What do you actually get from voice therapy?
Discipline
Maintaining motivation and commitment is hard for everyone, especially me. I take ballroom dancing lessons. I love dancing, but even so, by the time a Friday night rolls around and I am facing a 1.5 hour dance lesson, I have to engage in a mental battle with myself to get onto the dance floor. Every Friday. But, if I don’t go, not only do I let down my dance partner, but I also let down my instructor. In addition to feeling bad for standing them up, if I cancel, I’m out of pocket the cost of the lesson, which is not insignificant. So, I go.
Chances are, if like me, you pre-commit to voice therapy sessions, either by just making an appointment or, better yet, pre-paying for a block of therapy, you will be more motivated to take ownership and responsibility for creating the change you desire. Committing to therapy sessions encourages you to practice and prepare in order to get the most benefit from them, focusing your efforts and moving you forward at your optimal pace.
Process
How to start? What’s the sequence of learning? My first dance was the Cha-cha-cha. The first lesson – rhythm. You can’t dance without understanding the rhythm that lies beneath and drives the movement. Once you feel the rhythm, you layer on footwork, shifting weight and balance, movement through space, arm work and even head position. Finally, put all these components together and add another person and you are dancing!
Voice therapy de-mystifies the process of change. A therapist leads you in mastering the fundamentals of healthy voicing. They identify your vocal strengths and weaknesses, thus determining the primary areas of focus. Gaps in knowledge and skill are addressed. A step-wise therapy plan is designed and agreed to ensure you achieve maximum results with the least investment of time, effort and expense. The end result is a beautiful transformation.
Technical analysis
My dance teacher, Morgan Hemphill (pictured above) is a world champion in 10 Dance (Latin and Ballroom) and has the ability to precisely pinpoint flaws in the execution of dance steps. She is able to speak of degrees, angles, timing and measurements of space – the technical components of dance. In many ways, this information is analogous to acoustical analysis.
Acoustical analysis describes a voice signal in numerical units, technical measures that relate to the overall voice sound. Using specialist tools, such as voice analysis software, a voice therapist uses these measures to establish baseline voice parameters. These concrete measurements of voice provide data against which future measurements may be compared in order to track progress. Some therapists may even have the luxury of real-time visual feedback of voice production via specialist voice analysis tools.
Perceptual analysis
How clumsy do I look? How bad is it, really? Is all this work actually making a difference? Honestly, I don’t mind if my dancing isn’t perfect, as long as I don’t look like Elaine (on Seinfeld) on the dance floor. My dance teacher provides me with constructive feedback to help me move from clunky stomping through the steps to graceful, elegant execution of the dance. She is gentle, but candid with her visual assessment and tells me what I need to work on to improve. A voice therapist does the same with perceptual assessment of the voice.
Most people regard perceptual analysis as more important than acoustic analysis. After all, it’s how our voices are perceived by others that is of utmost importance. As such, a voice specialist therapist, with their highly trained ears, can provide real-time perceptual analysis of your voice. This feedback helps you to develop self-awareness and self-confidence. It helps you to establish your goals and monitor your progress.
Teaching
Drill, drill, drill! One of the most valuable skills offered by my dance instructor is her ability to break dance down into small components that need to be mastered before linking them all together. She assigns me small movements, or drills, to practice until I can do them up-to-speed without having to think about it. It’s this embedding of habit, the establishment of body memory, that frees my mind up for adding the final touches of beautiful nuances of movement.
Similarly, perhaps the most valuable benefit of voice therapy is the teaching you receive from your therapist. Therapists help you by designing an individualised plan to move you toward success. Following that plan, they teach you the targeted techniques and strategies, in small, bite-sized pieces. Once mastered, they layer the most appropriate exercises for you, focusing on what is needed for your particular voice. They provide education in anatomy, physiology and healthy voicing so you can practice confidently between sessions.
Coaching
My dance instructor is my coach. She demonstrates how to move through a dance with attention to the details that create a beautiful sequence, but keep me safe from injury. She tells me immediately when I do something wrong and helps me, through repetition, to do it better. She may use video recording to help me see myself in reality, rather than how I might imagine I look. Eventually, I get to the point of being able to add finishing touches, such as facial expressions and small accentuations of the body which make my dance “passable” – finally, I look like a dancer.
Similarly, therapists serve as vocal coaches. During sessions, therapists provide visual and auditory modelling and provide real-time, honest, constructive feedback on your practice. They may use recordings during sessions or for your use during practice at home to help embed new, good vocal habits. As your proficiency increases, they share advanced tips to polish and perfect the vocal sound.
Check-ins and Top-Ups
It’s been about a year since I last had a dance lesson. Even so, my husband and I can still make it round the dance floor, but our style is slipping (quite a lot). We are in desperate need of a couple of ‘top-up’ sessions, but now that COVID-19 has hit, we are looking at many more months before we are up and dancing again.
It’s not so bad for people who are working on their voices. During the voice modification process, a therapist can provide check-ins between sessions to answer questions and provide clarification. After you stop having regular sessions, they can offer ‘top-ups’ to help keep you on track. With the help of technology, these valuable sessions can still be accessed easily and safely.
A safe space.
Most importantly, as in a dance studio, a voice studio is a safe space to try and fail. A voice therapist is a non-judgmental partner who goes along with you on your voice modification journey, supporting you to become the person you want to be. They will offer the best of their skills and knowledge, encouragement and commitment to you to help you discover your unique voice. Engagement in voice therapy combines your best self with that of your therapist/teacher/coach.