Vocal Health: 8 Tips From MasterClass Instructors

Vocal health requires keeping both your speaking voice and singing voice free from overuse, infections, and other issues. Voice therapy and vocal exercises can both help a singer maintain their voice’s health as a whole.

Additionally, to maintain your vocal health, it’s important to avoid overuse and promptly treat sore throats as well as sinus and respiratory infections. Keep an eye out for nodules or polyps on your vocal cords or voice box and immediately treat any vocal injuries or voice disorders you might sustain while strenuously singing or screaming.

Maintaining your vocal health proactively is essential for singers. If a more serious problem arises with vocal cords (or vocal folds), it can mean an immediate and necessary trip to an emergency medical center.

Some vocal injuries can permanently impair voice use, an obviously severe issue for people who sing professionally or as a hobby. That’s why it’s important to start treating your voice with plenty of fluids, honey, and silence at the first sign of hoarseness or strain.

Keeping your voice healthy is essential to succeeding as a singer. Avoid voice problems and stay in good vocal health by minding these eight tips from MasterClass instructors:

1. 1. Avoid spicy foods and acidic drinks. Acid reflux (or GERD) causes stomach acid to enter your esophagus, leading to heartburn and potential vocal problems. Caffeinated beverages like coffee and acidic or spicy foods can trigger the condition. “Tomatoes, things that are acidic … certain fruit isn't good necessarily for your voice,” singer-songwriter Usher says. “Anything that you know is gonna give you indigestion or a lot of that acid that starts in your stomach, it's not good.”
2. 2. Coat your throat. Coat your throat with hot tea, lemon, and honey to maintain a healthy voice. “In between songs,” Grammy Award–winning singer Christina Aguilera says, “while we're taking a moment, and I go on to introduce the next song and … when the time feels right … I'll take a little swig of honey … plain raw honey.” In addition to honey, nonmenthol lozenges can also help coat your throat.
3. 3. Control your environment. Do your best to stay in environments conducive to vocal health to preserve your singing voice. For instance, stay away from secondhand smoke and seek out a humidifier to reduce mucous in your throat. “For me,” Christina Aguilera says, “the top three things I do try to avoid are smoky environments, loud environments where I have to strain my voice to sort of have a conversation, and, you know, I sort of try to have my comfort things around me, so I try to avoid being in uncomfortable environments.”
4. 4. Drink water. Constant throat clearing might be a sign it’s time for hydration. Christina Aguilera believes it’s necessary to drink plenty of water onstage and off. “Room temperature water is really important,” she says. “I don't even have time for a hot beverage at that point. There's no time for sipping a hot beverage and burning your tongue or whatever it is.”
5. 5. Give your voice rest. Vocal fatigue can beset even the most powerful and hardworking singers. It’s important to take “vocal naps” from singing and even speaking if possible on occasion. “You know the setting on the phone where Siri can … actually talk for you?” asks singer, songwriter, and producer Mariah Carey. “Anyway, I use that or I'll just jot something down and really, really not talk.” A hoarse voice signals you should take an extended period of time off from singing and talking.
6. 6. See a voice specialist if possible. Reach out to an otolaryngologist who understands the larynx, vocal cords, and their relation to the immune system. They can help you monitor for warning signs of laryngitis and other more severe vocal conditions. Platinum and diamond certified singer Usher recommends “finding an ear, [nose], and throat doctor to really analyze your throat if you can, if you have the resources to do so.”
7. 7. Sing with less force on occasion. It’s okay to sing a little more modestly on occasion. Take deep breaths, sing in a lower octave if necessary, and only reach for those high notes when you feel like you’ve rested your voice well. “Belting and pushing the limits of your voice aren’t the only ways to sing,” says Mariah Carey, who possesses a five-octave vocal range. “And I learned how important it was to check in with how I was feeling if I was going to sing the way I wanted to. Singing can be as much a mental exercise as a physical one.”
8. 8. Warm up your voice. Do your best to both warm up and cool down your voice with trills and other vocal exercises. “I give myself at least thirty to forty minutes of a warm-up,” Usher says, “running scales, arpeggios, which go in a certain pattern, which kind of uses and … stretches your voice.”

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