3 Ways to Tell if You are Straining Your Voice

So how can you tell if you're straining your voice when you sing? This is something that we worry a lot about as singers, because you want to keep your voice healthy and beautiful for a long time. Today I'm going to show you three signs that you can look for, to see if you're straining your voice when you sing. Coming up! Hi all and welcome to Singgeek. My name is Ronja Petersen and I'm here to geek out on your voice. This video is all about helping you avoid vocal strain, so that you can keep your voice healthy and beautiful. But first what is vocal strain? Strain on your voice happens when you air rubs against the edges of your vocal folds and this creates friction. To understand what happens here is you see that the muscles in your throat that they tighten up and this tightens the vocal folds and then they can't move freely with the air and the air rubs against the vocal folds instead. So that's what creates that tension and when you hear people sometimes say "stop singing from your throat." That's usually what they mean "Stop tightening the muscles in your throat." So why are we scared of this friction between the air and your vocal folds? Well when this friction happens it creates heat and it causes your vocal folds to swell you would actually feel this heat created if you rub your hands against each other you can feel that it gets warm yeah that's what happens in your vocal folds. Now this is actually pretty common that this happened to you like, maybe if you're at a party and you're talking loudly or if you're at a game with your friend and you're yelling at your favorite team. That's pretty normal you will feel your voice is a little swollen the next day and you might be a little bit hoarse but it will heal in a few days and that is perfectly fine and okay. The thing to worry about it that if this friction happens a lot your vocal folds and your voice it doesn't get to heal itself and so you keep having this swelling that goes again and again and that creates calluses and this counts as it turns into these bumps called nodes or nodules and that's when some singers they start feeling that they're losing some of their range or that they get this unintentional raspy voice. So let's learn to recognize these signs of strain so that this doesn't happen to you. The first way that you can try to figure out if you're straining your voice is by looking at yourself when you're singing. If your veins are popping here I'm just singing there's usually a pretty good sign of strain as I said before you're trying to control your voice with the muscles in your throat instead put your shoulders down, you know, connect with your breath support and let your voice be controlled with your air instead of from your throat another sign of strain and I've said this before in previous videos if you're locking your jaw and tilting your head back and you're singing oh yeah that's a big sign of strain also you know you want to level back your head and let your jaw loose make room for the notes yeah hello-hello-hello. Let the sound come out. The second way that you can tell if you're straining your voice is by being aware of how you feel I sometimes have people that they they come in and they tell me mmm I had someone say "my voice feels on fire when I'm done singing" or someone said "I feel like I have this lump in my throat when I'm singing" or I hear people say like "I have to push out my voice." Those are signs of strain it shouldn't feel like you know like you're going against something or like you're pushing to sing. Instead it should feel like you're supporting your voice with your air and that your voice is sort of falling out effortlessly. That is how it should feel when you're singing without strain. I think this can be hard for a lot of people because especially the people who really wanted actually. I meat a lot of singers that they they you know they put so much force because they want to sound like their favorite artists and they're working so hard and this is one of those things where sometimes actually people lay off the effort a little bit, and let the voice come out and just enjoy your own sound and then it will teach you to strain less. A third way that you can use to tell if you're straining your voice is by listening to your voice. Listen to your sound you can pretty often hear if you're yelling or if you're singing. You know if you're going "hello" then you're yelling and you're straining. Or if you're going "hello" then you're singing. There's this brilliance to your voice when you're singing this sort of nice brilliant tone when you're singing a way that you can listen to your own voice is if you go like this. This is how your voice sounds to everyone else. I have made another video about this also but if you go like this usually you can hear that brilliance in your voice and you can adjust your sound to this voice and this will help you to not strain. It looks a little silly sometimes my bandmates will make fun of me if I start going like this if I'm like oh I feel like I'm straining my voice I need to get back to that sound that I know I love I'll go like this so try that out now you know how to look for signs of strain let's talk really quickly about how to avoid strain in general there's some situations where it happens more often. So the first one, and this is the one I had to learn the hard way, is if you're in rehearsal and you can't hear yourself most people they start yelling this is so bad for your voice so talk to your bandmates you know it's okay if they think you're a bit of a diva that's how it is you know they have to be able to hear you your musical sounds better they should know how you sound with the mix so ask them to turn down or if you have a very hard-hitting acoustic drummer you know then turn your own mic up a little bit get used to actually singing healthy and hearing your voice healthy with the band so another thing you can also do is sing in front of a mirror look at yourself you will be so surprised you'll be like oh I thought I was having good posture I thought I was using my diaphragm use that mirror to be an investigator let it help you figure out oh my the veins here on my throat are actually popping a lot more than I thought they were. Use that mirror. The last thing that I think you should do to avoid straining your voice is record yourself. I know it can be a little bit uncomfortable sometimes but if you get used to hearing your voice and if you get used to knowing how your voice sound when you strain and you can record yourself in your songs then you can pick out the phrases where you're straining you can take them out and you can practice them and not only will this help you not strain this will help you become such a better singer. This will take you to the next level because you will sound better right. So record yourself that's my last thing that I think you should do to avoid strain if you have any questions for this please ask them in the comments below some of you guys have been super active with this and it is awesome so just continue to do that. And if it was your first time here today I invite you to subscribe join us every week as we continue to geek out on your voice to create the sound that you want

Channel: Singgeek

Views: 295,271

Keywords: hoarse voice, damaged vocal cords, straining voice example, strained vocal cords, hoarseness, how to, avoid, vocal, strain, how to sing, straining, voice, nodules, nodes, healthy, singing, damage, health, lessons, vocalise, vocal folds, vocal cords, healthy throat, lost voice remedies, nodes singing, sore throat from singing, strain on vocal cords, tight throat muscles, vocal cord dysfunction treatment, vocal nodules symptoms, singgeek, raspy voice, Hoarse

Id: IyDvI5HA_KY

Length: 6min 31sec (391 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 02 2018