- We've all been there,
you wake up with a tired, hoarse voice after a big night out
or extended vocal use due to week on stage fallback mix.
It is possible to experience voice fatigue
for any number of reasons.
But what exactly is vocal fatigue?
And is there a way to easily and quickly recover from it?
- [Woman] Sound check.
(cheering and music)
- Good day, my name is Dr. Dan
and I'm a contemporary singing voice specialist.
I'm so glad you chose to click on this video
because it might just be one of the most important videos
you'll watch today in regards
to the ongoing health of your voice.
Vocal fatigue is something that we've all experienced.
Dr. Robert T. Sataloff,
one of the world's leading voice researchers
defines vocal fatigue as the inability
to continue to speak or sing for extended periods
without change in vocal quality and/or control.
The voice may show fatigue by becoming hoarse,
losing range, changing timbre,
breaking into different registers
or exhibiting other uncontrolled aberrations.
What you may not know is there are different types
of vocal fatigue.
So today we are going to look at the various types,
and then I'm going to give you some practical things to do
that I know will help to keep your voice active and healthy.
Now, I know some of you don't get overly excited
about the whats and whys,
so here's a timestamp if you want to fast forward
to how, the hows and dos were I will outline
seven proactive things you can do
in response to vocal fatigue.
Timestamp aside, I hope you stay with me
to learn the theory because I want to empower you
with a comprehensive understanding of vocal fatigue
so that you can recognize the fine line
that sometimes separates mere fatigue from vocal damage.
For the purpose of this video,
I will be using the term fatigue to denote short term
or what our health professional friends call
acute fatigue onset.
The duration of acute vocal fatigue
is generally experienced in the voice anywhere from
during an immediately following voice use
through to 48 hours after voice use, give or take.
Chronic voice fatigue or ongoing episodes of voice fatigue
should not be ignored by the singer
as it can indicate a vocal pathology.
So a good rule of thumb is
if your voice after two weeks of reduced loads
and relative rest is still showing
considerable signs of vocal fatigue and poor recovery,
the best thing you can do is have your voice fully assessed
by laryngologist.
Another sign that a trip to the laryngologist is warranted
is the focal fatigue onsets quickly during the voice use.
Sataloff writes, "A well-trained singer
should be able to sing for several hours
without vocal fatigue."
One of the many benefits you get
from developing better vocal technique
is improved efficiency
in how the voice performs its various tasks.
An important caveat here is that
we are all different and factors such as age, gender,
general well being as well as environmental conditions,
all play their part in the onset of voice fatigue.
For example, even singers who have
well established vocal technique
are likely to experience the onset of vocal fatigue quicker
when working in a smoky lab, public lab with no fallback,
than if they were singing in the pristine conditions
of a concert hall with well balanced fallback.
working conditions really do make a big difference.
Now, back to acute voice fatigue,
we generally categorize acute voice fatigue
into two forms, muscular fatigue and mucosal fatigue.
Muscular fatigue is experienced
in both the intrinsic and extrinsic musculature
of the vocal mechanism.
Leborgne and Rosenberg note that,
"With respect to minimizing
muscular aspects of vocal fatigue,
thoughtful and methodical training
to strengthen and balance respiratory
and laryngeal musculature would potentially help
increase vocal endurance and stability
during high voice demands."
So in regards to muscular fatigue
developing better technique over time
will increase your muscular capacity,
improve your overall stamina
and help enhance your recovery times.
Mucosal fatigue is a little different.
Dr. Ingo Titze in his book "Principles of Voice Production"
writes, "since vibration of vocal tissue
takes place primarily in non muscular tissue layers
in particular, the epithelial, superficial
and intermediate layers of the lamina propria.
One must inquire about fatiguing mechanisms
that may occur at the sites."
You see, when the vocal folds are placed under load
for prolonged periods,
changes to the chemical constitution
of the vocal fold environment can occur.
The subtext here is known as tissue viscosity.
Titze encourages us to think of tissue viscosity
as a mechanical lubricating agent.
While Leborgne and Rosenberg state that,
"Increased viscosity of the vocal folds results in
increased fold stiffness and increased viscosity
of the vocal folds mucosa
results in generation of more friction
during vocal fold vibration, creating more heat dissipating
over the vocal fold, resulting in vocal fold fatigue,
vocal fold edema, and erythema."
Erythema simply means a reddening,
so it's unlikely that you'll feel that,
but you can learn to be aware of vocal fold edema.
Edema is the word medicos use to define swelling,
in this case, vocal folds swelling.
I often liken the sensation of vocal fold edema,
to my vocal folds, having an extra layer of clothing
like a woolen jumper.
When I've personally experience vocal fold edema,
my voice feels lethargic and far less nimble.
Swollen vocal folds will often also lead
to a drop in the voices fundamental pitch.
So for example, as you can hear,
my voice typically categorizes as tenor.
But when I experienced significant vocal fatigue,
the swelling of my vocal folds
can leave me sounding almost like a baritone
and it's always reduces my overall vocal range.
We're about to get into the practical stuff.
But before we do, please take a moment
to hit the thumbs up button,
if you've already learned something
from what we've covered so far.
So can voice fatigue be avoided altogether?
Well, the simple answer is no.
The human body is not designed to work non stop
and your voice is no different.
No matter how good you technique
or how pristine the working conditions,
if you use your voice for long enough it will fatigue
and if you relentlessly push the voice
beyond the warning signs
that voice fatigue generally provides us,
like vocal folds swelling, range reduction
and general hoarseness.
Your voice is running the risk of chronic issues,
including the development of vocal pathologies.
Therefore the first thing to do
when you experience vocal fatigue
is rest the voice.
