Part-Time Singing Blues

One thing that professional singers do all of the time is: sing. The voice is a muscle, it needs to be kept in shape. It needs warming up to be used effectively (I remember Ian Gillan on the Big Breakfast bemoaning about being asked to sing - scream!! - so early).

So what happens if you are not a pro singer, and have just come off the back of a full weekend of (what passes in some circles for) singing - and still have an issue with your vocals breaking up at the high end of range? Well, for me, it is tea and a lot of in-car screaming. The answer has never been (for me) to "rest", for all that does is makes me even more croaky when the time comes to open the vocal chords up again.

There are certain songs and vocalists that help with this recovery process, in terms of singing along with them in-car. David Coverdale, for example, has always been a good one in assisting me to iron out the kinks in my vocals. I'm not a natural tenor, so there are always kinks of one sort or another at the upper end of my range.

Tea, too, is a good smoother. Maybe some pro vocal coach could tell me why, but it works. Better than Lockets and Fisherman's Friends!