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How to Maintain a Good Voice
How To's
2 years ago

To maintain a good voice entails that you have a mastery of your vocal strength, a good understanding of yourself as a singer, and how your voice operates. If you can understand what happens when you sing, then you can be able to maintain a good voice quality and that will definitely be a huge breakthrough for you. When you don’t understanding yourself as a singer, you can be likened to a doctor who does not understanding the parts of the human body. If you don’t follow the ethics of music, you break the principles of the music. You need to maintain a good voice because it is one of those things that make good music. Below are some tips to help you maintain a good voice.

  • Drink water constantly. Water moisturizes your voice and keeps the throat from dehydrating. You should take at least five liters of water a day. It serves as a voice treatment for singers. Every singer should always have a bottle of water in their bags or move with one. Also take fruits that contain large amounts of water like watermelon, apples, grapes, pears and plums. Avoid taking too much food containing sugar or sweet substances like ice-cream, soft drinks and also beverages containing alcohol. Maintaining voice treatment for singers improves your voice quality and helps you maintain a good voice. Water lubricates the vocal cord and prepares it for any action.

  • Make vocal exercises your priority. Vocal exercises for singers are very necessary and important in the maintenance of a good voice. You can do exercises like lip roll, tongue roll, yawning and also normal exercises like jogging, stretches and sports which lightens the body and makes it smart. Alongside vocal exercises, singing practice is also very important. These vocal techniques keep you from being hoarse and weak before performance. Most singers who shy away from vocal exercises for singers always end up with a bad voice and are unable to hit high notes because of lack of preparation.

Good voices are maintained through singing practice and proper application of vocal techniques. Constant vocal exercises for singers should be maintained to improve your voice quality. Vocal exercises for singers has a routine that should not be broken. A routine entails total commitment to your course. Be committed to your voice training rehearsals. Aside your normal singing practices, your routine should cut across what you read online. Get materials that are helpful to you in the maintenance of your voice.

  • Avoid screaming or yelling. As a singer your voice is your selling point and priority. Learn to speak softly and stop yelling or screaming. It causes breakdown in your voice and makes the voice hoarse. There is a high probability that when you yell or scream, you do that using the wrong vocal techniques, pitch or key. The result is that you are forced to start looking for voice treatments for singers due to carelessness and unprofessionalism. Some times singing is done using your talking voice but for exceptional cases that you might want to use a high register. So, talking too much or screaming wares out the voice and makes you tired as well.

  • Listen to your voice. Make it a habit to always listen to yourself after every performance or singing practice. This will help you know if your vocal range has increased or if you have improve your voice quality. Listening to your voice entails knowing when your voice is sending across a good or bad signal. It will help you know when you needs medical care or rest. Don’t insist on singing high notes when you are tired and cannot continue. If you do that, you may have to visit an Otolaryngologist {Nose, Ear and Throat physician}.

Nevertheless, it is good for every singer to become comfortable singing with high notes. But, singing with high notes should be progressive according to your vocal exercises and singing practices. Your voice is your visa to the world in the field of music. A good voice has a high guarantee for a good performance and your performance is what gives you relevance. Listen to your voice and make it better.

  • Avoid smoking. Don’t smoke or stop smoking if you still do. Smoking increases the risk of throat cancer. Inhaling smoke of any kind is detrimental to the throat and to the health. Smoke from cigarette destroys the lungs and blocks the respiratory organ of the human system, causing the body to malfunction. Singing is only good for one who is healthy and full of life. Also avoid the smoke from cooked palm oil, it irritates the vocal cord and makes it hoarse. Singing practice or performance is always difficult with a voice affected by smoke processes. Avoid the smoke from palm oil and avoid palm oil itself. Its blocks the voice as it creates mucus to settle along the vocal cords.

Most singers who assume that they were born with a good voice don’t see the need to follow procedures that can improve their voice quality. Before they know it, they are unable to sing or put up a good performance due to negligence. No matter how good you may be, there is a serious need for you to boost up your gift or talent. Voice treatment for singers is very important as long as the business of music is concern. Staying away from smoking or smoke of any form is one of those vocal treatment for singers.

