Silent Singing

Like clockwork, this is the time of year when a lot of people start to get sick. Maybe it's partly because the excitement of the new semester has worn off, and the workload (and lack of sleep) over the last few weeks is starting to catch up. It's natural that your immune systems may start to lower their shields long enough for viruses to sneak in. And illness catches all of us eventually. 

Of course, when we acquire upper respiratory infections that impact the throat, our voices just won't work the same way as when we're healthy. Pushing the voice too hard during these times may risk long-term harm, so we have to be judicious about how much we're vocalizing—this obviously includes doing less singing, but it also means less talking, laughing, and any other activity that involves the voice. We can think of this sort of illness as having a temporary vocal injury. Just like you wouldn't put your full body weight on a sprained ankle, you shouldn't sing full out when your voice is compromised due to illness. And, just like you will gradually be able to put more weight on your ankle as it heals, you will gradually be able to add more vocal activities back into your day as your body and voice recover from the illness. 

This situation does not, however, give you a free pass to skip all of your practice sessions. But it does mean you'll have to make some adjustments. As I list on the syllabus for voice lessons, there are a lot of things you can do that count as practice time that don't require vocalizing (or only involve light vocalizing). This includes speaking through the text of your songs as a poem (softly or silently); speaking through the text of your songs in the musical rhythm; listening to multiple versions of your songs for interpretive ideas; listening to sections of your recorded lessons or class to reinforce musical and technical procedures; highlighting your music to take note of dynamics, tempo changes, and other musical/expressive directions; and, of course, memorizing, memorizing, MEMORIZING!!!

There is another way to practice that won't tax your voice. I call it "silent singing." As we know, singing involves many different systems within the body: lungs, larynx, articulators, etc. Silent singing is essentially going through a practice run of a song the same way you normally do, engaging all of those systems except the vocal folds. You breathe in the same way (and in the same places in the song), you shape your vowels and consonants the same way, you make the same interpretive choices to tell the story with your facial expressions and physical gestures. You just do it without the vocal folds ever coming together to make a sound. You can even do this while playing a recording of the accompaniment of one of your songs, which will help keep the pacing of your silent performance aligned with the music. It's like lip-syncing a song, except you are still engaging the whole body, not just the mouth and face. 

Give silent singing a try if you are sick, if your voice is tired, or if you just want to shake up your practice routine a bit.  

How has your practice been these last couple of weeks? What is your plan for staying on task all the way up to (and hopefully even through) fall break? 

Now go practice.