Maia Calls Dances

For callers, our voice is our instrument—and if you lose your voice before or at a gig, it’s bad news bears. Luckily, I’m a precious choir kid in my other life, so I’m here with some vocal health tips to help you out.

This post is broken into two sections: maintenance (stuff you should be doing on the reg to keep your voice in good health) and damage control (what to do when it’s the day of the gig and you realize your voice is going). The line between the two is fuzzy—most of the “maintenance” suggestions are all the more important when you’re in acute vocal trouble, and most of the “damage control” suggestions are a good idea as standard practice—so don’t worry too much about the distinction, and instead feel free to pick and choose the tips that feel most helpful!

I’ll also say that this is a firehose of information: I’m dumping years of accumulated knowledge and tricks here, so feel free to just use the bits that make sense for you, rather than panicking about implementing everything in this post.

Maintenance: Good Vocal Health Practices

Just like you wouldn’t leave your fiddle out in the rain, you don’t want your voice to fall into disrepair because of bad habits. The below are great things to do as part of your regular practice—especially when you’ve got a big gig coming up, you’re in danger of catching a cold, you’re trying to keep yourself well for a longer event, etc.

Don’t strain!

The number one way to proactively protect your voice is to make sure you’re using good technique on the mic. You should never have to shout or strain when you’re calling—if you find yourself struggling to be heard, check in with your mic technique (are you close enough to the mic, and speaking into the right part?), and if that doesn’t fix the issue, ask your sound person to turn you up. (If over-speaking on the mic is a big issue for you, you might also consider asking for a monitor.) If you feel your voice starting to get tired, resist the temptation to push for volume to compensate; instead, work with your sound person to make sure you can be heard at whatever volume is healthiest for you (and refer to the vocal first-aid tips below).

Also, while it’s definitely possible to strain your voice on the mic, you’re at way greater risk of straining your voice off the mic. If you’re teaching a lesson or workshop to a smaller crowd, you should probably err on the side of using a mic for all but the smallest groups. Even if you have good vocal technique, it’s really easy to end up overspeaking or yelling, especially if you’re talking over music or getting a room’s attention. In these situations, having a mic is a lifesaver. Be sure to communicate this request to your organizers/sound people in advance.

Vocal technique

Technique will help you speak resonantly and efficiently for long periods of time without straining! There are lots of good guides out there for “vocal technique for public speaking” etc., but here’s my quick ‘n dirty summary.

Posture: Keep your knees softly bent, shoulders relaxed, back straight, and spine vertically aligned. (Make sure, for instance, that you’re not sticking out your neck, nor pulling it awkwardly back.) Your neck, jaw, shoulders, tongue etc. should all be loose and relaxed. Check in with your posture throughout a gig, and reset yourself if you notice your body accruing tension.

Breath: Breathe low in your belly—your shoulders shouldn’t move up and down when drawing breath. Use your breath to support your sound, rather than tensing your shoulders or pushing from the neck.

Warming up: Before speaking on the mic for multiple hours at a stretch (and especially before a morning session!), you should warm up your voice—analogous to how athletes warm up their muscles before jumping into a race. I’d suggest starting with gentle humming, lip trills,¹ tongue trills,² or even just a vowel of your choice; start in a comfortable middle range and slide around, gradually expand to higher and lower pitches (taking care not to push or force anything beyond where it feels comfortable).

Placement, range, and register: Experiment to find the vocal range that feels most comfortable and sustainable—don’t assume, for example, that you need to speak low in your vocal range for sufficient gravitas. Dancers will respond best to a vocal sound that is free, relaxed, and unforced.

Generally speaking, there are two vocal registers that we can leverage in our speaking voice: chest register (in our low and middle range) and head register (in our higher range). They’re named for where the majority of the resonance happens, so you can literally feel it when you’re using one or the other: if you put a hand on your breastbone, you can feel a resonant rumble there when you speak or sing in your chest voice, and much less when you use your head voice.

So experiment with your registers, and in particular, see what it feels like to use more of your head register in your speech.³ As alluded to above, lots of people think that for a loud and authoritative voice, they need to speak lower and chestier, and this often results in a tight and forced sound. If you can access your head voice and mix a bit of that in when you speak, you’ll get more brightness and resonance for less effort.

General flesh vessel care and staying well

Hydration is your friend! Stay hydrated and your voice will thank you. Caffeine has a drying effect, so caffeinated beverages are less hydrating-per-hydro than others; thus if you (for instance) subsist mainly on coffee, be sure you’re supplementing with plenty of water. If you’re (ahem) partaking of substances, hydration rules apply double (many of said substances dehydrate you, and make it really easy to forget to drink water).

Sleeping enough helps make sure your voice is well rested, and keeps your immune system in shape to fight off colds and sniffles. So unfortunately, yes, get your sleep.

