I was teasing some Facebook friends about whether I should do a commercial for a Sephora skin care line I was offered the other day. It was kind of a joke, because I haven’t been able to speak for several weeks. Now they want to know if I only talk for money now. So, here’s the skinny.
This vocal condition I have is so bizarre. Even my voice instructor associates are baffled at it and it took one of the country’s leading doctors to diagnose it. I can’t say I completely understand it myself, but to answer the questions …. and friendly jeers, I’m going to attempt to explain it a little better.
I’ve had four surgeries this year. During the last one in late June, the breathing tube that was placed down my throat scraped my windpipe just below my voice box. So, technically my voice is fine. The problem is that my body’s reaction to the scrape and the two little accompanying tumors has been to increasingly cease up the deep muscles in my neck causing great pain which is made much worse by making sound (I’m guessing because of the air irritating that damaged area). So out of a pain reflex of sorts, my voice has started dwindling away. After the surgery I started noticing it hurting a bit after I talked. By July I could only whisper and by late August I couldn’t speak at all without incredible pain afterwords. By September the pain was excruciating.
Because of that, I’ve not been able to do voice over work and have had to take a hiatus from teaching to get the pain under control while I wait to begin a special kind of therapy to retrain my throat to chillax. But I did chose to take on a job today for a couple of reasons; a past client recommended me, I do hope to work again someday so I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to build a relationship with a new client, and I was honestly really curious to see if I could do it.
So how is it possible to do a voice over if I can’t speak? Well, this is the way it was explained to me: because I am a trained professional vocalist, vocal instructor and voice talent, my vocal cords are physically fine and because I have trained them to work correctly for these purposes, that training kicks in when I do what I’m trained for and actually lessens the stress in my throat. For instance, by the time I could only whisper with my speaking voice, I could still sing through all registers and four octaves, and voice commercials with little problem. But as the stress in my throat has continued to tighten, the pain with even doing those things make it very difficult.
I haven’t sung or voiced anything for several weeks until today. Dr. Nasseri said no singing or voicing until I get therapy, so I haven’t. But honestly, the sheer curiosity was getting to me. So I did it. I voiced one commercial. How did it go? Well, the client is happy. But omg – that is NOT my voice. I did a very gentle vocal warm up and could tell 3/4 of my range is now completely gone, replaced by the pain in my throat. It’s frail. It’s like it’s freaking out. It takes a massive amount of effort to keep the tone together at all, the ends of sentences completely disappear. It took me four times longer to record than it should have.
Dr. Nasseri was right; no more of that. But I can’t imagine how i survive six months of therapy with no work and expect to have any work after that! Good thing I’m a voice instructor, because once I’m cleared to vocally train again, this is going to be a long process.
So, my facebook friends, I will no longer be making noise for money for awhile. I’m still waiting for someone to return my calls to schedule therapy…. and taking it out on my dry erase board instead.
