What do I mean by “safe singing”

“Safe singing” feels like a very catch all term.  What I mean is when you’re vocalising some things need to be approached with caution and some things you can go for with lovely, wild abandon.   There are two times to consider when you’re working out if you’re pushing too much or not.  When you’re singing after after you’ve sung. 

When you’re singing

When to be cautious

If your throat feels dry, scratchy, tickly or it makes you want to cough.

If you’re feeling of these things either stop or vocalise for a much shorter period of time. Can reduce the effort and tension in what you’re doing?

Are you working harder than you need to work?  Can you be lazier?   

This is a time to reach out to a voice specialist to get help. 

Play with wild abandon 

If what you are doing feels odd or unfamiliar, usually described as “weird” that’s probably fine.  You can’t learn anything new if you’re not prepared to explore new things.  

If you are worried because it feels like there’s work happening in your throat or even elsewhere in your body that is probably fine provided your voice isn’t dry, scratchy, tickly or aggravating.  Have fun. Explore. 

After singing

This probably relates the next day but it may be later in the same day. 

Treat with caution

If, after you’ve been using your voice, either spoken or sung, it feels excessively tired.  

If you feel like you’re having to work much harder to do what you normally do.  

If your voice takes longer than usual to warm up.  

If you are working on your singing pay attention to your spoken voice.  So often fatigue doesn’t show up in in singing but you can hear it in a person’s spoken voice. 

If it feels  the equivalent for your voice to if you had done some exercise and pulled or sprained something then you’ve probably gone a bit too far. 

Play with wild abandon 

Your voice feels like you’ve had a work out but it’s feels ok.  Things feel a bit different to usual but your voice doesn’t feel like it’s struggling more, just that things feel a bit different. 

It’s the equivalent to if you had done a workout for your voice and the next day you feel a muscular ache.  After a voice workout you might feel the after-effects in your mouth, face, neck/throat.  You might feel it anywhere in your body but you’re most likely to feel it from the neck up and in your abs. 

Sidenote.  I learned very new things about this when I studied distortion singing. I’ll share about that at another time.