I met some girlfriends last night for dinner. We all hadn't seen each other for a while and needed some good catching up time. The Japanese restaurant that one of them picked was very nice, fun, and trendy but it was an acoustical nightmare for me.
You know how you can be sitting across from someone and literally not hear them? That was the whole evening. There were four of us and to be heard you had to "speak over" the sound. That is one of the WORST things you can do for your voice. It is similar to trying to hold a conversation at a club- crazy stress on your vocal chords. Doing too much of "over speaking" can take days to vocally recover from.
The restaurant was built in such a way that the sound was just as loud as it could be. I find myself in these situations shutting down a bit because my voice starts to hurt so I just start being a "listener". It's just another craziness that goes along with being a singer. I couldn't complain about it to my friends, what would the point have been?
I didn't have a singing gig today, but I did have a radio interview in the morning and students following so I needed some voice to count on. When I am in more of a performance mode, I find that I can become a real recluse trying to save my voice from all the harshness out there. It is a tough part of being a professional singer. It looks so glamorous, but there is a lot of pressure to make the perfect sound which requires a high level of discipline from a singer in many situations; Even going out to dinner with friends.
Any of you out there feel the same way?
Too bad there isn't an acoustical rating for restaurants on Yelp or in Zagat!
I think I'll go and do my Vocal Repair Cd for a bit now...
Sing well!
Ariella Vaccarino- creator of Voice Lessons To Go
(For a gentle morning warm-up try Vocal Repair)
(v.1 Vocalize and Breath- includes a long section of breathing exercises)
http://www.facebook.com/voicelessonstogo
http://www.twitter.com/voicelessons2go
Posted on 02/17/2015 at 11:16 AM
