5 Secret Tips to Keep your Voice Healthy For Your Next Show

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Your voice is an instrument inside your body and is directly affected by the state of your body and your physical health. Alongside physical health, vocal health depends on learning how to take care of your voice, and building a solid vocal technique with vocal health in its foundation. My Cole Vocal Method is a system of vocal technique that has vocal health at it’s foundation. The technique protects and preserves the health of the voice throughout a singers career.

Keeping your singing voice healthy with a strong vocal technique will help you maintain your vocal health and will keep you from losing your voice as well as improve your overall sound.

The key to keeping your voice healthy for performance falls into three pillars:

1. Physical Health
2. Mental Health
3. Vocal Health

Let’s break it down!

1. Improve your physical health prior to your performance

In the weeks before your performance, focus on your physical health to improve your overall energy and vitality needed for a great performance. Physical health is a hallmark of a great vocal performance. Your body needs to be healthy, energized, strong, and ready to perform at your peak.?

Try this:?

Physical endurance is a hallmark of a great vocal performance:

• Cardio: Do light cardio in the weeks before the performance. A brisk walk or jog of 20 minutes a day will energize your body and improve your cardiovascular health and circulation. Other cardio that is beneficial for singing is swimming, using the rebounder or vibration plate.
• Long muscles free of tension: Singers need longer muscles that are freer of tension – versus contracted or tight muscles that constrict the voice and breathing. Yoga, Somatic stretching, and pilates are all helpful to lengthen your muscles and keep them free of tension for good performances.

Energy:

• A clean diet: Singers need energy to perform at their peak. Eating a clean diet of plant-based foods and proteins with light carbs is best. Stay away from heavy foods that take a lot of energy to digest. Stay away from fried foods, seed oils, and processed foods which slow down the immune system and affect overall health.
• Quality nutrition = energy. Getting quality nutrients is key. One of the best and easiest ways to do that is to “juice”. Fresh organic juices have more nutrients per ounce because it is concentrated nutrition. I recommend a daily green juice to increase nutrients and overall energy for performance. A simple and effective green juice is celery, cucumber, green apple, and lemon. **If you are making it at home: 2 stalks of celery, 1 cucumber, 1/2 lemon, 1 green apple.

Be sure to use only organic ingredients and wash your produce with baking soda and lemon. Let sit for 5 minutes and rinse before juicing to help remove pesticides (yes even organic has pesticide residue – crazy right?)??

The healthier your physical body is, the more energy you will have and the better performance you can give.?

2. Improve your mental health for a stronger more successful performance

In the weeks before your performance, focus on your mental health to improve your overall mindset and visualization that impacts performance.?

Try this:??

• Develop a positive mindset around your voice and music. Sometimes we tend to worry about how well we will perform at our performances. This is a natural tendency, but it’s when you develop a more encouraging and positive mindset and narrative in your mind about performing, it improves your performance. Say positive and encouraging things to yourself in the weeks before your performance to stay in a positive mindset.?

Hint: the less you prepare, the more nervous you will be. Be sure to schedule your vocal technique and your song rehearsal practice into your calendar to avoid getting extra nerves!

• Olympic Visualization practice. Olympic athletes practice visualization which is proven to improve performance. Visualization practice consists of visualizing your performance as you would like to perform it ahead of time. See yourself hitting the notes, feeling at ease, and performing at your best. Pre-performance visualization is a proven technique used with Olympic athletes that improves performance by up to 33%.?

The stronger and more positive your mindset is, and the more you visualize your performance going well–the better you will perform.?

I teach all of these methods for developing a strong positive mindset and visualization practice in all my programs. It is a foundation piece of all of my teachings and methodologies.?

Inside my 6-week?Step Up to the Spotlight Kickstart Artist Development Program?– Module 2 is all about developing a strong mindset as a musician in performance and for your career success.?Learn more here.

Inside my?Vocal Freedom Circle?that teaches The Cole Vocal Method I include a module on Olympic Visualization techniques applied to singers to improve performance.?Learn more here.

