Matt Farnsworth and Tim Kashani discuss protecting your voice as an instrument. Farnsworth describes losing his voice after taking Advil during a cough, which caused an undetected vocal-cord hemorrhage. Key habits: eight hours of sleep, stay hydrated, avoid blood-thinning medications, skip smoking and alcohol, and use proper breath support instead of forcing sound from your throat.
Chapters
Because the voice is your instrument, your tool for singing and a career, what can people do to protect it?
I think that being attuned to your body and listening to your body is the first order of business. So in other words, if your voice doesn't feel right, you should listen. You know, I learned this lesson maybe 3 years ago. I was very, very sick and I coughed. I was on a lot of Advil— bad, don't I'm on Advil because it thins the blood in the vocal cords, and you can hemorrhage. So I coughed, and I didn't know what I'd done, and I just felt a little weird. Next morning I woke up with no voice, and I warmed up and I was fine. I taught 40 students that week, but every morning I'd wake up and I'd have no voice, and I'd hemorrhaged myself and not known it. So again, I was not in tune with myself enough to do that. I was pushing through. I felt like I had to make sure I don't cancel these people's voice lessons. So if I'd have been in attunement with myself, I might have said, "Hey, I need to get to the doctor." Well, finally when it gave out, you know, people don't change until they have to. So I would say attunement of your body is number one. I would say that the combination of drinking and being in a loud bar is horrendous. So if you want to have some friends over and have a drink, great. Or if you want to go to a loud bar, just talk quietly. Basic 101: if you feel like you're vocally tired, rest. Sleep is the most important thing for the voice. 8 hours a night will do better than any amount of therapy, any amount of water. Sleep is the best thing for the voice. And lots of water. And making sure that you know how to— like, if you're— I get a lot of damaged voices from people who teach dance class because they're yelling, yelling, yelling. It's really just knowing how to support and knowing— and they often think, oh, I gotta get it out I gotta get up here. You have to get it on your body and then it's gotta be up there. You know, so it's not just, just getting it into your nose. That doesn't necessarily— sometimes that actually stops the breath support. So again, the smoking, obviously no smoking. Limit the drinking, talking loud bars, get plenty of sleep, and take care of yourself. Those are the things you can do to prevent injury.
