Love and the voice

So I was thinking...empathising with a student, contemplating what a huge effect your love life can have on your voice!

Has this really ever been discussed seriously? I mean it is pretty obvious that without love or loss there wouldn't be much playing on the radio? Not many people write songs about rising interest rates or asylum seekers (well some people do but they aren't usually playing on mainstream radio)! And it is not news that love has been the motivation for millions of compositions. But what what about the actual effect that love has on the voice?


Suddenly we have no high notes, suddenly our voices are hoarse and down in our boots. Or suddenly we can float through an aria effortlessly, our high C is mind blowing!
Could it be true that a bad love life or a tormented emotional state is bad for a singer and that a good relationship is highly recommended for vocal health?

But I do see it a lot. A student comes in, voice is in a mess, student has left boyfriend or vice versa. Student has shed so many tears that her/his sinuses are all clogged up and when she/he speaks I could have sworn they were doing a drag queen impersonation.
Now this is serious stuff!

I do recall myself meeting a fetching young fellow in Spain and flying to Kazakstan to pursue a love story that I believed had to be lived out...only to end up with my fragile heart in pieces.
And my voice? My high notes? My headspace? Out the window!

An unsettled emotional state unhitches the vocal wagon from the horse and the voice ends up cascading down the proverbial hill and landing in the creek! This is surely not a good thing before a concert or a competition.

Ok on a positive note, sometimes unhitching the wagon ( I'm still on about the wagon) can produce a raw type of abandon which can be amazing and relates back to the discussion we had in an earlier blog.

So what can we learn from this rather long winded contemplation on love and the voice?

DO NOT drop someone, get dropped or have an affair on the eve of a concert, performance or singing competition.
DO continue and pursue love that is nurturing, exciting and uplifting!

But as we singers all know very well...if that dark, mysterious, attractive someone turns up, concert or no concert, we will be in hot pursuit.

Because the moral of the story is that we are all passionate, impetuous beings despite our best intentions and strongest resolutions. Yes singers, we were born this way!