10.4.11 Adam News & Info

I'm back. Hemorrhage makes it sound like there is copious amounts of blood. Not so. Think of it more like a bruise. Tiny blood vessels broken on or near the cords. But, as someone already said, vocal rest is absolutely necessary. Continuing to talk or sing only will make it worse. The blood leaking into the cords makes it more difficult for them to vibrate. So you push harder with breath to force them to vibrate. Which further strains and bruises the cords.

It is almost always caused by misuse of the voice. Talking or singing or shouting too loud, for too long, pushing the voice to produce notes it doesn't want to produce. If the singer smokes, the vocal cords and surrounding structure may already have become irritated, making it easier to bruise or hemorrhage.

How is it that Adele has had such trouble with her voice, and Adam sang 110+ shows and sounded better at the end than at the beginning? It is not luck. It is not the voice he was born with. His cords are not naturally more durable. It is his familiarity with his voice, with his technique, with his limits, with how to approach the low, mid-range and high notes.

Adele has this sexy sounding, husky, chesty voice. It almost always sounds to me like she is pushing her voice. Straining to sing the notes. That most likely means she doesn't know about proper technique.

Adam never sounds like he is straining or pushing his voice. THAT is because of the extensive training on how to use it properly. How to find the maximum resonance for each tone. How to support it properly thru breathing. He knows when to shift into chest voice, when to shift into head voice, when to shift into falsetto, so he can hit each note in the range without strain on the muscles or the cords. And, that ain't easy. I don't know many, or, frankly any people who have learned that without formal training. It's just not something easily discovered by accident.

Add to that, Adam knows how to pamper and treat his voice. He is very frequently seen with a bottle of water, on and off stage, to keep the cords hydrated. And tea which soothes the throat and opens it up. He uses humidifiers to keep his throat moist. He usually refrains from alcohol while singing because alcohol not only dulls the senses, but dries out your throat and body. He doesn't smoke (well, cigarettes, and I would imagine he smokes other substances with moderation because of the irritation to the vocal cords possible). He warms up before singing, and will refuse to sing if he feels he is not warmed up. Just like you can injure a muscle if you exercise without warming up, you can injure your vocal cords if you don't warm up. Warming up clears away the excess crud and mucus in your head and throat, and tunes the muscles so that you can do the shifting of your voice to hit the wide range of notes he does.

Adam also was smart enough to lower the keys of many of his songs so that there was less stress on his voice going for the glory notes. He also knew when to skip the glory notes if his voice was not feeling "right" that performance. He takes very good care of his instrument. Thank goodness.

Yes, Adam was born with a remarkable physiology that makes some of those heavenly tones possible. The right chest, the right bone structure in his head, the right shape of the air cavities and sinuses, the right shape and size of his vocal cords. But, without the training he received he would not know how to use that physiology properly, how to access the resonance, how to shape the tone, how to put a little gravel or buzz into the sound without straining the cords.