  • Record yourself. At each level of your vocal rehearsal or singing practice, make sure you record yourself and listen to the record many times to know the level of voice quality that you can produce and also to examine your vocal range. Do more vocal exercises for singers. Try other vocal techniques that can improve your voice range and pleasantness. The more you spend time working on your voice quality the better you become. Make sure you work mostly on improving your weaknesses and then polish up your strength. Don’t stay on a particular mistake because it sounds good to you. If you feel your judgment will not be fair, get someone else to listen to the record and point out your weaknesses and strengths. Be sure to leave your comfort zone and take corrections that will improve your voice. An illiterate is not someone who cannot read and write but someone who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

  • Little warm up exercises. Do little warm up exercises before engaging in large or big performances. It’s a voice treatment for singers that go a long way to improve your voice quality and also opens your artistic chamber {throat, mouth and nasal cavity}, and cleans up the mucus found on the throat before proper singing is done. Little warm up exercises helps you to understand and master your voice quality thereby using the right vocal techniques to sing which helps improve your voice. Most singers don’t see the need for little vocal warm up because they don’t know the importance of it. These are enough reasons for bad voice quality. With these tips in place you can be sure to maintain a good voice quality. Some people complain of limited time to do these warm up before performance. In the office, car, plane or where ever you are, this exercise is very possible. You may decide to work on breath control. That is, taking air and sending it out. That procedure is not loud and it cannot disturb your neighbor. This helps to open up your lungs for free passage of air. You can hum in a very moderate and personal way or rob your jaws. These exercises will make you smart for a performance. Hence, preventing your voice from struggling to meet up with the key if it’s too high.

  • Sing from your stomach. Better notes are produced when singing is done from the stomach and not from the throat. This will mean you have to practice breathing deeply. Always breathe from your diaphragm rather than gasping for breath from your chest which may cause unpleasant notes. How well you control breathing from your diaphragm will determine how well you can sing from your stomach. Proper breathing expands the bottom part of your belly and not your rib cage. This helps you to hit high notes effortlessly hence, preventing a breakdown in your voice or strains. Singing from the stomach is a wrong vocal technique in music. It doesn’t allow you to feel the song, talk less of sustaining for long. It is difficult to do rives and runs with the throat because to do rives and runs you need a good store of air in your diaphragm and a good breathing support. If singing from the diaphragm is not considered, it breaks the voice causing struggle and stress.

  • Practice singing before an audience. Most people who are good singers are not courageous enough to sing before people. Be confident about what you are doing. If you cannot face your audience, look at their foreheads or better still look over their shoulders to calm down nervousness. Overcoming stage fright is very import for a singer because it helps you to avoid the embarrassment of hitting a wrong note or key, breathing in between every line or word of a song which will wear you out such that you might not be able to deliver. The tendency of stage fright is that you, most at times always starts singing on a very high key before you discover that you can no longer go higher. The next thing is to strain the vocal cord with the wrong singing techniques. You can also practice singing in front of a mirror severally before facing the multitude to bust up your courage and confidence in your looks when you sing.

  • Use a microphone. Make use of a microphone or any amplifying agent whenever you are to address a large crowd. This will prevent you from straining the voice. Voice treatment for singers is very important at a point where amplification is absent in order to maintain a good voice. Avoid struggling to speak under loud music condition as the tendency is that you are forced to shout for the next person to hear you.

Most people who talk under such conditions come out with bad voices or total dryness in their vocal cord. To some people, it might take two to three days for their voices to be fully restored. This class of people don’t sing for long because they have a battle to struggle with their voice. In most cases, they start considering their notes and what voice to use thereby breaking the flow of music and the spirituality that governs music since music is food for the soul. But a bad voice cannot bust this flow because you are disconnected psychologically. If proper voice treatment for singers is not strictly followed, you can fall short in the business of singing. Even with a microphone, some people still strain to bring out good vocal beauty. The amplifying agent is there to help reduce your level of shouting.

  • Maintain good breathe support. The power for the voice lies in how well you maintain a good breathe control. When there is a poor control of air in your mouth, it affects the music. There should be enough air in your stomach before you start talking. Don’t wait until you run out of air before you take in another breathe to empower your voice. These are the little things that cause damage to the voice and even the flow or beauty of a song. Be apt in your singing practice and performances. Maintaining a good breathe support entails that you breathe between sentences and phrases and not between words. Taking in breathe between words can cause you to run out of breathe faster and gives you fatigue on stage. Hence, a brake down in your vocal strength.

  • Avoid over using of your voice. Avoiding over use of your voice entails that you understand your vocal register, vocal strength and how your voice functions. No two people are the same, don’t try to sing like someone when your voice cannot match up to that person’s. Everyone is unique in his acoustic chamber. Know your key, don’t try to sing on A# when your key is F. This will break the voice because not all songs have the same key. You need to have an experience and relevant knowledge in music so that you avoid the little mistakes you do which cause damages to your voice and over usage because you want to prove a point. Just constant vocal exercises for singers can bring out the best in you.

