reminder, you must treat your voice with respect and approach all of the suggestions in this and the next issue slowly, carefully and gently. It’s better to whisper and talk than scream, and just like any physical action you must warm up your voice in gentle, progressive stages. The idea is not to give you the ability to bawl down a wall with a single verse of ‘Sovay’. Unlike the X-Factor, loud, screechy, out of tune and powerful is not necessarily a good thing. I am not qualified as a vocal coach or a singing teacher but I know what has worked for me over many years. 

It has been a long time since we have sung out. I don’t just mean “outsideout” but the fact that you have projected your voice ‘out’ for other people to hear you and taking a few moments to review the way you stand or sit to sing, how you breathe, your posture, practice of the song beforehand and most of all…how committed and confident you are to you warm up your voice before you have sung a note. 

Now let us begin… In my time as a guest performer and as a compere I’ve seen a lot… 

In 1973 the evening’s guest at Leeds Uni Folk Club made a bee-line for me and said, “Right… Are you the compere for the evening?” He was very earnest and sincere. “I need you to tell me exactly 14 minutes before I’m due to go on. It’s very important… I need to smoke a cigarette to get my voice ready to sing.” And he was off. 

You’ve got to remember that this was from a time when people would take out their Meerschaum pipes and light up a furnace, that reminded me of tarring the roads, right next to the stage to ‘help’ the singers. I was a 21-yearold, first-time M.C., spotty Herbert from the ‘Nor’f who’d never been put under such time constraints in the whole of his life, and I could barely tell the time when the big hand was pointing up and so…I told him at 12 minutes before his allotted time. As he went on stage, he was furious and the anger was directed at me… 

Similarly, you would never read a book about driving a car and never have sat in one and then take your driving test. 

Creating a note and singing a song is a hugely complex series of activities that are controlled by your brain, muscles in your chest abdomen and throat and most important of all practice and confidence. 

The way that we can use our voices is amazing. We have been given a fabulous gift and we need to treat it with the wonder it deserves. Think of a balloon going down but with the mechanisms of the lips, teeth and tongue controlling what and how the sound is made. Vocal cords help to shape the tone of what comes out of our voice box and the lips teeth and tongue mould it to be a recognizable, articulated sound. It is a miracle. 

Muscles in the voice box make the change happen in the vocal cords but as we get older the muscle-control in our voice boxes need to be helped to maintain their control. Developing that muscle memory and muscle control is the basis of good singing as well as knowing you have done everything in your power to prepare yourself both mentally and physically for the performance. 

For example, put your hands in your lap and keep them there until you have read all of the next paragraph. 

Still keeping your hands down, in a moment, I want you use an extended index finger to try and touch the very tip of your nose with the tip of your finger and do it with your eyes closed. You need to close your eyes very tightly before you even think about moving your hands. Now close your eyes and try to touch the very tip of your nose. So do it! 

“So, I take my time to re-awaken my voice gently and carefully and after a short while my voice is back and I’m in control. “ 

I would be surprised if you got it exactly right first time but… once you’ve done it you can do it again and again, either hand with your eyes closed because you have trained your muscles and your senses where everything is and how far and how hard to contract and move. In essence that is exactly what you are doing with your voice. You are learning how much to tighten the muscles in your chest and vocal cords to control the pitch and strength of the note and how to use your lips, teeth and tongue to modify the tone and resonance. 

Vocal problems can arise from many different areas, often from singing too long or loud and misuse when we sing in keys that do not suit our own, natural voice. 

Let me explain, we all have a natural range that suit our body’s singing equipment, the larynx, lungs and vocal cords. In short, we have a range of notes that are comfortable to sing at the top and bottom of our range. To find out yours, you can download a range of free piano or keyboard apps for your phone. I personally recommend a harmonium app because it has a softer tone and mimics the human voice. You don’t need to be able to play or read music but you can put your finger on any key and try to sing that note. Going up and down the keyboard, gently, try to match the notes until you find the highest and lowest note that you can sing. That is an indication of your natural range that you can choose to stick with or aim to extend through practice. Whatever you do, do not force a note out that is beyond your range or abilities. Keep it comfortable and slow and as an area that might need some work. Imagine it like climbing a mountain or going underground but… slowly, and gently, (have I mentioned ‘gently’?), one step at a time. 

In the past year we’ve all been under-using our singing voices and may well have lost some of our vocal physical skills, and that’s what we’re having to try and regain… and we can do it with practice. You must remember that singing out is different in front of an audience to singing in your own home. 

