So last week my voice decided that after a trip to Brazil right into radio week where I talked about 8 hours a day right into 2 shows...it would just say, Enough. So I came home and got to have almost 2 weeks home with nick. Amazing. But I had no voice. Score for my husband, right? Haha. We had cowrites set up every day, so I had to "attempt" to talk as little as possible while writing songs with people.
We met some really great people who we wrote with this week...and wrote some beautiful songs we're excited about. Its my first time I've really written worship, so its the new, weird thing for me but I've really loved it!
So doing the whole voice rest thing...well, I've had to rest my voice before and each time I feel like I end up learning something from the whole shutting up thing. This time around this is what clicked for me. Obviously my job depends on me having a voice. 4 other people depend on me having a voice, and a lot of people who buy tickets and a promoter who's spent money are affected by whether or not I can sing. Sometimes that pressure might be a bit much for me. And the truth is,I've had shows where I can barely talk by the end of it, but God manages to get me through and our fans are so sweet and forgiving of my manly vocals. Haha. So when my voice is hoarse and I'm trying to rest it, I'm sort of choosing my words wisely, you could say. Normally, I'm a talker. Communication is definitely a love language of mine...talking is how I connect and love people. So not to talk feels so weird for me. But when you know you should talk less, it makes you edit all the unimportant things you might think to say normally.
Moral of my story..I could talk less in general. The truth is,most of us could. There is wisdom in being a good listener. In sometimes sitting back and watching the world around you, noticing things you might not if you were too busy talking. Thats my lesson from voice rest this week. If i always thought,what could i not say? Whats not that important? I might be better off. Or maybe i'd just lose my voice less. :-)
Here's to shutting up more often, friends! I'm off to bed and then another week home, with cowrites every day and then shows this weekend. Excited to get this worship album out to any of you interested...next spring! Night night..
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Good words! I should learn to speak less!
ReplyDeleteVocal rest (as us people who study voice in college call it) is important! I don't want to preach (which I could start doing very easily), but in my years of classical and musical theatre singing I've found two rules of thumb that help me a lot:
ReplyDelete1) Drink lots and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of water. Keeping your vocal cords hydrated and lubricated as much as possible is important!
2) What's good for the body is good for the voice (and vice versa). Stuff that makes your body crappy isn't good for your voice either.
Here's a link with other good stuff about vocal health.
And having no voice for 2 weeks is very unusual...seeing an ENT doctor who can literally *look* at your vocal cords would be a good idea. Developing vocal nodules (basically calluses on your vocal cords) could make you not have voice for that long. If you're getting nodules, you need to know about it!
I could go on even longer about vocal biology but I'm going to stop babbling now...and if you're wondering who I am, my name is Tracie, I'm a long-time fan who drove to California from Utah to see you in 2009, and I'm way psyched for the show in Salt Lake on October 3. :D