What do Ariana Grande and Bon Jovi have in common?
What if I told you that the way they are speaking is hurting their voices?
I’ve heard them both speak with a gravel sound in interviews.
So, what does that have to do with singing? I will show you that your speaking voice has a lot to do with whether you’re helping or hurting your singing voice.
Do you have problems straining? Do you lose your voice after singing or get tired quickly? Are you wanting to start changing what is causing this?
I had broken blood vessels, nodes, and a growth on my vocal folds (caused by doctors) that covered 40 percent of my air passage.
I know how it feels to lose your voice, but I also know what it feels like to get it back and have renewed strength.
It starts with your speaking voice.
You see when I was a teen, around 16 or 17 years old, the newspapers said I was going to make it very soon. I was signed to the biggest agency, The William Morris Agency, and my career was moving upwards.
The problem was that my home life was really bad. My father was my agent, manager and music teacher, which was working out very well but there was a lot of abuse and I took it out on my voice. I started straining when I sang. I was screaming inside because I couldn’t defend myself. It took a toll on my voice and gave me broken blood vessels. Somehow, I worked through them, left home and slowly started down a path toward healing and health. I continued to strain though by pushing my voice, not warming up and still having emotional problems.
I began to be hoarse most of the time and started talking very low and guttural, like the sound Ariana Grande and Bon Jovi have when they are being interviewed.
Finally I went to a doctor who said I had nodes which are benign tumors on the vocal folds, and he introduced me to a voice therapist. I started changing a lot of things and my speaking pitch was one of them.
I stopped singing for eight months and the nodes went away. You don’t need surgery, but you do need patience. I was determined and it paid off.
There was a lot I already knew but as I started reading the suggested books the therapist recommended, and applying this knowledge to my voice, I learned a different approach to Chest Voice and Head Voice, and later the Mix.
I was more aware of my breathing and support and started to build strength and discipline. My speaking voice was slowly changed from Bb2 to Bb3, the Bb below middle C.
That’s an octave difference. At first, I thought the therapist was crazy. I was stubborn so it took me longer to achieve the change in where I spoke. It’s usually hard to raise your speaking voice because it feels strange to our ears and where we’re used to speaking. We as singers must address this for a healthy voice.
We don’t realize how low those guttural or gritty tones are, unless we go to sing them and we can barely or can’t sing them at all because they’re so low.
In the interview that is being talked about recently, Ariana Grande did raise her pitch which she said was to save her voice but I would add that the gravel sound she still had needed to be addressed as well.
The same applies to Bon Jovi. In an interview I watched, he spoke of his surgery to repair one side of his vocal folds, but as he was speaking he wasn’t as clear as needs be to protect the health of his vocal folds and voice. This wasn’t because of his surgery, it was the placement of his pitches, breathing and support of his sound.
A guttural sound when speaking doesn’t flow. It’s hard to hear and grates on the listener, even if they don’t realize this, subconsciously, it’s irritating.
If you are hearing a guttural, gritty, or gravelly sound when you speak, consider these four areas you can work on.
1. Pitch – Where you speak needs to be at your optimum pitch for you. This is the pitch where you get the most sound with the least amount of effort. If your speaking is gravely, or gritty, you are too low. This puts stress on the vocal folds where you make your sound.
The problem arises when you try to raise your pitch, you think it sounds weird. When I have clients try to change where they are used to speaking they often say things like that’s too high or I sound squeaky. It feels like it’s up in the stratosphere when it’s a lot lower than perceived. So be patient with yourself and keep working on raising your pitch.
2. Clarity - Your speech needs to be clear. You’re trying to save your voice and a clear tone does that. Your vocal folds come together to make sound but with being too low and being guttural you are irritating them. You want to have your muscles ready to sing and strong enough to do your songs. Speaking too low and guttural only breaks down your voice.
3. Breathing - We forget to breathe in tense situations. An interview can bring tension, so be aware of any situation where you find yourself tightening your body and your voice. This can cause your speaking to start to lower and have that gritty sound you want to avoid.
Negative or positive subjects can affect your breathing. With negative subjects we tend to tighten and with positive subjects we tend to rush. In both instances, your breathing can go out the window so to speak.
4. Support – When you breathe and then support your speaking, it flows. You don’t constrict the throat or have your words die off. A common problem is the ends of sentences. The voice tends to drift down too low. Your support will help you maintain a healthy sound all the way through your speaking.
Each of these points work together to keep your speaking voice from robbing your singing and having all that it needs to do a great job for you. Remember, you use the same muscles for speaking and singing, so you don’t want to overwork them when you speak. You may sing great and with the proper technique, but when you speak, you must have the same discipline to preserve your voice in total.
You can do this and I’m here to walk you through your singing journey to singing freely and without strain.
Marquita Waters is a Singer, Vocal Coach and Author. She was signed to the William Morris Agency during the Frank Sinatra era, and to major labels. She has authored a book, I Will Not Grow Weary, about her life and singing and specializes in helping singers correct and eliminate straining their voices to be able to sing for a lifetime. Visit marquitawaters.com for more, and to book a free 20-minute consultation.
