Recently I’ve been receiving a few questions around singing when you’ve got a cold/flu. Especially around

1. Is it bad to sing when you’ve got a sore throat/caught the cold?

2. How do you sing with a cold?

And I get it.

Personally ,I feel like singers have one of the hardest times as a musician. I mean say if you played the guitar/piano. Whilst you might not feel well, you could still probably play it. It’s not like the guitar/piano is going to start coughing or wheezing.

So let’s tackle this! In the first half, I’ll talk about whether is it a bad idea to practice whilst you’re sick, I’ll also share some little ideas to test out if your voice is good to sing with.

And then in the 2nd half, if you HAVE to sing. how should you approach this?

Real quick! For those of you who don’t know me. My name is Ivan, I love making music and also teaching singing to students all around the world. In this newsletter, my goal is to make learning to sing simple. If that’s up your lane, consider subscribing. If you want to improve your voice faster, check out the links down below for ways to work with me

If you want to inspire our next episode! Drop in the comments below what you want me to talk about next.

Now quick caveat, this is not and does not replace medical advice. But rather just observations I’ve had from my journey and also coaching singers from around the world. So make sure to get the right help.

So our first initial question when we get a cold/flu/sore throat - is it bad to practice?

Now let’s consider why it would even be bad to sing whilst sick?.Like you wouldn’t stop singing just because your knee was sore.

The reason a sore throat/cold can be something to watch out for is a sore throat/flu can cause your vocal folds to get inflamed. This means they get irritated, they get red, they get swollen.

Singing on inflamed cords is not a good idea because singing is literally these vocal folds hitting each other hundreds if not thousands of times per second. Not the best idea when they are fat and swollen.

And I can hear you all thinking - is this going to damage my voice permanently?

Now the good news is unless you’re performing night after night. You probably won’t accumulate long-term damage. Your voice is pretty resilient! But constantly singing on these fat cords may mean it takes longer for you to recover.

Now another good news is you can have a sore throat but not have swollen folds. This is because different areas of your throat can be swollen from your pharynx, your tonsils,and even your sinuses.

So don’t jump to the conclusion that you can’t sing if you’re sick.

How can we test for inflamed vocal folds?

A simple exercise is to try accessing your falsetto. Or a lighter head voice.

And self-assess. Is your falsetto harder to access than usual?

The rationale here is that when you sing in a lighter coordination. It requires the very edges of your vocal folds to touch. Usually, when they are inflamed, this becomes rard, since your vocal folds are so much thicker

Now notice how I mentioned compared to usual.

For example,if you’ve always had a hard time accessing your falsetto. Then it’s not sickness-related. Rather you just got to improve your technique.

PART 2: How do you sing with a cold?

So if your vocal folds are fine, you should be good.

Or at least good to vocalise and practice.

But it is a good idea to be careful here.

So how should you practice?

Personally what I encourage my students, is to take the time to find your vocal technique. I talk a lot about encouraging the stretch of your voice. This is really important. Because often when you’re feeling sick, it’s very easy to feel heavy and really push through with your voice.

Take the time to stretch and thin out those vocal folds Also focus on starting in a softer volume. This is going to really force you to control the amount of breath and cord closure you use. From there you can build yourself into it.

Anyway, that’s a wrap team! Hope you’ve found value in this episode. If you did, please share this with a friend or on your social media. It helps this channel grow and would mean the world to me.

Also if you’re looking for some tailored/specific help. I’ve got ways to study with me down in the description. Apart from that, my name is Ivan - I’m your voice teacher and I’ll see you next Thursday/Friday for our weekly episodes.

Take care!

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