When you have a headache your singing voice has a headache. When your toe hurts it’s very hard to sing well. When you have an argument with someone and it bothers you later your singing voice will be negatively affected.

Notice I said “singing voice”, not just performance. I’m talking about a physical reaction in the vocal cords to problems you are experiencing.

Consider this: the guitar player is not the guitar, the drummer is not the drum set, the piano player is not the piano…but…THE SINGER IS THE VOCAL INSTRUMENT. You are not only the “player” of your vocal cords, your vocal cords are an inseparable part of you. Also, since the voice runs on internal energy, and your energy is sapped by physical and psychological problems, and breath is stolen by stress, anxiety and high emotion, it stands to reason that your singing will be affected. Notice how you become out of breath in high stress situations.

One of the big problems for female singers is the “period”. When you are enduring that process your physical and mental functions go haywire. But you don’t need me to point this out. However, you may not have recognized that the same swelling, discomfort and mental unbalance that affects the rest of your body and psychology affects your vocal cords and performance.

So, how do we overcome these problems when we sing? We can’t. But being armed with the understanding that our singing voice is being negatively affected will reduce the added stress of not understanding why our singing isn’t up to par.

Know your song so well that you can pull off a good (to the audience) performance regardless of those problems only you are aware of. Be prepared to sing some of the more difficult note lower or softer. The trick is to fool the audience into thinking that everything is fine. Become a master at disguising your problems and mistakes.

NEVER APOLOGIZE OR BRING YOUR PROBLEMS TO THE ATTENTION OF THE AUDIENCE…NEVER

Keep yourself in good physical and mental shape.

Singers and their voices are all rolled up in one package. They can’t be separated like the guitar player from their guitar. Here are some powerful suggestions to help you through those times when you (and your voice) are not feeling so well.

This is a curated article that was originally posted on EzineArticles by Al Koehn. Image used with permission from Pixabay.