I’ve got to tell you that there really is no easy solution, no quick fixes, no potions that can substitute for a little tender care and practice. (Have I mentioned ‘practice’?) 

I’ve seen people taking dissolved Co-codamol just before singing on stage, which in the long term may well be damaging to your liver’s health no matter how well it makes you sound. I’ve seen singers gargling with dispersible Aspirin, garlic, honey and Guinness, (not at the same time), taking a dropper filled with beehive scrapings under their tongue and pushing their faces over steaming vats of scalding water and violently sniffing menthol crystals. Others have been chewing cardamom seeds just before a performance and swallowing Vocalzone pastilles, eating tea-chests of Pontefract cakes and Fisherman’s friends, eating Vitamin B until you could set up shop as a refill station for spirit levels and suffering all of the consequent digestive problems. A drop or two of Dutch courage is one of the most usual but it’s the fine line between relaxed and mimicking a newt. 

I say, if you practice, are warmed up and are fully prepared then you’ve given yourself the confidence that you’ve done as much as you could to make the most of your performance 

If you go out on stage knowing that you have given yourself the chance to get all of your vocal equipment fine-tuned and ready to perform then you’ll save yourself a lot of money on trips to specialist herbal shops and chemists. 

We will go into more detail of how you can improve and strengthen your voice with an analysis of what you can do with your voice in next month’s Folk Roundabout but in the meantime, here are some things that you can do to start looking after your voice. 

Remember some of these exercises may initially seem ridiculous and you will not get instantaneous results, but if you persevere you will be able to feel the results in your singing and your confidence. 

Tips 

Your voice is a mechanism that relies on lubrication and it is a good idea to drink slightly more water and clear drinks than you normally would. Usually, 2 or 3 400ml glasses interspersed with your normal tea/ coffee intake. Drinking 2 liters of liquid, in total, throughout the day is recommended. This especially helps with the ‘dry throat’ and ‘throat clearing’ that can occur with singing. The having to clear your throat and there’s nothing there is also an indication of under hydration. By the way it’s pointless drinking 2 liters just before you go on stage as it needs to have time to work through your system… and you may have to do your last few songs very quickly. 

Gargle once daily with a light salt solution. Take a teaspoon and wet it under the tap, place the spoon half-way into some table salt and shake the excess salt off and dissolve it in a 300ml glass of tepid, blood temperature water. Gargle and ‘swish’ the solution all around your mouth and spit it out. You do not need to use any fancy solutions plain water can do the trick as well. (I tend to gargle in the shower… TMI!) 

Activities 

Take a deep breath and hold it for 4 seconds and then let the air out slowly between your teeth as if you were a hissing snake. 

Yawn as wide as you can a couple of times and pout your lips while exhaling. (Pretend that you are trying to get some food from under your upper and lower lip.) 

Hum the lowest note you can comfortably reach for two or three seconds and then slowly and gently go up your range, but never screech or overstretch your voice. 

Gently pant 4 times, and then rest, like Ladysmith Black Mambazo do on ‘Homeless’ by Paul Simon, (at 2 minutes and 22 seconds), then do it one more time. If this makes you cough or clear your throat then it’s over and done with, before you go to sing. Preparation is everything. 

Never force any note and perhaps watch yourself sing in a mirror and if you are contorting your face, this is not a sign of emotion it may well be that you might need to re-think your starting note so that it is a comfortable range for you. Singing is meant to be a pleasure for you as well. 

Whisper, speak or hum the Mambas song you want to sing, or better still use an ‘Ng’ sound. You can get this by humming with your mouth open. It is an easy way to warm up your vocal cords without pushing too much air over your vocal cords and causing strain. 

If you play guitar try, gently, singing it with the capo one fret down and then again one fret up. 

While you are waiting for your turn, watch the floor singers and join in either humming or softly singing. It might seem obvious but you’re getting the perfect opportunity to warm up your voice and extend your own range…and getting your voice ready for when it is your turn. 

And the singer who had to have a cigarette that smelled like a piece of Axminster before he went on stage? After he finished his sets, he gave me a right ear-bashing as my inability to time-keep and match precisely the regime and psychological ritual he had forced himself into had caused him to sing badly and it was all my fault. (I’m not against smoking by the way.) 

After all of these years I realise it wasn’t me. It might have helped if he had practiced, prepared and done some vocal warm ups. 

Be good to your voice people. 

The drinks are on me… as long as they’re water.