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October is here and the leaves are beginning to turn. When fall comes it always seems like the most beautiful time of the year to me. Fall can bring allergies and breathing difficulties for many people, some of which are singers. Sometimes it seems very difficult to sing through the allergies in the fall and the springtime, but if you are a full time singer you must do that anyway.

How do you do that? Are there some tricks to doing it? What should I do if I have these problems? These and many more questions come to us when we start having nasal drainage problems from allergies. First thing to do is go to an Allergy Specialist or an Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. If you go to an allergy specialist and he or she tests you for allergies, sometimes you can get relief from their recommendations. Also, sometimes you can get relief from the recommendations of a good Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist. If my problems are severe I usually go to a doctor.

However, there are times that I get up in the morning after singing the night before and I have had some mucus drainage as I slept, and I don’t sound real clear. There are some things that I do which help me to get back on track and ready to sing that day or evening. I thought I would share a few of them.

1. I first take a hot shower and let the hot water run on my neck for a while. This generally brings three results for me. (1) It gets some steam in my nostrils which help loosen up the phlegm which might be there. (2). It relaxes all of the muscles in my throat area and causes any phlegm that is there to move on down. (3) It also seems to me to help my entire muscular structure to relax, as I shower in hot water , and that is a good thing.

2. I have found that doing a few light vocal warmups while I am in the shower is beneficial to me later when I sing.

3. Another thing that I do is drink something warm, but not to excess. A little hot coffee, or hot tea is ok. Don’t drink too much of either because they both have a drying effect on the tissue in your throat, and your throat needs to be moist in order to function properly. Also, don’t load the coffee with sugar or cream. It usually works better black. After these things I go about my regular day’s business until I get within an hour or two of singing time.

4. If I am going to sing in a morning Church Service, I try to eat very light. Usually I have some toast with my coffee and wait till lunch to eat more food. The less I eat in the morning, the more comfortable I am when getting up before the people to sing. Of course, in my case when I sing on Sunday morning, because I am an ordained minister, I am usually asked to do the preaching also, so I feel most comfortable not eating very much in the morning. Also by eating less, I am not prone to add any drainage problems from my nasal passages down into my throat, because I take less chance of aggravating any food allergies that I may have.

5. If I am going to sing in the afternoon, I will eat a breakfast of normal size, which for me is a couple of pieces of toast, then I wait until after I sing to eat a good meal. Not only does this regimen help with allergy drainage problems, it also helps you to not gain too much weight.

6. If I am singing in the evening, I will usually eat a small breakfast and then a nice lunch and not eat again until I finish singing in the evening.

7. Let me continue with some other things that I do to stay ready to sing, when I am supposed to sing. I always drink a lot of room temperature water, not real cold or not real hot. One of the main reasons for that is , during the day when your allergies try to slip up on you, the water helps to thin any mucus drainage from your nasal passages down into your throat, and in turn that helps clear up your voice. This is something I would recommend for every singer . Also, if you are having a problem with wanting to eat too much and you are gaining weight that you don’t want to gain, the water helps keep you full and not craving so much food. Let’s face it, every doctor will tell you that we all need to drink more water. In a singers case, it really helps to keep the throat tissues lubricated and clear of mucus, and it really makes singing a lot easier.

8. I would be remiss, if I didn’t include in these things about daily preparation for singing, the regimen for vocalizing. I usually do some light vocal exercises, as previously mentioned, in the shower in the morning. Then sometime during the day I will do a few minutes of medium vocal exercises, then about an hour before I sing, I try to sing a light song, then push myself a little more on exercising my voice. Exercising each resonator a little during the day prior to singing, is imperative. I sometimes start with a low tone, (resonated in the chest cavity), then a medium tone (resonated in the oral cavity), then a high tone (resonated in the nasal cavity). Then I usually try to join all of them in a process that starts at the chest area and ends in the nasal area and sounds something like a siren, and sometimes I do a sound that sounds kind of like a trumpet, which exercises all of these resonators. If you are singing in a morning service on Sunday, you will need to get up several hours prior to the service and go through most of this regimen, which will prepare you to be able to sing at the Sunday Morning Service hour. If you are singing in the afternoon or evening, then the daily regimen that I have mentioned already should help you to sing.

9. Last but not least, when I am going to sing anywhere, whether it is a church service or a large concert hall, I always pray and ask the Lord to help me. I can learn all of the proper ways to do things and have all the little tricks to make my voice work better, and have great preparation, but if I do not have the Lord’s help I can fall flat on my face.

There is an old saying that says: “The Lord Helps Those Who Help Themselves” . That is so true, but if we help ourselves all we can and don’t ask for His help then we can end up being as the Bible says “sounding brass and tinkling symbols”. We always need his anointing upon everything we do in ministry.

I guess I have preached enough for now. Remember “The Lord is on Your Side”. May you be blessed abundantly and win many souls to the Kingdom through your ministry.

In Christian Love
Bill Baize

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