Thursday, May 17, 2012

Vocal Nodules: What Are They Really?



Vocal nodules are the dismal end result of magnificently thoughtless self-affliction. If some singers treated their pets with as much casual neglect as they do their vocal cords they'd be behind bars.


Even a healthy voice will rebel if you strain it by over-singing. Tired vocal cords become irritated and swollen. As you continue the abuse they lose their elasticity and may refuse to press together to produce a clean sound.

If you find yourself hoarse at the end of a long show, (or worse) you feel you constantly need to clear your throat, or (this is the worst!) you are on the waiting list for an opening in surgery to remove vocal nodules, it’s possible you are a Victim of Vocal Abuse.

Straining your voice can lead to a condition called vocal nodules, or “throat nodes” -- a serious problem, and one that plagues many fine singers like Keith Urban and Adele for example. Throat nodes form like calluses. They’re a protective layer of compacted, dead skin cells, caused by repeated friction and pressure -- something like the calluses you would get on your hands if you worked too long with a shovel in the garden.

When you use a shovel, after a while your hands build up a layer of calluses to protect themselves from the friction. As long as you keep shoveling, the calluses will keep building and they don’t begin to fade until you stop. Vocal cords develop calluses in much the same way.

When strain or friction irritate your throat, the first thing your body does is send down a bit of mucous to lubricate it. That's why people feel they have to clear their throats when they yell. It's like the body says, "Okay, I hurt, so let's try a protective salve here." After a while, if you keep straining your voice and clearing your throat, the body seems to say, “Okay, I guess that’s not working. Let’s build a callus to protect this area."

The problem now is this; the callus gets in the way and prevents your vocal cords from fitting together cleanly. Your voice begins to sound hoarse and unpredictable. You’re probably headed for throat nodes.

Clearing your throat can actually contribute to vocal nodules because it puts a double burden on your vocal cords. First, it wipes away your throat’s initial defense mechanism, the lubricating fluid your body responds with. And then, the pressure you apply to your cords to clear them, irritates and causes them to swell. If you feel you must clear, please be gentle.

As with calluses, throat nodes will shrink and go away, but complete vocal rest over an extended period of time is required. Some people choose instead to have them surgically removed. However, if you don’t correct the source of the problem -- the abuse that put them there in the first place -- they’ll simply re-form. Then you have to deal with the issue of scar tissue from the surgery as well.
 

Click here to read part 2 Throat Nodes: How to Avoid Them 


Nashville vocal coach Renee Grant-Williams reveals the trade secrets that have already helped hundreds of aspiring singers become celebrities: Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Dixie Chicks, Miley Cyrus, Huey Lewis, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Jason Aldean, Christina Aguilera...

Like me on Facebook at or follow me on Twitter @MyVoiceCoach. My blog can be found at MyVoiceCoachBlog.com.

Go to CyberVoiceStudio.com and sign up to receive my free weekly Video Voice Lessons.

For more information go to MyVoiceCoach.com or call 615.244.3280 to schedule a private voice session in person, by telephone or by Skype.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Learn to Sing with Free Vocal Lessons




Want to learn to sing, but can't find the extra cash to take vocal lessons? There's a wonderful learning resource out there that you should explore. It's organized by trained professionals, can be found wherever people can be found, and it's almost always free!

Sound good already? Think about joining a chorus as a way to sharpen your musical and vocal skills.

Most choral directors teach at least some vocal technique and usually take time to do warm-up exercises. Choral singing is a terrific opportunity to improve your rhythmic skills, your vocal range, your listening skills, your confidence, and your all-round musicality -- it's a free vocal lesson. You're bound to learn something new and useful.

In addition, those who have experienced it know that there is nothing quite so magical as singing in a group. Letting go of personal identity in order to aspire to something more grand, we become a small cog in a very large wheel of harmony. When you join a chorus you become part of a fine-tuned, but very large instrument -- one with perfection on its mind.

Like me, many of you, grew up singing in these groups: children’s chorus in Sunday school, Glee Club in high school, college chorale, community chorus, adult worship choir. That's where we encountered music as a discipline as well an art form. A return in that direction might give you not only the opportunity to hone your vocal craft, but the opportunity to meet the challenge of performing solos. You can see how joining a chorus is a great way to learn to sing; it's like taking free vocal lessons.

In addition to the improvements you will make to your singing voice, your general musicianship will advance. You will be exposed to the symbolic language of music and be forced to sharpen your ears -- skills you can carry over to whatever kind of music you might want to sing.



In this video Dee Dee Vogt tells me what she learned as a member of the Music City
Community Chorus. Founder/director/conductor Renee Grant-Williams

A tip for soprano chorus members: you have the easiest job because sopranos generally sing the melody. If you want to get a free harmony lesson as well as a free vocal lesson try spending some time singing with the alto section.

And there's more . . . We're going to assume that because you want to sing you are solo material. Once you have established yourself in the chorus the next step is to try out for the solos. This will give you even more personalized training. It also provides a wonderful opportunity to experience singing in front of an audience -- something that is hard to come by for a new singer.

