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Help Please! Voice Problem?!

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Hi,

for the past week, i've experience a slight tenderness in the throat, but not it's gone. The problem is that I found that something's wrong with my voice. When I speak, nobody notices any changes. I did some time ago, but now, everything seems to be normal again.


But the problem is that sometimes, when I "start" speaking, it feels like there's an air leak in my throat: meaning I let out a very quiet and hardly noticeable whistling sound. Then as I speak, everything seems to be normal. And that air leak doesn't happen always, maybe like 2 times out of 10.



When I emit a constant sound, meaning for example: aaaaaa - iiiiiii

i tried it last night, and the sound seemed correct and normal. But I noticed that whenever I do that while stretching my throat, meaning leaning my head back, the sound changes completely, and it turns into a somewhat breathy and weird voice. But it's not very breathy and very weird, I was comparing it to my "normal" voice.


For your information, i've been training moderately "hard" for a play, in which I had to speak in several different tones. And the throat tenderness occurred afterwards. But since two days ago, the tenderness is gone, and everything seem to be a lot better. Now, there's only that little air leak that troubles me.

Oh, and after I finish talking (usually varies from 1 to 10~15 minutes), I try to rest my voice, but then I feel this dull tenderness in my throat. It usually disappears in about 30-60 minutes after I stop talking. It's not really pain, just some kind of dull ache... I also noticed that when I talk, I sometimes run out of breath, even for short sentences. It doesn't look good, does it?

Can anyone help? Give advice?


Thanks!
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replied April 23rd, 2005
I'm no expert, but it sounds like fatigue...Can probably be remedied by improved breath support, and a bit more release. Also, are you sure you're speaking in your true range? Because that can tire you out...I'm often accused by acting teachers of not speaking in my natural range, because I speak too high...But then my singing teachers tell me, "you're a soprano, it's unnatural for you to speak so low, but you do it because you're socialized to."

:shrugs:

i'd recommend something like an alexander course, or maybe yoga...And beyond that, see a speech therapist or a singing teacher to work on breath support.
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