Vocal Advice

I want to ask about the phlegm that I’m feeling especially during the first 3 minutes, even with just the low pitch D after the middle C. Can you tell me about how avoid this phlegm? I think this is a disturbance in singing. Are there any exercises to avoid this?

ANSWER: Jae, some day I’ll answer this a little more thoroughly … with some of the medical distinctions made between the various oral secretions sometimes all lumped into one designation of “mucous”, or “phlegm”.  I should tell you at the outset that such a generalization irks some folk in the medical profession  … but I’m willing with this disclaimer to take the flack on this response.

Indeed, phlegm is a “disturbance” to singing.

An accumulation of heavy secretions on the vocal cords early in the morning is not unusual.  Frequently warming up the voice will make the presence of this obvious, heard and felt, but frequently the warm up process dislodges this “goop” and clear tone can then easily be produced and heard.

This “phlegm” can impede the process by which we make sound by settling on, or passing through the opening of the glottis.  There may be several causes.

1. An upper respirator infection often accompanied by a cough.
2. A sinus infection or common cold in which there is drainage from the nasal passages down the back of the throat.
3. Allergies to various air-carried organisms like dust, pollen and mold spores produce cold-like symptoms.
4. Allergies to various foods.
5. Dairy-heavy diet.

Obviously, any time a person has an infection, one has to do what is necessary to gain health and maintain a strong immune system.

Allergies to dust, pollen, mold, mildew, animal dander, etc. may require medical assistance to become desensitized to those things.

Food allergies can be pinpointed either by the help of an allergist, or a systematic process of elimination and discovery of what foods cause allergic reactions.

The simplest thing to deal with is to alter one’s diet - and make sure that dairy products (milk, cheese, ice-cream and foods with these products in them like pizza) and a lot of red meat (hamburgers, beef, sausage, pork) and sugar (desserts and sweetened drinks especially) are either eliminated from the diet or reduced and avoided during the evening/night meal.  All those things named contribute to the body producing in large quantity the “stuff” that clogs the nose and throat by early morning.

Vocal exercises are not the answer when dealing with “phlegm.”  A change in eating lifestyle is often the answer.

Be sure that you have a routine in which you gargle and brush your teeth and tongue when you arise in the morning.  That helps to get rid of a lot … down the drain.

I’m a 25 year-old woman.  I’m just trying to get back into singing on a regular basis, but my voice gets very tired and weak and hoarse-sounding after about 20-30 minutes.  So, if I practice before I actually perform, I am already tired, and my voice sounds tired and not in control.

Good questions Lynette!  There are two questions and so I’ll answer in two parts.

Answer:  Part of the answer is captured in your question.  One of the keys to getting back into vocal shape is by starting a little at a time – EVERY DAY.  Since your voice gets tired and weak, even hoarse-sounding after about 20-30 minutes, I’d suggest that you

a) start your warm ups and singing in the part of your voice’s range where you find singing most easy, and

b) break up even your warm up period into smaller increments, say 10 – 15 minutes at a time with at least 30 minutes before resuming vocal use.

You see, what you’re aiming at ultimately is something like: being able to sing within your range, comfortably for a long time – say even 60 – 90 minutes – with just a few short breaks thrown in.  To be able to do that – like other muscle groups – there has to be stamina training (repetitions) and strength training (extending the range and the strength of the voice).  Until you have achieved your goals, any time you are called upon to perform – let your vocal warm up be brief and well in advance of the performance time so that your voice has had a chance to rest before singing.  Do this any time you’re planning to perform.  On the day of performance warm up just sufficiently that you know “things are working fine” then let your voice continue to rest for an hour or more until performance time.  In this way you’ll have saved your energy and concentration for the time that you need it.

When you get back into daily practicing and you find that there are days when you want to expend your energy and make demands on your voice (strength and range work) – treat that day as a day in the gym when you’re “pumping iron.” The end of practice on this day may make your voice feel a bit ‘weighty’ even ‘gratey’ for a short period of time.  The next day vocalize easily without any pushing – give your voice a break – allow the voice a day to recover and ‘heal’ itself.  When your voice gets tired and sounds ‘gratey’ – it’s needing a rest.  Over time – with daily practice, those periods of rest will get shorter and your strength and stamina will increase.

Having said that, however, if the feeling of hoarseness that ends one day’s practice continues to the next day – then there is the possibility that you are misusing your voice or making too-strenuous demands on it and either need to allow yourself to sing more easily (lightly) - or have a trustworthy voice teacher listen to you.  The voice is typically very resilient.  When the voice is “in shape” it is often the case that the singer will tire before the voice will.

By the way, allow one little anecdote: I am aware of a tendency in me that I should warn you about - in case it could be true of you.  When I’m out of shape - and then make a decision to “get back in shape” and start playing tennis or running or something else - it’s fairly typical of me to over-do it all at the beginning - and then be so sore or so bruised or injured that I lose hope of ever resuming training and getting back in shape.  The same is possible for us singers.  It is possible in the effort to “get back into singing” to overdo the practicing at the beginning.  Start slow - and allow your voice to tell you when you need to stop - and then do.  In time the stamina will return, and you’ll enjoy singing more for having started slowly.

I trust you find success on your road back to singing.  All best wishes.

I remember that it didn’t hurt or anything it just took me lots of focus like it was required a lot of factors to make it work.  I wanted to ask you for tips about the whistle register, like how my throat should be like….for me to improve on this.  If possible would you mind giving me some warming up exercises??

Answer: You are at an age when puberty has produced most of its physical changes in a young woman.  Therefore, the fact that you have found the whistle register may be an indication of a future facility as a soprano – although your final classification is not something that should concern you at the moment.

