How To Sing Tired... When To Cancel Vocal Performance [UPDATED 2021]
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You're so tired you can't hardly string a sentence together, yet you have to sing that day! What can you do? OK, first of all the bad news: physical fatigue is a leading cause of vocal fatigue. Singing or even speaking a lot while tired can limit your vocal control, pitch accuracy and shorten your vocal range. It can cause vocal strain and even lead to vocal damage. There are some things you can do to limit vocal stress when singing tired. But you also need to recognize the point where you should cancel your performance - and be courageous enough to act on it! Let's dig in to all this:
How physical exhaustion can hurt your voice:
When you are physically dog-tired, drained, exhausted, sleep-deprived, you've 'hit the wall' or are 'under the weather' for whatever physical or psychological reason, your body does not want to support your voice. It just doesn't want to work that hard. This is because it takes more glucose and oxygen to work the bigger muscles of your core - your gluts, low abdominal wall, back, thighs - than to work the smaller muscles of the throat, larynx, vocal cords, tongue and jaw. Delegating the effort necessary for good singing to these smaller muscles is detrimental to them, causing tension to set in at all the wrong places.
Also, the big muscles in your back that determine your posture so your ribcage is open and your diaphragm is stretched - they don't like engaging in their duties either. So your breath control is compromosed, and your shoulders and neck muscles try to help, but just interfere with the free operation of your larynx and your facial articulators. Not good!
7 wise things to do when singing tired:
- DRINK UP!
- EAT UP!
- DON'T NUMB YOURSELF!
- WARMUP and COOL DOWN!
- SUPPORT YOUR VOICE!
- DON'T SLUMP!
- USE CORRECT TECHNIQUE!
If you sing tired but wisely:
- You should notice that after your performance your vocal cords don't feel strained at all. In fact, you should be able to sing even better at the end of your performance than at the beginning.
- You should feel even more physical (instead of vocal) exhaustion... and you'll probably be hungry!
- Your voice should feel and sound great the next day, instead of trashed.
Here's when you should cancel your performance:
If you really can't gather the low placed, big muscle energy to float your voice on top, or the tall, energetic posture necessary to open your ribcage and control your breath, then by all means don't sing. If you do, you risk short or long-term vocal problems because...
- You will guard.
- You will push.
- Your voice will suffer.
Don't let your busy life, successful career, or your fear of canceling a show cost you the health and longevity of your voice. If your voice matters, blowing your voice out even for a Grammy performance is ironically counter-productive for your career. Out of courtesy to those involved in the show, cancel as soon as you know you need to. But remember that if you have a pulse, you're allowed to get sick! From experience, my advice is:
or cancel your performance and live to sing another day!
- Need a good vocal warmup? Contact me and book a lesson; I'd love to help you!
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Labels: cancel vocal performance, Judy Rodman, singing tired, vocal coach, vocal strain, vocal technique, warm your voice up
8 Comments :
At November 27, 2012 at 9:06 AM ,
Diane Hurst said...
Good advice! Sometimes the body just doesn't cooperate with what we will so hard to do. Just yesterday I was amazed (and grateful) to be able to sing high-range notes again, after recovering from a mild cold that knocked my vocals out for a couple of weeks.
At November 30, 2012 at 6:41 PM ,
Unknown said...
SO happy to hear you are singing your high notes again, Diane! Believe me, I know how much that means:) Good to hear from you.
At April 6, 2013 at 11:35 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Criky this answers so many questions, I have mistaken this situation for "low mojo", some spirtiual mythical mysterious lack of ability to sing and play ( Im a guitarist as well ). When its just plain old tiredness....usually I force myself through, picking sad songs thinking its a mood thing ( Im a country singer ). This has been a disaster. You feel like you have lost it altogether
I do this for a living and when I tell my grown up kids singing & performing is tireing they laugh saying " you want to try what we do". Thanks for the insight. I will act on this advice and rest in future
At April 7, 2013 at 10:34 AM ,
Unknown said...
Anonymous... glad to be able to shed some light:) Take care!
At December 5, 2013 at 8:29 AM ,
Adam M said...
These tips are very useful. Singers are sometimes kept to such a tough schedule that singing tired has just become part of it all.
Adam M
http://singingmethods.net
At August 24, 2021 at 10:54 PM ,
Ron Calabrese said...
Hi Judy. Great advice, as usual, if you’re tired or under the weather. As I’ve gotten older, my voice needs more warm- up, particularly if I don’t get enough sleep. And getting enough sleep is increasingly difficult the older you get!
Luckily, my fellow cantors take the early masses on Sunday and I never have to yodel before 10 AM.
When singing challenging music, I prefer to eat very little, but use an old Pavarotti technique, a little greasy chicken. Chicken legs are the best but don’t overdo it. The Pav used to eat half the bird between acts!
Lots of water always helps and that pineapple juice you recommend is definitely effective for excessive mucus.
At August 31, 2021 at 10:59 AM ,
Elizabeth H. Cottrell said...
As I find so often with your articles, much of this advice can be applied to situations other than singing. Well done.
At September 2, 2021 at 3:51 PM ,
Judy Rodman said...
Ah, Elizabeth, I'm so glad you get that! Yes, this goes for all kinds of speaker situations and social occasions, too. Thanks for your comment, glad you enjoyed the article!
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