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PS Ben peripatetic is just a silly word for a teacher that is not actually employed by a school.
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Kings School in Ottery St Mary. Their singing teacher is now head of music (and was actually not a singing teacher anyway) so I’m going to go in and do Monday mornings there (which is normally a lull for me). So I generally try to be working on three or even four technical aspects over longer lessons. Would you suggest I might spend 10 minutes on one thing, let’s say working with aspirate, glottal and balanced onsets and then I’ve got some time to then apply that to a song and then we’re done?
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eek! hopefully that changes soon for her sake
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I’d start by encouraging them that if they haven’t had laryngitis for a year, then they must be doing something right. If not, it would be happening all the time. For the moment, rest up and soothe the throat as much as possible. It’s inflamed so it needs time to get back to normal. Keep developing a good full vocal fold closure during lessons. That’s ultimately the thing that will stop this from becoming a persistent problem. I try to encourage any of my students that work with a breathy/raspy/distorted sound to listen to other performers who use that sound live. Live performers really have to understand how manage that kind of pressure on the voice. It might be as simple as having a bit of a cough and talk to the audience between songs to calm down a bit, or some songs may require a 5 minute break to recover from. It comes down to understanding what the body is trying to tell you. One of my favourites for this is James Hatfield from Metallica. He really understands that although he can scream his head off in the studio, he won’t be able to regularly performing with that sound so he changes the sound to something more sustainable. Finally, this is something that happens to the best of us. I had a problem just the other week. I was acting in a venue where the sound just went up, not out to the audience. Rather than trusting myself to project the sound out, I was basically yelling my lines and went hoarse the next morning. It happens, we recover, and if we don’t act stupid and try and keep demanding more from a damaged voice then we won’t get the horrible nodules, etc. Hope this long ramble helps!
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Lol I know that feeling. Especially when you teach people that used to be pupils of Matt Pocock! I console myself with the knowledge that even Janice Chapman, whose work I love, says “more research is needed” to various things. Even the best get stumped sometimes
