11 Tips To Love Your Voice While Stuck At Home
Chances are, you’re spending an unusual amount of time at home right now. Whether you’re quarantined or just practicing social distancing to protect yourself and others, you likely have more time on your hands than usual. This is a great opportunity to make lemons into lemonade and use this extra time to love your voice.
Here are some tips you can start whether you’re under the weather or feeling fine - right in the comfort of your own home.
If You’re Sick
Vocal Rest: If you’ve been coughing a lot and/or are experiencing a sore throat, avoid singing and speaking as much as possible. Just like the rest of your body, your instrument needs downtime to heal.
Choose Warm Tea Over Orange Juice: Many of us learned from our mothers and grandmothers that citrus can help fight a cold because of the high amount of vitamin C it contains. While vitamin C is great before you get sick, the current consensus from the medical community is that it won’t help you once you have symptoms. In fact, the acidity of citrus can irritate a sore or scratchy throat and slow down your vocal recovery. Once you feel sick, stop drinking orange juice, lemonade, or other acidic beverages and opt for a warm tea that’s low in caffeine (which is drying to your vocal cords) such as chamomile, herbal tea, white tea, or rooibos.
Practice Breathing: Even if you can’t sing, you can practice breathing. If you’re still coughing or experiencing difficulty breathing, you may want to pass on this (and, of course, speak to your doctor), but if you’re feeling up to it, work on exercises that don’t require you to phonate (i.e.: make sound with your vocal cords; making hissing or buzzing sounds with your lips is fine).
Steam Clean Your Voice: If you’re experiencing sinus congestion, the only thing better at clearing it than using a neti pot is using a neti pot after inhaling steam for 10-15 minutes. Fill a bowl with steaming water and lean over it with a towel over your head to make a mini, personal steam room. Make sure the water and steam aren’t too hot so you don’t scald yourself! Enjoy the steam for 10 to 15 minutes, then use your neti pot according to the instructions on the box. Remember to always use distilled water in your sinus rinse. This doctor recommended method is a great way to take care of your voice and get relief from sinus congestion without pharmaceutical decongestants.
No Matter How You Feel
Learn A New Song: Whether you’re feeling great or on vocal rest, this is a perfect time to expand your repertoire. Find a song you’ve always wanted to learn and get on it! Listen to as many versions of the song as you can find, write out the lyric, and analyze the singer’s performance. If you’re healthy and warmed up, sing the song section by section, taking time to focus on rhythm, pitch, dynamics, and expression each in turn.
Practice Counting: Singers are often stereotyped as having a poor sense of time. This is a great time to prove that generalization wrong! Practice counting along with your favorite song; can you identify the time signature? Practice finding the downbeat. Try tapping along with the drums or tapping your foot on the down beat and beat three, and clapping your hands on beats two and four (if the song is in 4/4).
Take Some Extra Time For Vocal Exercises: Now is a great time to start a daily practice. Not only is creating a routine good for your mental health, you’ll come out on the other side of this with stronger vocals! Set aside 20 minutes to work on vocal exercises; better yet, set aside an hour. You’ll thank yourself later!
Learn About Your Favorite Singers: Take some time to research your favorite singer. Learning about their musical background is a great place to deepen your understanding of someone you admire and your own musicianship. For example, if your favorite singer got their start in a Southern church choir, take some further time to learn about the kind of music made there and listen to some examples of it.
Write A Song: There’s no right or wrong way to write a song, no special equipment required, and no training necessary! Even if you can’t play an instrument, you can write a melody and clap a rhythm along with it. You can even co-write with a friend via Facetime or Skype!
Watch A Livestream Or Livestream Yourself: Many musicians are replacing their cancelled concert dates with livestreams on Facebook, Twitch, and Youtube. This is a great chance to see your favorite singer perform live, often for free! This is also a great opportunity to get out there yourself. You can share your music (or whatever else you do) with just your cell phone on Facebook and Twitch.
Take A Virtual Lesson: Take a lesson with a voice teacher online. Love Your Voice offers virtual lessons where you can work with Zelda over video chat. This is the perfect time to learn a new skill or focus on improving one you already have.
Book Your Virtual Lesson Today
Whatever you do with your extra free-time in the coming days and weeks, we hope you stay safe and healthy. This is a stressful, confusing, and difficult time; it’s very easy to feel helpless or out of control right now. We hope that some of these tips will allow you to take control of your time and your music, and bring a sense of balance and progress to your days.
Lots of love to all of you from Love Your Voice.
Get in touch to set up a virtual lesson with Zelda today!
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