A singer colleague of mine posted on Facebook a link to a recent NY Times article about pop music singers (eg, Adele) and their voice disorders and treatments. This post prompted others, presumably trained singers, to write comments that alluded to the fault of using bad technique as attributable to the pop musicians' vocal problems. This argument always makes me cringe a little. As a classically trained singer who received good, fundamental instruction in the technique of singing from some very fine vocal pedagogues, and yet suffered an inexplicable, devastating, and still inadequately diagnosed, vocal problem at a time when I should have been at the peak of my career, I have a problem with people who discredit singers suffering from voice disorders simply because of "bad technique". Not only does it engender the us-vs-them mindset when applied by classical music singers to singers of non-classical music, but it is also just plain shortsighted. And hurtful.
Of course, all of this has been ushered to current media headlines because of Adele and her cancellation of a great many concerts in North America. Reading one of Adele's blog entries about this issue sheds insight into just how painful this is for an artist. As McKinley points out in his NY Times piece, pop and country music singers are under intense pressure to commit to brutal touring and performance schedules, pressure applied not only by their managers and others in the industry who want to make lots of money, but also from a place that is inherently more altruistic: loyalty to their fans and the desire to give punters what they, as paying customers AND appreciators of the artistry, want and deserve.
By the way, Adele is a trained singer. She was schoolmates with Leona Lewis at The BRIT School, a performing arts school for secondary school-age students that has graduated a host of UK performing artists, including the late, wonderfully talented Amy Winehouse. I would venture to guess that Adele's current vocal problems are not solely, if at all, related to technique issues. She is a singer-songwriter of breathtaking talent, and at such an early age it is simply unfair to label her as a bad singer, as many who have posted comments to an online professional forum within the classical music industry have done.
McKinley quotes a number of voice disorder professionals who report that the issue today isn't that there are more singers suffering from voice problems, it's that singers are more comfortable knowing that they can likely ward off a potential future of no singing by taking advantage of current treatments and better medical technology to get the disorder and/or damage under control. This will also allow for sufficient rest and recovery, albeit under less than ideal circumstances, before the brutal schedule begins again.
The lesson that needs to be learned from Adele's unfortunate illness is not only that (in some cases) singers should keep proper singing technique in mind--and that includes warm-ups, recovery periods and rest, as well as the "how-to" of vocal production--but that the managers and music industry professionals who push these artists beyond what is reasonable should understand that singing is an inherently athletic endeavor, and the body needs adequate rest and recovery after a performance. Good athletic coaches would never demand of sports athletes what most pop and country music industry managers and producers require of their singers.
(Photo by 50 Watts, licensed under Creative Commons.)
