Hilary Canto : Introduction To Using & Caring For Your Voice & Basic Vocal Care Sheet
Posted by Associate Instructor BLOGs at April 7, 2008 12:30 PM
Hilary Canto, Associate Instructor offers some fundamental advise on caring for the voice.
Basic Vocal Care Sheet (click here)
Your voice is an instrument of the body…….it needs care like you would care for any instrument! So in order to get the best from your voice your body needs the care too! This means you have to ‘tune’ your body – ‘tune’ your instrument! This involves care for your body and throat through diet, breathing, toning exercises and physical exercise. You can strain or hurt your voice very easily and therefore you need some natural remedies and common sense to support it!
First – Physical Exercise!
This depends on your general fitness levels and health and whether you are already performing and moving a lot on stage! Exercise regimes are individual and you need to do what suits you! However over exercise is as bad as under exercise and can lead to health problems so pushing yourself too hard is not part of my advice! Extreme exercise is not healthy and not necessary.
Walking, running, jogging, the gym, aerobic and keep fit routines, team games, ball games, racket games or Tai Chi, Chi Gung, Kung Fu, Yoga etc are fine if you enjoy them, get benefit from them and aren’t obsessed by them.
If you don’t do much at all then you at least need to do stretching exercises and gentle warm up exercises daily. I am not an overly physical exercise person having had muscle problems but I do - do daily stretching and use some simple Tai Chi & Chi Gung exercises for my voice and focus. I also walk almost daily with my husband and dogs! Pick up a few exercises that you feel comfortable with, that loosen your body and help you balance, centre, focus and feel connected strongly to the ground. You need a daily routine, particularly if you are professional or a busy amateur working most of the week.
Breathing & Focus
So much is said about breathing in singing and many teachers slog on about it to voice students making it boring and almost unattainable! The breathing is easy when you are toning! I had a collapsed lung as a child and singing has improved my breathing….not from focusing on breathing exercises but by focussing on the tones I make with my voice….this is how you improve your breathing…..it’s easy , it comes naturally, and the course will demonstrate this. You breathe from the diaphragm as all teachers tell you, but you move the breath with the sound and you alter the breath with your vocal chords……don’t worry…it’s easy!!! You’ll be singing long notes and holding them with a little practice!
Diet
I am a trained nutritionist so can go into great detail about diet and health! However for this course there are some simple rules to follow that will help you care for your body and your voice! Always DRINK PLENTY OF PURE ROOM TEMPERATURE WATER – 3-5 pints/1.5 – 2 litres a day – COLD WATER CONSTRICTS THE VOCAL CORDS!
1) Eat a good balanced diet and resist quick, fast, processed junk food! A balanced diet is more fresh fruit & veg, lean meat and fish in small amounts, nuts & seeds and low amounts of carbohydrate. However you may need a little more carbohydrate if you are using a lot of energy in dancing as well on stage. I like to dive into some crisps after a performance….…..but protein in your diet is essential!!
2) Keep your dairy products low or out altogether they cause weight gain, clog the throat, develop more mucous/catarrh in the body and therefore you will get more colds to clear it out. The body actually creates the common cold as a clearing mechanism for high toxicity in the system….whether from diet or from mental/emotional stress. That’s why you can’t cure it…..listen to it and rest if you can. Flu and viruses are something different.
DON’T EAT DAIRY ON THE DAY OF A PERFORMANCE – it will affect your throat and voice!
Common Problems
If you are committed to a performance it’s not easy to back out if you have a cold or sore throat. Whilst really you should not sing and push your voice if it is sore and you are tired and drained, as it can cause damage long term…..this is sometimes not possible; so you need to be sensible about how you perform if you go ahead. Learn to sing your songs without singing full out as well, so that you can conserve your voice if you have to.
REFER TO THE VOCAL CARE SHEET.
I hope you can see that being a good singer, speaker or voice healer is a whole body experience …not just a throat experience. Your throat is the centre from which your uniqueness comes through, the resonance is in your whole body…that is why you get a good feeling from it! Treat yourself with love and respect and you will win love and respect from those who listen to you!!
With love
Hilary
http://www.riverofloveconcerts.com