Our voices are pretty incredible. In fact, our voice is an instrument. Let’s talk about that! Hey you guys! Welcome back. I am just so excited to talk about the voice a little bit more today. Our voice is incredible. You know, we walk around every day and we don’t realize that we do have this amazing instrument in our bodies. So just like any other instrument, it’s really important that we take care of our instrument. So I’m kind of going to go into detail about how to take care of our voice.
I know that I’ve said this before in my introduction video but I cannot stress it enough. Water is so important. Water, water, water. You’re gonna hear that a lot throughout these videos, but really water is what is gonna help keep our bodies hydrated and keep our voice hydrated. I mean the last thing we want to do is to not have enough water and then our voice suffers and is scratchy and then we feel some straining. You know, water is just always number one on my list when I’m talking about vocal health.
So how do singers make their sound? Breath support! Breath is a huge foundation of healthy singing. I mean, think about the people who play a trumpet, or the flute, or saxophone. They are producing that sound using breath. It’s no different with singing. If we have good breath support then we are allowing our voice to be at its full potential. Okay? If we aren’t breathing correctly it just leaves room for a lot of straining and even vocal damage. And we don’t want that. So I’m super excited because I’ll be teaching you guys some awesome breath support exercises in a future video and I know it’s going to help you guys understand why breath is so important.
When I was in middle school and high school, I played tennis. I love tennis! I still play it today – it’s just one of my favorite sports! One of the things that my coaches always focused on was warming up. And if you’ve played any sort of sport you know that warming up is what helps us and prevents us from getting injured or straining a muscle, and it also just gets us warmed up so we have a little bit more energy. That’s exactly the same thing with singing because our voice is a muscle and in order for us to improve and learn new things we have to warm it up. It also prevents us from straining the voice or making it feel a little bit difficult to get those higher or lower notes. You know, warming up just gets us to have that energy we need to sing the best that we can.
So let me just recap everything I just said. First, we need to make sure that we’re drinking a lot of water. Water is what’s gonna keep our voices hydrated and healthy. Second, we need to make sure that we have good breath support. When we have good breath support we will be able to produce the healthiest sound and the strongest sound possible. And finally, we always need to make sure to warm-up. If we warm-up correctly then that will prevent our voices from straining or damaging them.
So why is it important to take care of our instrument? Well, I look at it this way. Our voice has the ability to change the world! And I know that’s like, “Woah, the world?!”. I believe that our voices have such a big impact on other people. You know, this is why I love musicals and why I love to sing because I believe that when I’m singing I can use my voice to spread hope and goodness and kindness. And you can, too! But the only way we can get to that point and feel that confidence when we sing is if we take care of our instrument. I know it’s sometimes hard to drink a lot of water, or feel in the mood to warm-up because it takes a lot of time. Sometimes we’re just a little bit more tired so our breath support may not be at one hundred percent. But I can promise you that if you do take that time, if you do put in that energy, you won’t regret it and that you’ll be able to use your voice for good.
And that is all for our video today. Our voice is an instrument! If there’s anything for you to take away from that – it’s that! Make sure to give this video a like and make sure to stay tuned for future videos. I’m so excited! We’ll be doing some fun breathing and warming up and learning more about our incredible instrument: the voice. Thanks all!
I do these videos every other week, but if you still want more musical theatre, check out my newsletter! It’s called, Beyond The Score, and it just takes a closer look at musical theatre history. You can find that here.