By the way, in the literature the “whistle register” is also identified as flageolet, piccolo, flute or bell register.

As the top-most notes available in the human voice, the vocal muscles are pulled to their longest and thinnest position.  The sound is thin, small and whistle-like.  At sixteen you probably need to be careful not to overdo with exercises in this area of your voice.  The percentage of time spent as you sing, should be a very small one in the whistle register.

If you will close one of your hands into a fist and imagine that it is your favorite kind of apple, imagine now that you are going to fit the entire fruit into your mouth.  Well of course it can’t be done, however, as you make the attempt, you will experience the stretching of your mouth and lips to their widest possible aperture.  So, be aware that this kind of openness will help facilitate more freedom in this area of your range.

Now let’s do a couple of exercises that will help hear and feel how these high notes should be.  Imitate some light, high, laughter.  It may sound like “tittering” or it may feel as you laugh hilariously.  Get some of your girl friends to join you in this,  encouraging each other on to cast aside inhibitions and feel utterly abandoned in the laughter.

Another more musical exercise is this: once you have completed a normal vocal warm up, do some extension exercises on a 1-3-5-3-1 pattern on an open vowel (ah).  This should be fast moving – not slow.  You can experiment with singing this pattern legato or staccato to see which works best for you.  Sing this exercise beginning an octave above middle C and ascend by half-steps.  You may find that when your beginning note is F that your top note (5) will take on a shrill light sound.  The higher you ascend, the more notes in the exercise will sound this way.  Don’t worry if you have trouble tuning the highest notes perfectly at this time.  Do this exercise with a keyboard so that you can see where your highest notes are.  You should soon (in a few months) be able to vocalize up to G above high C – and higher if you are truly a light soprano.  Once you get to your boundary – return by half-steps to your lower range again.  Remember to sing this exercise with some abandon – not with careful, slow “control”.  This will begin the process of you learning how to negotiate the whistle register.

Again, just a reminder, don’t spend very much time up there.  Vocalize up there for four or five minutes every day doing these kinds of exercises, and be done.

If you find that you have increased facility in this, you can be certain that your choir director will have some specific notes that you (alone?) will be asked to sing on some pieces.  If you find that your discovery becomes fraught with tension, then stop making the attempt … and allow your voice to develop without it for a while.

Best wishes.

PS. By the way I have another blog post on warming up the voice.

I’ve drunk honey water to loosen my voice and I’ve done sirens but I can’t seem to feel like it’s working.    Give me some ideas please?

Answer: Warming up the voice is like any other warm-up exercise before a vigorous workout. I am stunned to occasionally hear a high-ranking gifted singer who then becomes a voice teacher that disputes this fact.  (Fortunately, they are a VERY small minority.)  If you are a sprinter or a distance runner, so that you don’t injure muscles, you warm up with preliminary exercises.  This conditions the body and the muscles for what is to follow and protects you from debilitating self-injury.  The principle is no different for vigorous use of the vocal cords — singing.  So, your question is an excellent one.  You start slow and add intensity bit by bit until you’re ready to do the “real thing” (sing your songs).  You need to set aside anywhere from 10-20 minutes for this before you sing every day.  There are a few singers—a very few singers—who do not personally feel the need to warm up (one of my teachers was like that, but he had the good sense not to espouse “no warm-ups are necessary”).

1.  You’re going to begin vocalizing (singing) where it is easy in your range - usually comfortably low - but not to the extreme.  Pick your beginning note and ascend three steps and descend again while singing on EEEE [i] and AY [e] using this pattern 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1.  Every time you descend down to your beginning note, change the vowel.  Also alternate between ooo [u] and eee [i].  Like this

1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1
E——–AY——–E——–AY

Every time you repeat this small figure, raise the first note a half  step - so that as you repeat you are singing higher and higher.  Continue to do this until you begin to feel tension and strain, or, the notes don’t come, then turn the corner and descend by step until you are singing your lowest comfortable notes.  Be sure that your jaw is loose and open and the sound you make is as clear as possible.

2.  You’re going to do this kind of thing again, but this time the musical figure will go up 5 steps and return down again.  (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1) Alternate the OO [u] and EE [i] vowels in this figure.

1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1
oo——E——oo——E——oo

Always begin comfortably low.  (We’re all different, so, for example, if you’re a tenor and your teacher is a bass, your comfortably low starting note is going to be a good bit higher than his would be.)  Each figure should be sung with as clear tone as you can make, one note connected to the next smoothly, don’t separate them.  Again, work your way up the range step by step and back down again.

3.  A third exercise might be this one: Sing the phrase “Oh how I love– to sing” on the arpeggio 1 3 5 8 5 3 1.  This spans an entire octave.

1——3—5—–8—-5—3—–1.
Oh    how     I      love_   to   sing.  (“love” has two notes)

Always begin comfortably low.  Sing clearly maintaining a loose open jaw, connecting each word and note smoothly.  Each initial repetition should be a half step higher than the previous one, until you reach your upper range limits, at which time you need to head back down by half-steps until you reach your lowest comfortable notes.

4.  This can then be followed by more vocal exercises that require flexibility, larger range and power.  But in this way - using your voice first with short-range phrases ascending and descending in your range, then with wider range phrases you “warm up” your voice.  After about 15 minutes of doing this, you should feel more ready to do some normal energetic singing.

What I’ve described is fairly standard.  Once you begin studying with a voice teacher, s/he may devise specific exercises that are particularly suited to you.  Until then, work through this, and if you have further questions, don’t be afraid to ask.

Best wishes.