To avoid getting sick in the leadup to a gig, consider wearing a mask in public spaces, and especially on trains/planes/buses and in airports. The literature is still sparse, but nasal sprays with xylitol (like this one) may offer some protection from COVID-19 (and mayyybe other airbone illnesses?). But don’t let fancy pharmaceuticals distract you from the tried and true method of keeping germs at bay: Washing! Your! Hands!

Off the mic but on the clock

I hate to say it, but vocal health rules still apply when you’re off the mic. This can be especially hard and annoying during weekends and longer events, where you want to party and have fun with your friends—I promise you still can, but be aware of your vocal (and physical!) health so you can do the job you’re being paid for.

Go have fun at the other dance sessions and parties, but avoid screaming, as it can damage your voice. (Maybe learn how to wolf-whistle instead?)

Tap out of late-night parties and go to bed when you need to, and/or squeeze in naps during the day to supplement your sleep. Also, I adore a good late-night conversation, but vocal production often falters when we’re tired, and we end up half-whispering or otherwise speaking without support, which can lead to a scratchy throat the next day. If you’re spilling your soul late at night (or early in the morning), make sure you’re doing it in a well-supported voice instead of a creaky whispery vocal fry abomination.⁴ (When in doubt, use lots of air, and pitch your speaking voice a little higher than normal; the vocal fry badness is most associated with speaking in a low register and with poor breath support. Even if it sounds a little goofy, your future self will thank you.)

Beware of seasons

Unfortunately, the seasons are here to mess with you personally.

Winter in particular tends to be super dry, both outside in the cold, and inside where heaters are cranked high. Directly pre-gig, I’d recommend keeping your heat on the low side of tolerable if you can, and running a humidifier while sleeping. When outside, wear a scarf over your nose and mouth—this makes sure you breathe warm moist air instead of cold dry air, and has the added benefit of keeping your neck warm so you don’t scrunch it against the cold and accumulate tension. Additionally, try to breathe through your nose rather than your mouth, as air coming through your nasal passages is warmer and more moist by the time it hits your windpipe and therefore doesn’t dry you out as much.

But summer can also be bad for your voice! Unfortunately, air conditioners are almost as bad as radiators in terms of air-dryification; consider running a humidifier if you sleep with an air conditioner, and if it’s on the cusp of AC weather, consider running a fan instead so you don’t dry yourself out all night.

Spring and fall are surely safe though, right? For many of us, yes, but if you’re an allergy sufferer, my condolences. Keep your symptoms controlled as best you can, with meds if necessary—but remember that those meds can dry you out, and so hydrate extra as needed. (My NP contact notes that Flonase doesn’t dry you out the way Claritin et al. do, so that’s something to consider.) A stuffy nose can make you breathe through your mouth more, especially when sleeping, and make your voice sad; if your allergies stuff you up, see the “de-snot” tips below.

Damage Control: Make Things Less Bad

What happens when you’re recovering from a bad cold before a gig, or accidentally stayed up all night talking and now need to call a morning session? When your voice is already sad, here are some things that might help—in addition to doubling down on all the tips from the above section.

Obligatory disclaimer that I am not a doctor!⁵ This blog post is not intended as medical advice; if any of the stuff listed in this post feels uncomfortable or painful, stop doing it. Talk to a doctor for any serious issues (including persistent cough or vocal pain), or if your symptoms don’t improve with time.

In general, your vocal sads will be due to some combination of strain/overuse and inflammation/dryness(/even micro-tears!) of the vocal folds—the former can result from just plain overuse, and the latter from active infection, the coughing from a lingering infection, or various drying environmental factors. The below tips attempt to address one or both of these underlying causes of vocal distress.

Rest yourself

Annoyingly, you recover from vocal strain the same way you recover from muscle strain; by resting. So to preserve your voice, talk less.

In severe cases, total vocal rest might be called for! Before Beantown Stomp 2024, I was recovering from a gnarly cold, and for the first day of the festival I didn’t talk except on the mic, and carried around a little card to show people that said I'm on vocal rest :). It was a bummer not to chat with my friends, but everyone was super respectful, and it led to some fun miming challenges!

When you do have to use your sad voice, be careful to warm up gently (especially if you’ve been on vocal rest all day), and be extra conscious of not straining on the mic. It’s often good practice to give the sound person a heads-up that you’re not operating at full capacity so they can help you compensate.

Get steamed, idiot

A common reason for the vocal sads is dryness (whether from environmental factors, lingering infection, a cough that messes with your mucosal lining, whatever). You can’t exactly soak your voice in water, but you can do the next best thing: inhale steam!

Take plenty of hot showers; run a humidifier in your space; consider a face steamer (something like this), or construct your own by boiling a pot of water, and inhaling bent over it with a towel draped over your head to catch the steam.⁶ (Common sense rules apply: don’t breathe steam so hot it hurts.)

Soothe that throat

Tea and hot drinks can soothe a sad throat, both when you drink them and when you inhale their tasty tasty steam. Teas with ginger and other herbs with anti-inflammatory properties are especially good choices. Throat Coat Tea is a mainstay of finicky singers throughout history—I hope you like licorice!