  • Balanced diet. Apart from voice treatment for singers, you should also make use of balanced diet. Take in lots of fruits and vegetables. These foods contain vitamin A, C and E. Vitamin A helps in cell regulation, Vitamin C helps prevent cold and sore throat and improve immune functions of the body, and Vitamin E is an anti-oxidant which protects cell membranes as well as improves immune functions of the body. Also take honey each time you feel that your voice is becoming hoarse. Also make sure to take warm water in the morning as you wake up and at night before you sleep to free the throat from the day’s mucus from food substances.

  • Excessive physical fatigue. It’s not good to talk when you are too tired or exhausted, especially after a hard job, labor or physical exercise. Talking subjects the vocal cords to unnecessary stress. Normally, when one is tired, he or she does not think of supporting the voice from breaking down through breath control, meaning we will talk with an unsupported voice. This is definitely not a good way to maintain a good voice since the vocal cords are strained.

  • Coughing harshly and clearing of throat. Most often we tend to cough and clear our throats too often than we can count or imagine. This habit is detrimental to the vocal cords. When you notice this coughing constantly, make sure to see an otolaryngologist. It might be an infection. But if it’s not an infection then it’s as a result of the poor and harsh methods you have used in clearing your throat.

Always listen to your voice so that you won’t force the voice to retaliate. This retaliations may be from wounds already existing in the throat as a result of rubbing the vocal cords. Clearing the throat is a normal thing to do that we will not think twice in doing each time we feel discomfort around the throat. But majority of us will do it harshly and loudly such that our vocal cord is rubbing and producing wounds.

Coughing loudly also subjects the voice to serious tension and strains as the sound is produced by the vocal cords squeezing on each other. This can cause harm to ones singing voice. Handling issues of the voice is just like handling issues of a relationship. You cherish it, nurture it and protect it. If you don’t do these three, it dies. You need to cherish your voice, nurture the voice and protect the voice from harm by protecting your vocal cord diet. Vocal exercises for singers are very important for nurturing the voice in order to improve your voice and maintain its uniqueness.

  • Maintain a good singing posture. Maintaining a good singing posture is very helpful for the voice. It is good to always sit erect if you are to sit, maintain a long back of the neck and a short front of the neck while singing. This sitting technique is very important for singers. It prevent you from straining the vocal cord while singing. Avoid bending your head down or taking it right up before you strike a note. Notes do not come from the upper or lower neck but from a relaxed diaphragm to the vocal cords. If you are to stand and singing, still maintain the long back neck and short front neck. All these are to prevent tension in the voice which makes it hoarse. Always try to keep the throat and neck muscles relaxed when singing high and low notes.

  • Breathing through the Nose. Most at times we find ourselves in dry, dusty or cold environment where breathing becomes really difficult through the nose. We are always tempted to breathe through the mouth because it is easier and less stressful. But that is not good for the lungs and the health. We should struggle to always breathe through our noses and not through the mouth no matter how difficult it may seem.

When we breathe through the nose, the air goes through a natural filter and is moistened before it gets down to the throat leading to the lungs, making the air less dry. Hence, preventing dryness. In the case of cold environment like air conditioners, we should have a glass of room temperature or lukewarm water to moisten our throat in order to prevent it from total drying effects or dryness. Always learn to breathe through the nose so that you can adapt yourself to whatever condition you find yourself in.

  • Be open to criticism. Most people become shy or disappointed when they realize that their efforts are not appreciated. Be open to criticisms of all kinds. If possible, when you sing before people, ask them for just criticisms, take them and improve your voice. Laugh at yourself if need be and serious be when its time. But take corrections and improve on your voice quality.

  • Be persistent. A failure is not one who has failed many times but the one who stops trying. Be persistent in voice treatment, singing practice, vocal rebuild, vocal exercises and anything thing that will help you maintain a good voice. If you want to sing in a particular way or train your voice in a particular way, keep doing it until you get there. Know when to start a song, carry it on and change keys. Your knowledge of music and persistence will help you build confidence in yourself and your voice. This is a great strength in your vocal improvement and maintenance. Always sing on the tone that you talk and lay emphasis only where necessary. Note that the switch of each register is different, and the vocal cord is designed to reach whatever point you want.

  • Give yourself time to rest. Always give yourself enough time to rest especially after using the voice for long. Give your voice some “vocal naps” every day after heavy use. After using the voice, make sure you leave the body and vocals to rest instead of engaging in discussions while you should be resting. As the body needs rest, so too does the vocal cord need rest. You must not necessarily be sleeping but learn to be quiet. Rest will give you time to recover your lost strength and voice.