This IS what I do (teach English in the inner city, not dreaming.) After doing this for several years, it's helped me to sustain my voice for extended hours.RobertG wrote:I had always wanted to teach high school english in the inner city but other things kept getting in the way and I never realized that particular dream.
When I was doing stage musicals I'd sometimes begin to loose my voice on weeks we were doing 8 shows a week, by the 7th show my voice was getting horse. BUT now in school I think my voice is much stronger even though the demands on it are much greater than on stage. The "performance time" and the need to project in school is greater. (On stage we're body-miked.) For the first few years teaching, my voice would weaken through the day, but that doesn't happen now. It took me awhile to figure out why that was true.
It all came down to a diminution of tension. My classrooms are now more chaotic, but the work flow is greater. I'm raising my voice and trying to force a structure less insistently.
So, in this round about way, I'm thinking, for me at least, that there are many elements that create tension, constriction, counterproductive demands, that effect different parts of our bodies, particularly where our principal energy is focused. If we're trying too hard to do a good job in getting a recording down, the effects will manifest in the core of the focus, the vocal apparatus. Another way off saying or looking at this is to say we're probably too hard on ourselves. We haven't done the prep or the prep training or we're trying to do too much the wrong way.
Lesson: relax. Be open to the focal points of your tension and develop practical remedies or antidotes that work best for you. (These takes some time, so take your time.)