Seven Vocal Myths - Busted

1) Tea and Honey Will Sooth Your Vocal Cords: Busted -Tea and honey may sooth the throat (never the vocal cords):

• Look at the image and notice that the food or drink (green arrows) bypass the Larynx completely (where the vocal cords are) and continue down the Esophagus. Note: This means anything you drink or eat does not touch the vocal cords. They are protected by the Epiglottis during the swallowing process.

• When you breathe, (see the blue arrows) the air goes directly past the vocal cords and into the lungs. The most important function of the vocal cords are to protect the lungs from foreign objects. The vocal cords are so sensitive that they even react to something as light as smoke. This is why you cough when you breathe a small amount of saliva down the “wrong tube”, as they say. Imagine what would happen if tea and honey were to touch the cords on the way to the lungs.You’d cough as if you were drowning. The only way that you can sooth your vocal cords is with steam, or a vaporized mist from an atomizer with water, aloe vera juice etc. Note: I have found the steam room to be by far the best solution to soothing the vocal cords.The steam raises your heart rate which brings warm blood into the cords and the steam directly sooths the cords.

2) You Either Have a Good Singing Voice, or You Don’t:

• Busted -In the days before the microphone, this may have been true. However, we have the great equalizer now, the microphone. In the days before mics, if you weren’t born with a naturally loud and clear voice; you couldn’t be heard by the audience. (This was true no matter how well you trained your voice; no one could hear it.) However, in the days of the mic and amplification, everyone can hear you even if you don’t have a loud and clear voice. (Many audiences now days don’t even like the loud naturally, clear, voice sound; preferring unusual voices instead.)

3) Feel and Emotional Expression Cannot Be Trained:

• Busted -All I can say at this point is that I do it every day for singing artists (and their producers, and audiences love it).

4) You Have to Have Big Lungs to Belt Out Your Voice:

• Busted -When the voice is working naturally (without excessive force) and the voice is developed, there is a balance between how the vocal cords are resisting the air from the lungs. (This is what most people say is singing from the gut). If you blast your cords with so called big lungs, you just damage them; and your singing sounds strained and frequently out of key (out of balance).

5) Using a Lot of Reverb, Covers up Bad Singing:

• Busted -Having used recording equipment for 40 years, and after talking with many great music producers and engineers; believe us when we say that reverb only accentuates the bad sounds of the singer by carrying the sound for a longer time.

6) Only Tenors and Sopranos Can Sing High Notes:

• Busted -The belief is that if you are not a soprano or tenor, you can only sing as high as your chest-voice vocal range (bass, baritone, contralto, and alto). This is not true. Once the soft head voice, which most people start out with, is developed to its belting ability (I call this belted head voice) with emotional charge, anyone can sing notes higher than their chest voice range. Note: In today’s music, sopranos and tenors frequently use chest voice.And if sopranos and tenors want to sing even higher notes, they can develop their head voice and use the belted head voice to hit even higher notes. (My client Anita Baker (a contralto) uses chest voice and belted head voice extremely well.)

7) Men only have Chest Voice, Women only have Head Voice:

• Busted -Every day we hear men singing in soft or belted head voice, and women using soft or belting chest voice. This myth is from the European styles of classical music, where men are macho and women are feminine. (I don’t believe this was true in Italy, where the first schools of singing were created. I have heard Italian trained female singers and they are equally as strong as the men (in chest voice and head voice).)

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These kind of myths are too prevalent to mention them all. Don’t take people at their word (even college trained voice teachers). Do your own research. This will save you a lot of frustration over what suggestions work and what suggestions don’t.

PS. Watch out for semantics. Two or more people may be trying to say the same thing, and because their words don’t match; they argue, even though they may agree.

Happy researching.

Brad Chapman Vocal Pre-Producer www.bradchapmanvocals.com