This is a cautionary tale of cause and effect. It started not so long ago… It’s midway through the year, I’m teaching 30 hours of private singing-students a week with regular three-hour jazz gigs on top and in desperate need of a holiday. I’m also queen of the late-night counsel; talking over friend’s issues well into the night. Sleep is either broken or didn’t come. I have tickets for the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, but end up staying home to help look after my father. To get through my gigs I’m drinking Red Bull or coffee. I gave up alcohol in February after it became a relaxation tool, but the tension in my jaw and tongue only worsened without enough meditation and yoga to serve as an alternative means of release. Warming up my voice each morning is taking longer and longer, it seems I am self-medicating rather than listening to my body which is slightly ironic given my fascination for the non-physiological factors that manifest in the singing voice. From my students I know how emotional factors and stress are major factors in the cause and prevention of vocal injury. A particularly contagious laryngitis does the rounds in June and I can’t shake it, or the grizzly winter weather. Then there are 36 festival movies to see and from the visually-impaired woman’s, front-row seat, I crane my neck for hours and assault my emotions. Neck compression provides painful flashbacks to tumbling down stairs around New Years, heavy speakers and 6-inch heels don’t go together. I got whiplash from landing on my hyoid bone. The injury affected the vertebrae (C1-5) controlling breathing and balance. My C1 is now refusing to rotate properly. Now, pan forward to an ENT office in Mid August, and I’m being told that a cyst has developed on my right vocal fold. I’ve taught for eight years to develop a harm-free singing method after getting nodules in the early nineties from punk bands and going hard. Now this? Cysts differ from nodules and polyps and it’s recommended that they are surgically removed (they can be treated with alternative therapies like acupuncture, but that takes much longer than the scarier, quick fix of surgery). While nodules and polyps abate with good vocal technique and healthy vocal practice, cysts don’t. Mine prevented sustained use of the voice and felt like permanent laryngitis. Nodules carry the moralistic tut-tutting from ENT surgeons who see them as derived solely from ‘strain’ or ‘misuse’ – if the sufferer is …. (ulp)…. a ‘singer’. Less judgmental information sharing and co-operation between healthcare professionals and professional singers should be standard practice, in the same way that sports professionals have close working relationships with their physiotherapists and coaches. If only we valued singers as we value rugby players in this country? Warm-ups decayed rather than strengthened my voice, no matter how gentle. Neck, tongue and throat muscles swelled due to their support role in easing the load on my vocal folds. The cyst sapped a lot of energy and my throat was sore from strain even from minimal talking, let alone singing. Loath to have surgery, I used acupuncture, homeopathy, and hypnotherapy. Holistically, these treatments also helped with issues of depression, anxiety and insomnia. It wasn’t until I was asked to sing for a man dying of cancer, that I was pushed to surgery. I sang ten songs to Bruce as he lay in his living room with close friends and family, but the next day, swollen and in great pain, I could not speak. (Bruce passed away within hours of this occasion. If you want a job well done, ask the professionals!) Post-operatively, I remained silent for a month, following intuition instead of the surgeon who had suggested resuming voice-use within two days. With my silence came a great peace and detached perspective on emotions and stress. Many vocal pedagogies pooh-pooh vocal rest in all but the most arduous circumstances, preferring instead vocal remedies like gentle twang and soft, descending dog whimpers on ‘ng’ with as much purity of tone as possible. Though these have helped since resuming vocal use, I’ll now use vocal silence more readily than before. My upper range has extended above top C as it was in my teens. It feels like a whole new instrument even if the injury has left my confidence shot! Inhaling steam and keeping the voice as high and light when speaking as possible has helped, there is no substitute for healing practices. If I don’t do what’s good for me, I know healing can’t occur. If I do things that are bad for the voice (and body), especially if there is associated guilt, I expect malign repercussions. I’m now acutely aware of cause and effect. Focusing on releasing tension, deeply exhaling, movement-with-voice warm-ups (starting with gentle humming while stretching) and breathing lower down during conversation and singing, are all obligatory measures now rather than good intentions and theory. I could write endlessly about this experience, but I’m far more interested in gathering information from other professional singers and establishing a strong support network in Aotearoa. Hands up anyone who wants to join in? Visit www.caitlinsmith.com
List some observations about your own voice in relation to: what creates/causes good function in your voice and makes you feel healthier? What creates/causes dysfunction in the voice and makes you feel unhealthy?