What do I mean by “safe singing”

“Safe singing” feels like a very catch-all term.  

What I’m referring to with “safe singing”  is that 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 to establish whether you’re pushing it too hard or not.  You need to consider are when you’re actually singing and then how things feel afterwards. 

When you’re singing

When to be cautious

Be cautious if your throat feels dry, scratchy, tickly or what you’re doing makes you want to cough.

If you’re feeling any of these things either stop or do it  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?   

If you really want to do what you’re trying to do but it’s aggravating your then this is a time to reach out to a voice specialist to get help. 

When to play with wild abandon 

If what you are doing feels odd or unfamiliar, usually described by singers to me as “weird” that’s probably fine.  

You can’t learn anything new if you’re not prepared to explore new things and new things often feel “weird”. 

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.  Go for it. 

After singing

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

When to treat with caution

You’ve probably overdone it if….

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

You feel like you’re having to work much harder than normal to do what you normally do.  

Your voice takes much longer than usual to warm up.  

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

When you exercise at the gym or in a sport and you sprain or pull something then you know when you’ve done too much.  You can really feel it.  If your voice feels like the equivalent of a sprain or a pull at the gym then you’ve probably pushed it too much with your singing previously. 

When to play with wild abandon 

If your voice feels like you’ve had a work-out that’s fine.  

Things may feel a bit different to usual but your voice doesn’t feel like it’s struggling, just that things feel a bit different that’s fine. 

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 face, neck or 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.   That’s totally fine and nothing at all to worry about. 

Watch the video on YouTube here.

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

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