(Many of our favorite hot beverages are caffeinated, and as stated in the “Maintenance” section, caffeine dries you out. This isn’t to say that you can’t have black tea or coffee, but herbal teas might be a better bang for your buck. If you are drinking caffeinated things, you should also drink more water to compensate.)

Honey is a magical substance—soothing to throats, and according to some sources, just as effective as dextromethorphan⁷ at suppressing coughs! Put it in your tea, or just take it by the spoonful.

Stepping slightly out of the domain of beverages: gargling with warm salt water can help soothe a sore throat and possibly reduce inflammation of the lymph nodes.

Try not to cough

A persistent cough can make your throat pretty darn sad, so do your best to nip it in the bud. In addition to the steaming and throat-soothing methods already mentioned, consider a cough suppressant, especially overnight. (This might be a spoonful+ of honey as alluded to above, or an over-the-counter cough med—experiment and see what works best for you.)

Cough drops or lozenges are also a great tool here, especially if you can pop one when you first feel a tickle and before the actual coughing starts. I love original Ricola for everyday use, as they’re just about the right amount of mentholated for me. If you need to bring out the big guns, look to Fisherman’s Friend or medicated cough drops. (Though be careful: your vocal technique is doubly important when you’re mentholated to hell. If your throat is numb, it’s easier to accidentally strain your voice, as you can’t feel what’s going on vocally.)

If your coughing is productive, i.e. turning up mucus, and especially if it’s worse at night, it might stem in part from post-nasal drip; if this is the case, then de-snotting (below) might help with your cough as well.

De-snot yourself

Mucus traps germs and is generally our friend, but can sometimes be our enemy as well: specifically, a stuffy nose encourages mouth-breathing, which can dry out your throat (especially at night). Also, if you’re prone to post-nasal drip, mucus dripping into your throat can cause (or exacerbate) coughing.

You can consider an expectorant, i.e. mucus-thinner, like Mucinex or its generic. An over-the-counter saline nasal spray may also help loosen mucus.

Sleeping with your head propped on more pillows than usual can help mucus drain during the night. By the same token, if you’re trying to sleep and one side is totally stuffed up, sleep on your other side (i.e. with the stuffed side elevated) so the mucus will drain.

You might try a sinus massage or similar. I like this technique—it may be just a fancy placebo, but it works for me!

Salt-water gargles (mentioned above) can also help with mucus buildup, as can the heat from hot drinks (thinning and loosening mucus in the nose and throat).

My personal favorite de-snottening technique is nasal irrigation (which you may know as “neti-potting”)—it’s kind of like waterboarding yourself, but medicinal! It takes a little getting used to, but clears your snot like nothing else.⁸

What drugs do I take?

If you’re sick, there’s no shame in taking meds about it! However, there are definitely a few things to keep in mind.

Firstly, many medications—and definitely Sudafed and its ilk—can dry you out, so drink extra liquids to compensate.

Speaking of Sudafed, the over-the-counter stuff (Sudafed PE) is trash.⁹ Ask the pharmacist for real Sudafed (the kind with pseudoephedrine)—you don’t need a prescription, they just ID you to avoid people buying a ton and making meth, apparently.

And, as a general rule, you should medicate specific symptoms instead of taking a catch-all drug with multiple ingredients, as the latter stands more chance of drying you out and otherwise messing with your system. For instance, if your problem is snot, just take Mucinex; if your problem is coughing, just take Robitussin. (To put it another way: look for a drug that addresses your specific symptoms, not some wide-net “cold and flu” med.)

If you’re tossing and turning in symptom hell, there’s also no shame in a sleep aid—Nyquil or Tylenol PM or just Zzzquil. Do what you need to be well rested so that you can fight off your germs.

The cough that won’t stop coughing

Unfortunately, coughs sure can linger—up to 6-8 weeks after a cold! In the case of persistent cough, most of the above advice applies: soothe your throat with steam/honey/hot drinks, try to stop coughing fits as soon as they start, and de-snot yourself if you suspect post-nasal drip.¹⁰

In particular, if part of your issue seems to be post-nasal drip, you might consider Flonase, a nasal steroid that can help de-snot you. It takes up to a week to start working, so it doesn’t make sense as a go-to when you’re actually sick, but in the case of a lingering cough, the timelines make sense.

If your cough is worsening, if you get coughing fits so bad that you gag, or if your cough lasts more than 6-8 weeks—or even just if the above tips aren’t working and you’ve got a gig coming up—contact a doctor! They can help figure out if something is really wrong, potentially prescribe a steroid inhaler to properly kick the cough, etc.

So There You Go

I hope this big pile o’ information is helpful rather than overwhelming! Different people have different failure modes (vocally, physically, dance-weekend-ly, etc.), so please pick and choose the info here that’s most useful to you. Take it easy, take good care of your voice and body, and have a great time on that mic!