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Kevin Ashe

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Lucky for me, I healed in two days! 

Yes, this is a personal story, a cautionary tale of the vocal danger of over confidence, which can fuel lack of training, and lead to injury!

It's a slice of humble pie for me to tell about this, especially with the influential voice of TVS & this TMVW community always echoing in my mind.

So here's what shut off the echo (my excuse).

A friend of mine gave me a call to invite me to jam with an old cover band he is considering reforming. I had not had the chance to jam with local musicians since I was last living where I am now some 8 years ago. Back then, my friend (the drummer), had me sing as a temporary fill in for his band since I couldn't commit to long term at the time. 

I was amped about singing live hard rock with some talented players! 

On the way to the jam, in the car, I made a feeble attempt at "tracking" (nasals) with the radio. 

Failed to get a proper sound check and sound level. I walked in to the rehearsal room (garage studio) and within a few minutes, the PA was flipped on, the guys were warmed up and I chose this song off the set list on the wall, an old favorite to start off the night:

Song went great, these kats are tight! I was having a good time yet, as soon as we were done with that song I knew instantly I had very little passaggio left! I could feel it when I would just softly sing a scale. 

I told the guys the bad news, THEN had us get my mic level right, and was expecting the jam to be ruined however, I was surprised to discover that the songs we then played, I was able to gimp through them relying only on M1 and the upper end of M2.  The guys said, "dude you sound fine, there's nothing wrong with your voice!"  That gave me a chuckle and I proceeded to tell them a brief explanation of passaggio. Then, the last song we played for the night helped them see exactly what I was talking about. 

The guitarist (who could sing quite well) had to take over. Much of this song is in the passaggio for me.  I was quite bummed as I'm a big Adams fan, love singing any of his tunes! 

So, In my defense, I was sort of swept off my feet in the excitement of getting to jam after years of missing it! I forgot the most basic elements of protecting the voice from damage. Singing too loud (due to no sound check, lead vocal mic too low), with distortion, WITHOUT proper appaggio (mainly diaphragmatic support) I've got no real excuse in forgetting to support, complete failure as a vocal athlete. At least I can say, it won't happen again!

So there's that, don't do what I did!

Sing every day! Always sound check! Train, Train, Train!

peace,

k

trainGiff.gif

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