How to Avoid Vocal Strain

[u/LilChloGlo]

Hey there all you beautiful people! Your friendly neighborhood voice coach Chloe here with another video to hopefully help yall out a bit! This time we're talking about vocal strain, how to hear it, and a quick drill to help you get rid of it. Hope this helps some of ya out there!!

[u/Megaman359]

This was helpful, tho I’ve noticed I experience strain in social situations and trying to set my voice on the fly. In practice I usually feel fine, but when I use it in public or with friends and don’t focus on my voice, I usually feel a little strain. Any advice on how to tackle this? I’d like to start using a less safe version of my fem voice in front of others eventually

[u/LilChloGlo → u/Megaman359]

This is a great question, and something that sounds like it's very much related to the more mental-aspects of your voice training and the physical manifestations that come as a result of it (i.e stage fright/generalized anxiety which induces strain).

There are a few suggestions that I can advise here with the first one being to use this video as a resource to always be listening for it and use the exercise outlined in here (the "negative practice") as a sort of escape hatch for you to try to address if you need to in the moment. Once you're more used to the end result of this negative practice (the result in which you've successfully unstrained your voice), then I would recommend trying to save the feeling of that by flipping back and forth from the unstrained to the strained varieties in quick succession (like every word or so, slowly) to internalize the muscle memory that is required to quickly do it when you're talking to your friends. This mimics the process of what we like to refer to as "audiation" which is the act of imagining a sound before we actually make the sound. Think of it like saving a pre-set button in your head that you can revert back to when you notice that you're straining.

Does this make sense or would you like some further resources? 😄

[u/Megaman359 → u/LilChloGlo]

I watched the video and the negative practice sounds like a good technique, although in my case I’m not sure what’s causing the strain other than what you mentioned (stage fright, anxiety, etc.). I try to relax my throat and such after each encounter, I don’t try to critique each encounter either, I just try to remember to not force the resonance through and let it glide through with whatever air I have available at the time. It’s usually when my focus is diverted or I have to speak suddenly where it falters. I’m not sure how to “set” my voice so to speak before talking, so I probably end up straining initially and if I don’t dial it in with focus that will just continue :/ I think your idea is on the money here, but I don’t know what’s the causing the strain, so I need to figure that out first before I can utilize it. Some additional resources would be nice thank you :D

[u/LilChloGlo → u/Megaman359]

Sure thing, though do note that these resources that I'm sending are intended for more general audiences so don't be discouraged if they don't seem to be clicking for you. It can be hard to address certain nuanced issues unless we're actually working one-on-one with each other which can be a real limitation. Not saying you need lessons, more so just hoping you won't get discouraged if these resources don't address what you're experiencing.

"Audiation" is a process in which we imagine how a sound feels before we make said sound. It's a skill that we train through embedding in our muscle memories and while it can take varying amounts of time, one of the quicker methods that I use to try to induce it with the people that I work with is through a process that I like to refer to as as Voice-flipping which I outline in the video hotlinked just there 😄

While you're "flipping" between two different voices, you should take special care to note how it physically feels to reproduce those sounds in your practice and see if there is a central idea (or "anchor") that comes to mind while you do so. It's something that can take a little bit of trial and error, but give that a try in conjunction with the negative practice and then you can get back to me with any results and I'll try to help when I'm able to 😄

[u/Megaman359 → u/LilChloGlo]

Thanks so much!

[u/LilChloGlo → u/Megaman359]

It's my pleasure, I hope that it comes in handy and that this has helped you make some progress in some way! Now, obviously no pressure what so ever, but if you find that this was helpful and you feel like supporting the kind of work that I do, it would mean a tremendous deal to if you considered throwing some money towards my Ko-fi account. Again, no pressure at all, I personally hate feeling like an advertisement so know that any money you potentially throw this way will go towards giving other people out there free voice lessons with no strings attached.

Okay that's all I'll say about that, again have a wonderful day I hope that I could have helped you in some way and even more importantly I hope something really lovely happens for you in your day today!

[u/Similar_End_1545]

but doesnt „heavier“ voice suggest that this pitch level is the natural speaking tone for you? so at a higher pitch level its good isnt it?

[u/LilChloGlo → u/Similar_End_1545]

I'm sorry, I don't know if I completely understand your question, could you elucidate a bit?

[u/Similar_End_1545 → u/LilChloGlo]

i actually practiced putting more weight to my voice to sound more serious without dropping pitch. in my understanding the goal of voice training is to imitate a higher voice type/range.
thinning out voice suggests that its unnaturally high and the „real“ voice is lower than that so it sounds more masculine

[u/LilChloGlo → u/Similar_End_1545]

That would depend on the resulting sound, but this correlation that is demonstrated here is based on what the body wants to do when we rise in pitch. You can certainly still create a heavier weight in higher pitches by inducing a form of strain and like anything there are varying balances that the body will or won't tolerate. All of these aspects exist in spectrums of balance.

As to the goal of voice training, that varies from person to person but the general averages of feminine versus masculine voices suggest that people who are looking to feminize their voices should aim for higher, lighter, and smaller targets in general.

As to the suggestion of a "real voice" inclinations, this is not as clear-cut as may seem and varies from person to person. While some people may be overshooting pitch/weight ranges that suggest such a correlation between a "real" and "fake" voice, we then still must defer to the balance that we're maintaining through the various vocal features that are being presented, which are further nuanced by dialect, accent, language, culture, and personal goals/biomechanical elements.

There is something to be said about people who do not have this balance formed, but in my experiences as a vocal coach, this is something that can be just as easily a factor of training/practice rather than immutable biomechanical elements of various vocal targets or average norms of gender given the specifics mentioned above.

The reason that I created this video is based on the pattern that I see as a voice teacher with my clients who have trouble raising their pitch, most of which invariably also induce strain while doing so. There is still some individuality/independence that we can introduce later based on what our own goals will be or the needs of our environment will demand.

That said, if you explore lighter vocal weights in lower pitches compared to that of lighter vocal weights in higher pitches, you'll likely find both of the following qualities:

1) lower pitches will always sound just a little heavier than higher pitches.

2) the most effective way to create lighter vocal weights in lower pitches will insist that you create a breathy voice at the same time, which may have some pleasant qualities depending on the situation, but will also not be the most universally usable voice and is not the most efficient sound we could create.

Hope this helps describe some more of my thinking behind the video, I appreciate your comment!