A chorus is a also a great place to meet other like-minded people and begin to develop relationships. It gives you an opportunity to start building a fan base as well. Singers get to spend a lifetime doing self-promotion. You might as well get started now.

There's a lot to be learned from choral singing. A word of caution, however, if you have a vocal technique that is working for you, filter the choral director's new ideas through your good sense and take away only that which adds to what you are already doing. Just bear in mind that in choral singing the voice is meant to blend and solo singing the voice is meant to stand out.




Renee Grant-Williams directs the Nashville Music City Community Chorus in a concert titled "Bach 2 Bach" featuring works from Johann Sebastian Bach and his son Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach.  In this video, the Chorus performs "Magnificat" by Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach.  



Nashville vocal coach Renee Grant-Williams reveals the trade secrets that have already helped hundreds of aspiring singers become celebrities: Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Dixie Chicks, Miley Cyrus, Huey Lewis, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Jason Aldean, Christina Aguilera...

Like me on Facebook at or follow me on Twitter @MyVoiceCoach. My blog can be found at MyVoiceCoachBlog.com.

Go to CyberVoiceStudio.com and sign up to receive my free weekly Video Voice Lessons.

For more information go to MyVoiceCoach.com or call 615.244.3280 to schedule a private voice session in person, by telephone or by Skype.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Finding the Right Song Covers a Wide Range




The search for a great song covers a wide range of possibilities. The hook line from one of Larry Gatlin’s biggest hits was, “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name.” Well, that lyric often flashes through my mind when a student asks me where they can go to find songs.

Great songs are like gold bullion; they’re not simply lying around waiting to be picked up by just anybody. They are valuable commodities, carefully guarded, and parsed out only to the bidder who promises the fattest return. And, actually, this is as it should be, the songwriter deserves to be well compensated for creating something original. Naturally, they are going to serve up their best work to the most prominent artists. The income from writing a hit song is quite substantial, so a writer will be very choosey about who gets to record it first.

That doesn't offer much hope to the young singer looking for original song material. The paradox is that you need good songs to get the attention of a record label, but the only way you’ll get the really good songs is if you’re already signed to a label.

So what’s a singer to do? I mean, after praying for a miracle. After all, you can’t keep on using your cover version of “On Broken Wing” or "Folsom Prison" as your demo forever.

This list of places of where a singer can find a song covers only a few ideas; you need to think outside-the-box for yourself as well. Here are a few of my suggestions of where to go to troll for the right songs.

Album Cuts
Make a list of artists whose music you can relate to. Everyone, even the superstars, has had album cuts that received little or no airplay. Search through their early albums for these songs -- songs that might not have been blockbusters, but were carefully chosen out of hundreds of contenders and approved by many people before they ever made it onto the album. They are called "deep cuts" -- songs that were never released as singles. These songs might as well be original; they haven’t really been heard.

Once a song has been recorded and made available to the public, you do not need permission from the writer or publisher to record your own version. If you are contemplating recording songs for sale, contact rights organizations BMI, ASCAP or SEASAC, or go to the publisher directly, to determine the terms.

Gender Switch
If a female singer looking for a good song covers one previously recorded by a male singer, or vice versa, it adds a whole new element and is not likely to be considered a cover. Just think what different results you would get if Toby Keith and, let’s say, Alicia Keyes sang the same material. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that would be pretty interesting.

Re-do a Classic
Classic songs are a part of our collective heritage. Take a classic song, make it truly and uniquely yours, and you create your own legacy. Once again, you do not need the writer's or publisher's permission, unless you are planning on sales.

Songs From Other Genres
There’s a century of good songs to choose from, all styles, sizes and shapes. Search for songs that resonate with you, but have been recorded in a completely different style and format from the kind of music you sing. Then make it yours. Michael Bolton made a whole career out of recording song covers. Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” written by Dolly Parton, is an excellent example.

One-Hit Wonders
If you search Google for one-hit wonders, you will find the top 100 for each decade since the 1950's. These artists produced songs powerful enough to become modern classics. Who knows why they had only one hit? It could be that they exhausted all their creative collateral on that one song and never wrote a brilliant follow-up. But it could also mean that the band broke up during their first tour when the bass player's wife ran off with the drummer. There may still be good songs to be found by searching through the album cuts.

As you can see, if you are looking for fresh material and a good song, covers from unexpected resources can supply a treasure trove of possibilities. Be sure to sing them with your personal imprint.



Nashville vocal coach Renee Grant-Williams reveals the trade secrets that have already helped hundreds of aspiring singers become celebrities: Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Dixie Chicks, Miley Cyrus, Huey Lewis, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Jason Aldean, Christina Aguilera...

Like me on Facebook at or follow me on Twitter @MyVoiceCoach. My blog can be found at MyVoiceCoachBlog.com.

Go to CyberVoiceStudio.com and sign up to receive my free weekly Video Voice Lessons.

For more information go to MyVoiceCoach.com or call 615.244.3280 to schedule a private voice session in person, by telephone or by Skype.