Remove Voice Strain to Keep Singing into Older Age

Judy Rodman

I have many sweet and amazing young clients, and I adore them. But I was moved, deeply, watching the Carol King and James Taylor concert “Live at the Troubador” on PBS recently. I’ve never heard either one of them sing better, or even as well, as they did on that show.

And check out Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, Ralph Stanley for goodness sake! Singing their derrieres off!

I get older clients all the time who have been told they are past their vocal prime. What we discover together is that the limits are due to poor vocal technique. If you wonder if you are too old to sing, take heart. Here are two things I believe that are important:

• Take care of your body – your voice needs that, after all (this will be covered in a future post)
• Train strain out of your voice…and you can sing better than ever, well into your twilight years.

The course I created (“Power, Path, and Performance Vocal Training”) deals with the issue of ‘strain.’ The kernel of the method began to form when I tried to figure out a system where I could put everything I knew that was important about the voice into a system that I could use as a template to work from with every student.

My one benchmark was that whatever I taught vocalists had to work, in practical settings like small-large-indoor-outdoor performance stages and recording studios of all types, for every genre of contemporary songs as well as speaking.

I drew from my own 40-plus years of vocal experience and from sources like doctors, chiropractors, alternative health practitioners, other vocal training methods, and of course, my own professional coach Gerald Arthur.

I happened upon a book called “Secrets of Singing” by vocal teacher Jeffrey Allen. To date, it has been the most influential source I’ve found for my own teaching method. There was a shape of “voice path” he had in his book that set lightbulbs off in my brain, because I recognized that voice path muscle memory in my own best singing through the years.

With that voice path imagery inspiring me, I gradually condensed all that I knew about voice into three primary cornerstones of vocal technique. They were:

• The power of breath
• The voice path through an open throat
• The physical and psychological aspects of communication.

It was some time after that when I noticed that not only was this a logical sorting of information…there was a synergy involved between the three cornerstones. What that means is that if you get something right or wrong in one area, it will affect the other two.

So if your breath support or control is off, you will not be able to keep your throat open. This creates a subtle block to being able to connect with your audience without being distracted by the way your throat feels. Tight throats cause tight breath, with compromised performance. Breath issues create tight throats and hinders communication. It’s all connected!

But the good news was that if I could help a student improve in their weakest cornerstone, the other two would benefit. When I teach a vocalist to integrate all three, the whole voice is available…without strain…to powerfully move an audience.

Judy Rodman is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal instructor in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1980s, she topped the country music charts with the number one single “Until I Met You” and won the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Female Vocalist” award in 1985. Her recorded songs include LeAnn Rimes’s number-one hit “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” (co-written with Keith Hinton). Judy has developed “Power, Path & Performance,” a vocal technique she teaches and sells.