Sound advice for the stage - Take care of your voice

1. Exercise your abdominals. Yep! Your voice (really your breathing) is supported by that 6-pack. The better your abs, the stronger your voice.

2. Warm up. Google “Vocal warm-ups” and you’ll have more syllables to sing than Taylor Swift. Warm up your mouth and lips, too. Sing scales while pretending you are on the Arctic Tundra. Brrrrrr!

3. Warm tea – honey – lemon. Tried and true. Make it herbal tea (Isn’t all tea herbal?) Throat Coat seems to work for many. Honey has some medicinal qualities. The citric acid in lemons seems to cut through the mucus. Take it on stage with you.

4. Use a Neti-pot to get rid of nasal snot. I used to know a guy who would snort salt water out of a glass using two straws and spit it out his mouth. The Neti saline solution is a much better liquid to use. Google Neti-pot. Do this at least 60 minutes before you sing. Sometimes, the water collects in a distant sinus and decides to release at the most inopportune time.

5. Eat Lay’s Potato Chips or Fritos Corn Chips. The salt, the grease, the crunch. For some reason it all works together to make things just right in your throat. Don’t make it a meal. Just a few right before you sing.

©2013 Doug Hanks. All rights reserved. Use with permission by contacting me.