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During hoarseness, you must use different vocal technique, called Soft Start, in order to avoid worsening and prolonging the damage.
When you are hoarse, you probably hesitate about the proper way of singing or speaking, vocal exercising and rest. I guess you wonder whether you should just keep quiet altogether.
When resuming your vocal activity after a few days-long vocal disorder or hoarseness, you were probably amazed to find your voice gradually recovered from hoarseness, despite or maybe just because of you resuming vocal routine. But, resuming normal vocal activity can also worsen your hoarseness.
If it sounds terribly confusing, let me repeat a basic rule: be attentive to your voice and your throat-feelings. When you are hoarse, you must choose, day by day what treatment is best for your voice, until you resume normal vocal activity.
We recommend practicing Soft Start vocal technique whenever you resume your vocal activity during hoarseness.
It means making sure to pronounce the first sounds of every phrase softly, that is, minimizing the articulations and accentuation, fluently. These are the basics of vocal activity during a recovery from hoarseness.
Hoarseness usually results from overstraining of the vocal folds and other ailments. One of its symptoms is vocal cords irritation. So, by applying Soft Start technique, you make your vocal cords massage each other, reducing the pressure on them.
It is the opposite of pronunciation vocal technique which people with healthy voices instinctively use. In this case, a singer or a speaker tends to stress every first syllable, thus “attacking” the first syllable with a burst of air, for the sake of precise pronunciation. This accentuation of the beginning of every phrase adds luster and character to your speech. It serves as the percussion section of an orchestra, which provides the tempo and energy. Such a stressing also enriches the meaning of every word, making it sound clearer and penetrate deeper into the listeners’ ears and minds.
All this, of course, is true when you are not hoarse. When you are hoarse, you must do the opposite.
Keep your voice intensity medium or low, and your tone soft and mellow. Do not start too intensely, but do not whisper either. Whispering, too, involves a more intense vocal effort. In short, speak softly, and at a medium intensity.
To achieve this, slightly draw your abdomen in, occasionally, during vocal effort, in order to enhance the diaphragm vocal support. This support is even more essential during hoarseness.
If you are highly temperamental, you will probably press the first syllable more strongly, so you must be aware of this problem, reducing your usual level of pressure even lower. It sounds like a pause before pronouncing the word.
If you carefully make sure to combine Soft Start vocal technique with certain vocal exercises for singers, they can be the best way to recover your voice. This is so because singing involves less stressing of phrases then speaking does.
During hoarseness or great vocal strain, we also recommend using TMRG Voice Powder to soften your voice, make your vocal muscles more flexible, and help you achieve Soft Start.
So keep safe and sound! (Pun intended)
Talya
TMRG Voice Specialist