Sometimes all that is needed
after a single one hour set of singing
is 10 to 15 minutes of relative rest
immediately following the vocal load.
Equally, if you're a working singer
who is gigging four to five nights a week,
you might need to schedule in one to two days a week
of significant vocal downtime,
just to give your voice the rest it needs.
Vocal rest, especially directly after gigs can be difficult
because when you step off stage there are fans to greet
and often match table to work.
So do your best to exercise vocal rest
during these times by letting others do the talking
while you do the listening.
One of the keys to significantly reducing
the onset of voice fatigue
is the discipline practice of vocal warm-ups.
An intentional vocal warm-up should be approximately
10 to 15 minutes in length,
starting with short intervals,
and slowly stretching the vocal folds
through the full range of motion
by the end of the vocal warmup.
Just as important in the mitigation of vocal fatigue
is the use of cool-downs.
In the same way that a vocal warm-up
helps to stimulate blood flow to the vocal folds
and surrounding musculature,
a vocal cool-down will help to reduce swelling
by moving any retain fluids away from the vocal folds,
including the unwanted buildup of lactic acid.
Think of a cool-down as the exact opposite of a warm-up.
Start with a full range exercise like a siren,
and slowly but surely work the voice down
to short intervals of a second or a third.
Now, once your voice has been cooled down,
a great habit to get into is the steaming of your voice.
Personal vapor inhalers helped to promote blood flow
again assisting in the reduction of swelling.
They also distribute warm moist vapor
directly to the surface of the vocal folds.
And this additional water vapor
can contribute to the maintaining vocal fold lubrication,
which will also help to reduce vocal fold friction.
- [Woman] Sound check.
(cheering and music)
- A personal vapor inhaler, however,
cannot and should not be seen as replacing the need
to consistently hydrate.
I've ranted many times on the channel
about the importance of good hydration
when it comes to vocal health.
So let me just restate it here again
that sipping your two to three liters of water a day,
what equates to about eight to 10 glasses,
is a fundamental habit
that all serious singers should be in.
Now one thing you may not have thought of
when it comes to vocal fatigue
is the impact of reflux on the voice,
specifically, the laryngopharyngeal reflux,
what we call LPR that we can experience when we sleep.
If you know that you suffer from LPR,
then using an over the counter reflux suppressant product
like Gaviscon can significantly reduce
the negative effects of reflux on the voice.
This is especially true for working singers
who often eat really late at night
immediately before they go to sleep.
It is important for me to mention here
that ongoing reflux is a serious matter
that should be discussed
with a licensed healthcare professional
and cannot and should not be treated
by just drinking antacids every night.
And number seven on our list of proactive things
you can do in response to vocal fatigue
is to get into straw phonation.
Now singing or what would be more accurately
referred to as humming through a straw
aids in the relief of fatigued voice.
Straw phonation is relatively simple to do,
but you will require a drinking straw and a water bottle
that has been filled to about halfway.
There are a number of activities you can do
when you hum through the straw.
So let me show you just a few of them now.
So as I said, half water, a water bottle halfway up,
you can do this with an open glass
but the bubbles tend to sort of splash up your nose.
So having something with a lid
that you can put the straw through is a helpful thing.
And so with the straw halfway up the water,
just in the middle of your range,
you would produce a single note.
(humming through the straw)
We're humming through, all through the straw.
If I hold my nose,
we'll hear that there's no sound
coming through my nose as I do this.
(humming through the straw)
It is all too easy to (hums)
and not have enough bubble through
and have a lot of the air coming through your nose.
So all the bubbles needs to through the straw.
And so what we're doing here is just a single note
and holding it, not necessarily to the end of the note,
end of your breath, I should say,
but prolonging the note.
(humming through the straw)
And we might go up a couple.
(humming through the straw)
Up one more.
(humming through the straw)
Now for the sake of time, I won't do the rest,
but I would generally take it all the way down till
I get to a quite a low note
(humming through the straw)
towards the bottom of my range,
but I'm really being careful to maintain the phonation,
the adduction and oscillation of the vocal folds
so that I'm getting a clean tone because it's,
the bringing of the vocal folds together
and having the massage each other
that's helping to move that retained fluid away.
So now what I'm gonna do is little pitch glides.
(humming through the straw)
And so I'd generally go up,
generally around at the range of an octave
and then I'd come back down,
then I would do slightly larger pitch glides.
(humming through the straw)
Again, we'd go up,
notice I'm not doing this to a keyboard,
often, we don't have a keyboard that are ready
just to be able to do pitch glides.
So, the key here is not really the accuracy of the pitch.
The key is the way that we're causing
the vocal folds to come together
to help reduce and alleviate
the impact of voice fatigue.
So it's more mechanical,
and the mucosal influence that we're looking for
for the voice as opposed to the aesthetic of perfect pitch.
Then what I might do is finish it off with
just a five-note scale.
(humming through the straw)
And so on, and I'd go up and again,
come back, covering about the range of an octave,
maybe an octave and a half
depending on how the voice is feeling.
And even now, I can feel my voice,
just having a little bit of a reset.
And I can feel that any retained or developing
collection of fluid, the edema,
is starting to be alleviated
just by having done that little bit of work there
with the straw phonation.
Now, voice fatigue in many respects,
is an unavoidable workplace hazard.
If you're going to sing,
you're almost certainly going to experience vocal fatigue
to one level or another.
It's how you respond proactively to the fatigue
that will determine how quickly your voice recovers.
And while vocal fatigue is unavoidable,
there are a range of things that
you might be unwittingly doing
that are placing your voice in harm's way.
Click on this video and I'll help you to avoid
all of the unnecessary pitfalls
when it comes to your singing voice.
I'll see you again soon.
I'm Dr. Dan.
Sing well.