Vocal Health for Music Teachers

• Liz Hartley
• Posted 12/30/22
• 0 comments

The music classroom, especially elementary, is a vocal tour de force. Many of us teach six or more short, teacher-centered classes a day. Even if we are trained as singers, it requires real intention to avoid damage to our voice in such a challenging environment.  

I am fortunate to have incredible vocal support where I live, so I was building strategies for voice conservation early in my career. Even then, I had surgery for my vocal nodules to repair the damage and provide me a fresh start. Surgery was successful, and I will be forever grateful for the gift of my voice, but I’d prefer that teachers be armed with tools to prevent surgical intervention. So, let’s dive into some strategies to keep you singing your whole life! 

Microphone

You must use a microphone. All day. Every day. It is not optional, and your school should pay for it. Because of the nature of our jobs, your vocal health should be a priority not just for you but for your employer. We cannot work safely without one. Framing that request around everyone’s desire to keep your voice healthy and safe is usually enough to convince a principal.  

How do you choose one? There are a few things to look for. First, get a headset mic. While this may give you images of pop stars of yore, it is the best way to get that microphone close to your mouth so that you can let the microphone do its job. Second, be sure the battery life is long enough to sustain your class schedule. Rechargeable packs or batteries that you can charge overnight are great options.  

One last mic consideration is speaker placement. Some microphones have speakers that are attached to you, which is a good option if you are traveling or have a noisy afternoon duty. When I am in my classroom, I prefer to have my speaker behind my students, facing me. That gives me the most feedback on how I am using my voice and allows me to adjust if I start talking too loudly.  

Water

Best practice is to drink something like half your body weight in ounces of water. Can most of us do that in a classroom? Unlikely. But it is so important to try to get in as much water as possible. Lubricating your vocal cords keeps them healthy and safe by helping them vibrate more easily. You want them slippery, and to do that you need to be hydrated.  

The pushback I always had to enough water was a lack of bathroom breaks in my day. (My doctor once asked me if I had a teacher’s aide to watch my class for me. HA!) This is a problem that isn’t going away; teachers plan their bathroom trips around the school schedule, not their bodies. The best solution is to drink smaller amounts throughout the day, rather than chugging water at lunch. It also helps to notice what you may already be drinking during the day and change it to something more hydrating.

Warm Up!

Teaching is performing. You would never walk on stage without warming up, and yet we do it often in our classrooms. Warming up and stretching those muscles is a crucial part of any professional performer’s routine, and it needs to be part of ours.  

You likely have a few warmups at your disposal. Choose them carefully — what you want is to warm up your voice for speaking as much as for singing. Low and slow lip trills, “n” and “z” sounds to focus on finding the resonance space in the mask, and straw slides (singing through a straw, either with or without a cup of water for bubbles/ resistance) are great places to start. Make sure you feel comfortable with the range of everything you plan to teach that day. You don’t need to be singing arias by the end of your warmup, you just need to feel relaxed, loose, and ready to teach.  

Don’t forget to practice your speaking voice too. You need to find the right resonance space, volume, and pitch for your instruction that isn’t sung. Part of your warmup might be to read a few phrases from a book you’re using, or to say your rules aloud. That conscious practice of things you will say throughout the day will help ingrain it into muscle memory.  

Record!

Something as simple as a one-minute video every few days really helped me hear how I was using my voice. Ideally, you’d get that recording at varying points of the day. One of your warmup, one early in the day, and one later in your teaching day. You may have a beautiful sound with younger students and struggle to maintain that with older students. You might find that you are louder in the morning. All these data points give you information. 

Those recordings don’t only have to be for your own use — they can be incredibly helpful instructionally. I made recordings of myself explaining my rules and procedures for the beginning of the year. Now, I never repeat myself during the first week of school, because Video Mrs. Hartley does it for me. Record your song for the day. Record yourself saying your rules, your welcome song, your instrument procedures…. Anything you can take off your vocal plate for the week will help.

Silence

A silent lesson is scary, and I highly recommend doing it before you need it. It takes planning but is worth it. Build in the skills the kids will need in the weeks prior. Maybe they already know the song, and you just need to play it on recorder for them to sing with you. Dances can often be taught by mirroring. Instrument parts can be discovered through listening or solfege hand signs. Start with silently learning ONE element and build up to an entire class. That way you can take a voice nap any time you need without fear of kids missing great instruction.  

I plan at least one grade level to be a more student-centered lesson a week. That way I know I have one block of kids where my voice can rest every day. When we think about our voices as consumable resources, we start to be more intentional about how we use them. A little bit of intention goes a long way to avoiding damage and maintaining a lifelong healthy voice!