If you’ve ever had vocal damage, this story is probably a little familiar to you.  I’m really frustrated with my damaged voice.  In fact, many times (a day) I want to quit altogether… a little hard since I’m a vocal coach and I make my living as a vocalist and voice talent, but lately I really really want to.

It’s been a frustrating journey.  First discovering that acid reflux was burning my vocal cords and hearing it change my voice.  Then surviving the emergency surgery that left me too weak to talk for several weeks and trying to get my whole body strong enough so my voice could produce quality sound again.  I hadn’t even gotten there when they nicked my vocal cords during the last surgery and caused the swelling and what they think is a node or a cyst on my right cord.

Now that I’ve been medically cleared to start rehabilitating my voice (see the video Q&A for what I do that’s different) I find myself in the same place I’ve seen some of my students who I’ve trained through vocal damage: so ready to give up.  It’s amazing how much you take your voice for granted; love it or hate it, you know what you can expect from it.  But for those who have gone through major illness or vocal damage, you no longer have any idea what you can expect from your voice.  It’s weak or notes just disappear without warning.  Years of training those ‘unusually robust’ vocal cords my doctor says I have are reduced to a tug of war between what I want my voice to do and what it will actually comply with; and it ain’t much right now.

So I’ve decided to give myself a challenge that will force me to do the right thing by my voice; I’ve committed to doing a Christmas album.  The instructor in me knows that if I set a concrete goal with a plan of action to achieve it, the frustrated singer in me will go along until I achieve the real goal; a healthier voice.  I don’t know what it will sound like in the end, and for the first time the final product is not my major concern.  But I know that it will force me to do the training I need to do for my voice and ultimately, will help me get closer to being able to sing with a strong voice, which I haven’t been able to do for almost a year now.

If you’re going through something similar; whether it’s due to damage or insecurity with how your voice sounds, let’s do this together.  Make a vocal goal.  Commit to what it will take to get there.  And when you get to the end you will have so much more than reaching the goal to be proud of.  We’ll get there together.

Let me know your journey.  Comment on this post for the benefit of everyone.