Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Do hormone changes (specifically puberty) affect the singing voice.The Tree of Life

Hormone Changes (Specifically Puberty)   The Tree of Life

If you (or your child) are a young voice student, you may experience a change in voice when going through puberty and afterwards as the body adjusts to not only the hormonal changes, but growth of the body.  Sudden changes in the size of the body directly relate to the vocal cords. When your legs grow, so do your vocal cords.  Just like those legs, they need time to adjust to the change.  This difference often appears most prevalent in boys, but also happens as girls go through puberty.  Boys experience a rapid change affecting even their speaking voice with sometimes squeaky speech or loss of pitch occurring regularly.  A husky sound and almost a disappearance of notes in singing as the voice changes are often common, whereas girls may develop a raspy sound on certain days of the month.  If in active voice study, a voice teacher can help maneuver through these changes.  Guidance can be provided to help these singers through the adjustment while still maintaining a healthy singing voice.

The human voice continues to develop and change as the body and mind continue to grow.  Changes continue often into the late 20’s and early 30’s.  The components of our everyday life change as we go through college, get our first job, life on our own, are responsible for our own bills, get married and have children.  These situational changes can impact how our singing voice operates if we are not careful.  Reminders of regular vocal care and good singing technique are very helpful. 
Some people (especially women) then experience a change later in life as well as hormones change again in menopause.  There is little documentation of the scientific validity of this occurrence, however many singers have mentioned feeling a change in their voice in their later years.

All of these factors lead to one conclusion, voice lessons should be a constant in a singer’s life. Just as a tree continues to grow and change throughout the seasons, so does the human voice.
What are your experiences with hormonal changes and the singing voice?

4 comments:

  1. Hi,I'm Paulette Triplett.I have been singing since age 3.I became nationally known as a Gospel Recording Artist in 1989,when I recorded with my local church choir.I have also trained choirs,and vocal students for over 25 years.Last year in January I got a wonderful opportunity to record but could'nt not take it because my voice stayed raspy the whole year.I believe it was due to hormonal changes,even though it was never diagnosed as that.Crazy thing this year everything changed. Now my voice has changed again.It's crispy clear,I can hit my high notes again,and I can manipulate my voice to do whatever I want with it. I'm baffled....extremely happy but baffled.I started going through hormonal changes December of 2011.

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  2. Hi, I'm rose. I started singing like a year or 2 ago, well for english songs. I'm an Indian and I have been singing Indian songs since I was like 7 or so. I recently started working on my English voice. I was seeing progress but then all of a sudden my voice for singing English songs was and still is fading. I think it's puberty. I turned 14 this year in June. And it seems since I turned 14 my voice isn't the same. Can I please have some tips for how I can sing now?

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  3. i’ve been singing since i was very young and i am 11 right now and i could sing really well and people said that i had an amazing voice but now a few months later when i try and sing, i sound really bad snd i am scared that my singing voice is going to change and i’ll never sound as good as before. it could be because of puberty because i have grown quite quickly but i just really want to start singing again because now i can’t sing normal i can only sing a bit high. can i please have some advice and tips on how i can maintain my old voice while progressing?

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