Question 21

I am a first semester voice student and have always come out of my main lesson with a sore throat since I started 4 weeks ago. What to do?

1. Does your professor know you get sore throats in voice class? For a constructive student-teacher relationship based on trust, it should be possible and purposeful to address this circumstance and perhaps find a solution together.
2. Have there been impairments or changes?

• Is there an infection, illness or acute lack of sleep?
• Has there been a change due to moving house when you started your studies that affects you "negatively"?
• Have you changed your eating habits?
• Has your drinking behaviour changed with regard to water since you started your studies, i.e. do you drink enough water?

3.  You could clarify these points for yourself:

• How does your sore throat manifest itself?
• Where do you feel the pain?
• When, i.e. after what time in class, does the sore throat occur?
• Do they persist after class and how long do they last?
• Does recovery take place and if so, how long does it last?
• Do you go into the next lesson with a "residual, existing" sore throat or do you have the feeling that you start symptom-free and that the pain then reappears in the course of the lesson?
• Can you attribute the pain to a particular exercise or process?
• Your professor probably uses unfamiliar, new exercises or movement patterns for you. Can you confirm these as the trigger of your pain? Is this the case with the complete exercise or only at certain pitches or volumes? If yes: Where does the pain start? Rather in the high or low range and at what volume?
• Is it direct pain or does it start with a feeling of discomfort, pressure on the neck or a pulling? Where do you feel this discomfort and how strongly do you feel it?
• Is this feeling of "discomfort" associated with a change in movement, i.e. have you had other movement patterns before. If so, what did you change, where and with what intensity?
• Is this change visually noticeable in the facial area or in the body? Where do you feel this change?
• Do you change anything in the neck area?
• Do you feel tension in the neck area?
• Do you feel a tightness in your throat?
• Is your throat rather dry?
• Do you clear your throat more often or is there a "coughing" sensation after singing?
• Do you associate the feeling of sore throat with a change in sound, i.e. does your voice still respond? Do you pass over the pain and present your vocal sound with a different effort and a different pattern of movement- Does the voice become tired and does this also affect your physical condition, i.e. does a physical tiredness become noticeable from the onset of the sore throat?
• Do you sing with a different effort than before and if so: where have you changed this effort and to what intensity?

In answering these questions, other questions or points will probably come to your mind. For us singers it is important that we know what, how, where and when takes place and with what intensity. It is not easy at the beginning to focus on your own body. In the course of time, sharpening one's own perception will lead to certainty, because only when I know where I can and should change what and when, will I be able to optimise my own singing. It can be extremely helpful for us singers to sharpen this kinaesthetic perception.
With this own analysis and the diagnosis of a phoniatrist or an ENT doctor experienced in dealing with singers, the singer could then more easily try to find a constructive solution to the problem with his main teacher.
I would always consult an ENT doctor in case of recurring symptoms. This way you can find out what is really causing the pain and possibly clarify if there is an organic cause or if there is a singing-related reason. This helps, especially at the beginning of training, to know what is going on in one's own throat when "something" is felt.
It is always possible that when there are major changes in muscular movement patterns, physical feedback may occur, which should be a warning. For this reason it is advisable, especially when beginning to work with a new student, to observe very carefully and cautiously any changes in movement patterns and to be very attentive to small, subtle changes.
It is important to remember that an intervention is taking place in a system that is functioning "somehow". With all well-intentioned "optimisation" it is important, in my opinion, to ensure that the stability of the student's system is maintained. This may require a lot of patience from the teacher.
My teacher Angelo Loforese used to say: "Don't get tired" and my teacher Ingrid Bjoner used to quote her teacher Paul Lohmann, who used to say to her when she had another problem or got tired while singing: "It's not that it's hard (difficult; German: schwer), it's YOU that's too hard (heavy; German: schwer)."