3. Improve your vocal health for performance

In the weeks before your performance, focus on your vocal health to improve your vocal tone, range, and endurance for performance. Working on your vocal techniques, your daily practice, voice building and warming up as well as staying hydrated to dramatically improve your performance and your vocal consistency in performance.

Regular training with a strong vocal technique that has health at its foundation. Don’t wait until the week of your performance to work on your voice. This can lead to over singing that burns out your voice for performance. Start with a regular daily practice of a healthy vocal technique.

Learn more about?The Cole Vocal Method?here.

• Regular daily “devotional” technique practice. I have my singers do a regular vocal technique practice of 20 minutes a day using specific warm-up vocal methods designed to open and free the vocal instrument eliminating strain and improving resonance. Learn more about my?Singers Gift Vocal Warmups here. Also, use this warm-up on the day of the performance to open up your voice and range for performance.
• Voice-building exercises. Another tool in the toolbox of prepping singers’ voices for performance is to start building the voice 1-2 months ahead of an important performance. I have a series of voice-building exercises inside of my Cole Vocal Method that I teach inside my?Vocal Freedom Circle?or in private sessions.?Learn more about Private Sessions here.
• Hydration. Hydration is a really important part of the voice performing well. When you are dehydrated, your voice will lose range and your voice will sound rougher including your passaggio area which will be bumpier and less agile. So be sure to drink plenty of water in the week before the performance to be well hydrated.

4. Work your songs into your vocal muscle memory

One of the most important elements of pre-performance preparation is working the intervals (notes) of each song into your vocal muscle memory.?

I recommend spending the month prior working the songs into your voice so you are comfortable singing them. Each song has a completely different interval study of notes that need to be worked into the voice to excel in performance. If you have new songs in your set, new songs generally don’t come across as well in performance simply because the notes aren’t worked into your voice yet.

Try this:?

Rehearsal preparation:

• Matrixing: I use a process called “Matrixing” that works the notes (intervals) and the rhythm of the vocal line more effectively into the vocal muscle memory. I divide it into two practice processes called “matrixing the melody” and “matrixing the rhythm”.
• Matrixing the melody consists of working the notes of the vocal line into your muscle memory. Start by finding the notes of the melody on a keyboard or piano. Even if you don’t play piano, it helps to find the notes on the piano to “see” the distance between the notes and help improve the center of pitch. Without anchoring the melody to an instrument it’s harder to see the roadmap of notes that you are singing. Make your way through tough spots by finding the notes on the piano and singing them slowly making the connections between the notes more solid.
• Matrixing the rhythm consists of working the rhythm of the vocal line into your muscle memory.

For more information about matrixing your songs, I’ve written out the practice of matrixing inside my?Ultimate Performer Tools & Techniques Guidebook here.?

• Hearfones: Hearfones are a great device to wear during rehearsal when you are working on new songs or perfecting older songs. These help improve the center of pitch and execute the intervals (pitch) more accurately. They will also improve your tone. You can find hearfones on Amazon or at?hearfones.com?

The more you work on your songs ahead of time, the more chance your voice has a stronger muscle memory so at the moment of performance you are not thinking about the notes and instead can focus on your performance.?

5. How to rehearse your songs without oversinging and burning out your voice pre-performance

Often right before a performance, the singer is singing a lot more in rehearsal prepping for the show. However, this can lead to burnout and rougher performances.?

Here are the best ways to avoid pre-performance burnout:

Try this:??

• Rehearsal schedule: Try spreading out your rehearsals in the 3-4 weeks before the show. And give yourself a rest with no rehearsals for two days before the show.
• Marking: I use a technique called “marketing” to avoid the vocal fatigue that comes with over singing. Marking is the practice of rehearsing with a quieter volume and less “push” or intensity. Sing with 50% volume and without “performing” the emotions of the song allowing the voice to simply execute the intervals without extra pressure that leads to fatigue. Save your voice for your show.?

The more you spread out your rehearsals and use “marking” techniques, the more you will save your voice for your actual performance.?

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To get started on your journey – start with my?Singers Gift Vocal Warmups. We address all of these techniques inside the series. Use the coupon code SG25off at checkout for an additional $25.00 in savings!