Vocal rest

Due to high vocal demands these last couple of weeks, as well as some illness that has been passed around, the issue of vocal rest has come up quite a bit. So let's explore just what vocal rest is, when it's needed, and how it can benefit you as a singer.

At face value, vocal rest is pretty self-explanatory: it just means resting your voice. But does that mean you have to be absolutely silent? In most cases, no. These days, about the only time singers are told to go on complete vocal rest (no singing, no talking, no whispering, etc.) is when they are recovering from vocal surgery. In most other cases (like illness or vocal fatigue), some light vocalization—like humming and straw phonation—can be good for the voice, as long as it is limited.

Since the vocal folds are made up of muscle and tissue, ANY vocal use can cause fatigue if it goes on long enough—even alongside an impeccable technique. When fatigue does occur, it's generally a good idea to reduce overall voice use so the muscles have adequate recovery time.

However, in many cases, it's not the singing that gets us into trouble. It's often all of the "extracurricular" voicing that causes problems.

A 2013 study published in the Journal of Singing led to some interesting discoveries. The researchers (Christopher S. Gaskill, Jennifer G. Cowgill, and Shenendoah Many) tracked six first- and second-year undergraduate students at the University of Alabama who were majoring in either vocal performance, music education, or music theater. The researchers asked each student to wear a vocal dosimeter for five days, which measured their total voice use during that time (singing and non-singing). Here is some of what the data reveal:

• "Most students accumulated much more nonsinging time than singing time."
•  One of the students reported a session of “singing in the car” that lasted for 23 minutes, which revealed a very large vocal dose within a short period of time. 

In addition, in one instance during the week, a tenor music theater student commented to one of the researchers that he had just come out of a rehearsal that had been vocally taxing because it involved “a lot of talking.” However, when they compared the dosimetry data from the rehearsal (which lasted 1 hour) to the time spent socializing immediately after the rehearsal (which lasted approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes), the student used his voice TWICE AS MUCH while socializing than during the rehearsal. Besides using his voice more during that time, he also spoke at a higher pitch and with greater intensity.

This data caused the researchers to conclude that "...the most vocally demanding times for students may often be outside of required singing activities, and that [students] may be very poor judges of their own perceived vocal doses."

So when students tell me they have put themselves on vocal rest, I always want to know if it is only their singing that they are restricting. As this study points out, all of the other vocal activities (talking, laughing, etc.) can actually be more vocally risky than singing.

Of course, we have to take care of our voices. We need periods of rest that allow us to recover from the high vocal demands associated with being a singer and actor. But we also need to be mindful of how we are using our voices throughout the day so we are not unknowingly adding to an unsustainable vocal load.

How has your singing been this week? How do you manage heavy vocal demands?

Now go practice.