Tips for Vocal Maintenance During Intense Vocal Effort

For singers, lecturers and other people of vocal professions vocal maintenance is highly important. They must know how to maintain their voice in times of intense vocal efforts.

Such people use their voices intensively, for many hours a day. The vocal folds and larynx in general are very sensitive to diet, the performer’s physical and mental conditions, the weather, and other factors. Therefore, to prevent hoarseness, your vocal muscles need warm ups, vocal support, and most importantly, release and flexibility exercises.

Your vocal muscles capacity, just as the capacity of your whole body, is much higher than you ever imagined. After all, your body is like a machine, which you must use according to certain rules. Following these rules, you can keep your vocal performance satisfactory most of the time, even during intense vocal effort.

The combination of proper vocal techniques, proper lifestyle and the consumption of specific natural substances, when necessary, can work miracles.

A few warm-ups a day, as part of your vocal maintenance, before your vocal effort, and a few release exercises after your vocal performance, can help you avoid vocal fatigue altogether.

It doesn’t take long to perform vocal warm up, especially before a speaking performance. Singers need about 30 minute-long diaphragm exercises, body stretches, and vocal exercises, since experienced singers know that it usually takes 30 minutes to reach the peak of their vocal performance.

Vocal Warm up exercises:

It is most important to perform these exercises. These exercises prepare your voice box for the vocal effort. Opera singers, for example, never go on stage without warm ups.

The point is, just as athletes must perform warm ups before intense athletic activity, and release exercise afterwards, in order to avoid cramps, so should vocal performers must warm up and release their vocal muscles.

Imagine that: many people suffer chronic vocal fatigue, not realizing they can avoid all that discomfort by performing several vocal warm-ups shortly before the vocal effort, and several vocal release exercises right after that effort.

If you suffer a hoarseness condition or vocal cords aliments, we recommend you should first treat it with TMRG Voice Power Kit. designed to increase vocal cords elasticity and cover them with protective coating. Only after taking it for several days, you can combine it with a mild vocal exercise.

The purposes of performing the morning warm-up exercises:

1. Increasing the blood flow and metabolic rate.
2. Improving your muscle coordination: vocal performance involves a coordinated movement of many muscles, in different extents of strain. In other words, in order to achieve high vocal intensity and demonstrate high vocal capacity, you must control your various vocal muscles. Singers need an especially accurate coordination of muscle movements. To achieve that, you have to exercise your abdominal, diaphragm and torso muscles, in order to enhance your vocal support capacity. The good news is that all this requires short training.
3. Increasing the flexibility of vocal cords, in order to avoid vocal damage and improve vocal performance.
4. Increasing vocal folds and other voice-box muscles and tissues agility, in order to avoid injuries, pain and vocal damage.
5. Gradually increasing the use of voice-box muscle power. One of the major purposes of warm-ups is invigorating the vocal cords and other muscle activity, in order to allow them perform their task. Obviously, if you start speaking or singing intensely without warming up, you will damage your voice: in such a case, you may suffer discomfort, and over time, erode your vocal cords.
6. Getting the vocal folds to the required level of tension, neither too contracted nor too lax.

How to perform Vocal warm-ups:

1. Get up at least two hours before vocal effort.
2. Perform body stretches, to release your muscles.
3. Tap on your face, neck, chest, arms and legs, while humming, in order to invigorate your voice muscles.
4. Massage your larynx area, while sighing or yawning, making “ah” sound.
5. Perform theragdoll exercise:
   1. draw your chin in
   2. Bend your head down, and then, bend one vertebrate after another, while making an “s” sound, until you reach the floor.
   3. Then, straighten up slowly, while making the “s” sound.
6. Perform a lip roll, making a “bb” sound while releasing your jaws. You must make a very mild sound, using a minimum of muscle effort. This helps you to improve your vocal muscles mobility.
7. Gradually increase the effort during the lip roll and other exercises, in order to gradually increase the sound intensity. Increase the sound intensity suddenly, like a race driver pressing the gas pedal.

Make rising and descending tones, with increasing and decreasing intensity. Whenever you increase voice intensity, draw your abdomen in. this exercise should improve the voice-box and diaphragm coordination.

Release exercises after a vocal effort:

Release is as important as warm up, for those engaged in intense vocal effort.

Athlete regularly practice high-intensity muscle activity must release his muscles after the effort, in order to avoid feeling painful tension. Likewise, people of vocal professions must release their vocal muscles after an intense vocal effort.

Release exercise takes much less time: between 7 and 15 minutes, in the case of singers, and between 4 and 5 minutes, in the case of lecturers.

Failing to perform warm ups and release exercises increases your chances to suffer vocal difficulties, and prevents you from performing as best as you could.

Good luck,

Talya

TMRG Voice Specialist