The choral director is the one who is in charge of helping you maintain your and your fellow singers their vocal health. This director will be able to diagnose if there are any vocal faults and immediately refer you to a health care professional. The courses like singorama also suggests you to take a great care about your vocal tract. Below are some tips on how to maintain your vocal health especially for students who are in learn singing classes or programs.
1) Maintenance of general health by avoidance of any habits that may lead to viral colds. A simple hand washing technique should help here as well as taking some vitamins like ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate as well as zinc lozenges.
2) Don’t get stressed out emotionally or physically by exercising regularly. Avoid power weight lifting for these could cause strain on the muscle groups that will affect the vocal folds.
3) Eating a balanced diet is always good, no matter what the profession may be. This is the only way to get the body the right nutrition and the energy to stay healthy.
4) Hydration is another important factor in maintaining vocal health. The water hydrates the throat and can allow the vocal chords to be more agile and reach those impossible notes.
5) This may sound like a broken record by do avoid the following: caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. Other inhalants to avoid includes marijuana. These will have a debilitating effect on the vocal tract as well has the mental capacity.
6) Avoid areas that may be polluted by air pollutants like smoky night clubs and bars. This is especially true if you have been singing for some time and your vocal chords are tired.
7) Although many singers use these, never use the local anesthetics that may mask the signs of stressed vocal tract and chords. The lack of feeling in the area may further whatever damage has already been done to the folds and tract and this could ruin the voice on the long term.
8) If you are a woman and you are on birth control pills, ask you OB-GYN for birth control pills that are free of progesterone for these can deepen the voice. So if you are woman with a lyrical voice, your progesterone filled control pills change your voice to a heavy one and this may ruin some of your chances in roles that you have been focused on, the lyrical roles.
9) When singing, try to restrict the practice to only three or four hours a day. Anything longer than that can damage the vocal chords.
10) Try to avoid singing in tessitura which can stress out your vocal tract. Pace your register instead to avoid misusing or overusing your voice. Otherwise, if you or your musical director insists on it, you may just kill your voice.
11) Never sing cold, always do the required vocal warm ups for these will get your vocal tract ready for the next hour or more of singing.
12) Do not shout, clear the throat all the time, scream or laugh out loud.
13) Last, if your throat feels bad, don’t sing.