Okay so for the past year, I've been wanting to be a better singer. I've never had lessons, I sort of just taught myself through the casual, yet sage, advice given to my siblings who spent 4 years in high school chorus, as well as one on one lessons. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep me improving. And I was improving for a while, and I wanted to get even better, so I talked to my sister. She gave me a CD that had a 25 minute audio track of singing lessons. It's narrated by a guy who calls the exercises "vocalsizing" that improve your range, flexibility, all while warming up at the same time. I worked with it for about a month, and for a while they were really working, but suddenly I can't do them anymore.
I can't sing with quality anymore. I don't know why. The notes are harder to hit. I don't feel it. I feel constrained. WHY IS THIS?
I know for sure I'm not sick. I don't know what it is. My throat is fine, and I'm not coughing. And it was really bad at one point, and I would eventually just give up. By the end of it, you could tell that I had lost some of my voice. It was partial, but if I asked someone, that they said they could tell my voice was slightly diminished. So I laid off singing for about 3-4 days, figure I let my voice rest, and then got back into it. It was still tough to sing at first, though not as bad, and I managed to sing somewhat well yesterday. By the end of my warm up I felt good, but I didn't feel completely free like I usually do, where I can hit all these notes and have fun with it. And then I just tried again now, and I tried pushing through it and seeing if I had to just adjust the way I was singing, but nothing really worked. It just got harder. It's back to square one again. Some parts better than others, but I just gave up. I can't sing. My voice is weakening again.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY VOICE? AND WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT?
It's very hard to tell without a sample of your singing. But I'll say this: Singing has never had, for me at least, a "normal" progress curve. I play guitar and piano and I've had occasional set-backs while learning and working on these instruments, but nothing like what I've experience in my quest to develop my voice. I don't play golf, but I know the frustration of trying to perfect a golf swing--you fix one thing and two other parts of the swing suddenly go south. :shock: You can see where I'm going with this: Singing is fraught with significant, frustrating set-backs. I've had wonderful vocal days followed by a week or more of what felt like vocal collapse! :twisted:
So, what you're going through may just be part of the game. I find that the most serious set-backs require a back-to-basics approach--lots of breathing work, hums, stretching, posture, etc. It sounds like you may have already done some of this, but keep going. You've got to find your point of stability--even if it's only in your breathing--and build again from there. Once you find your rock, stay on it for a while, get some zen, feel the stability; then when you rise you will probably rise quickly (i.e., it won't be like relearning singing from scratch).
A better way, if you can swing it, is to take some lessons. When things get really bad, I usually go back to my former voice teacher for a tune-up--maybe a month's worth of lessons and I'm ahead of where I was before the collapse! :D
Others may have had different experiences, but I think it's generally agreed that the voice is more unstable and unpredictable than any other instrument. Good luck!
Just because you don't feel sick doesn't mean that nothing is wrong with you. It could be physical or mental, I'd get the physical part checked first.
Tim Madsen
Nobody cares how much you know,
until they know how much you care.
"What you keep to yourself you lose, what you give away you keep forever." -Axel Munthe
