How not to lose your voice during a convention

[Graham W]

In the run-up to Gen Con, here's some quick advice on how not to lose your voice if you're on a stall and talking all day.

(I'm an actor, in case you wondered, so I've learnt a bit about this stuff.)

1. Drink water. Start first thing in the morning, taking small sips.

Your voice lubricates slowly: ideally, you'd want to start drinking water a few hours before you start speaking. This is difficult if you're starting early in the morning, but start drinking water as early as you can.

(Nothing else but water counts. Coffee definitely does not count.)

2. For half an hour before the stall opens, hum to yourself. Humming is great. It warms up your voice. You really, really need to warm up your voice if you're going to spend the day talking. Hum.

(I've heard that the Forge booth does a warm-up to start the morning. I'd really suggest doing both the humming and the formal warm-up.)

3. During that half hour, practice using your voice in the space you'll use it in. If you'll need to call across the booth, try doing it now. Start gently, but get used to using your voice as you'll use it during the convention.

4. Throughout the convention, avoid making any harsh, constrained vocal sounds. The two big examples are: shouting and going "Aaargh".

This is unintuitive but important: one uncontrolled shout could really damage your voice.

5. Learn to speak loudly without shouting. It's possibly and really helps. Practice making clear sounds (as if singing like an opera singer) as you talk loudly. Practice using the tone in your voice (making you sound like a foghorn) to make you easier to hear.

6. Caffeine and alcohol screw up your voice. It's unrealistic to avoid them completely, but be aware.

7. Smoking, or being in a smoky atmosphere, really screws up your voice.

8. Coughing really screws up your voice. Worse still, when your voice starts getting croaky, the instinct is to cough, which makes it worse.

If you're talking all day, do your very best not to cough, at all. Really. Take small sips of water instead of coughing: it stops you needing to cough.

9. The first sign that you're damaging your voice is a tickle at the back of the throat. (If you get a tickle in the back of the throat, do not cough to get rid of it).

The next sign will be getting croaky, which makes you difficult to hear and unattractive to listen to. Then you'll lose your voice.

At the first sign of damage (that tickle at the back of the throat):

* Stop doing anything that's straining your voice, urgently. If you're calling across the stall, find another way to communicate.
* Keep silent as much as possible. Take a break from the stall, if you can.
* Take sips of water, to combat the need to cough.

I hope that helps. If you know about this stuff, do feel free to add comments. I'm also happy to answer questions.

Graham

[Jason Morningstar]

The nice thing about grahams' advice is that it also keeps you hydrated, which is my advice.  That and sleeping.

[GreatWolf]

This is really useful. Thanks, Graham!

[Eero Tuovinen]

Appreciating the advice here. Good stuff.

[Adam Riemenschneider]

During Con of the North, we were munching on Halls cough drops like they were candy. I dunno how actors/professional speakers feel about Halls, but they've earned a permanent spot in my Con kit.

[Graham W]

As I remember...

Cough drops are medicated. They're good if you've got an infection, but at a con, the problem is more likely to be vocal strain than an infection.

So although cough drops might feel soothing, they're not actually doing you much good. Your best cure is to keep quiet. Wander around the convention hall, keep completely silent, let your voice recover.

(My memory is hazier on cough drops, so I might be wrong. But I'm right on the keeping quiet.)

Graham

[Graham W]

Wait! I forgot something really important.

Don't take cough drops that anaesthetize your throat. (I believe Halls do this.)

Anything that anaesthetizes your throat will disguise the signs you're damaging your voice (of which pain is one). If you are unaware of these signs, you will keep damaging your voice.

Graham

[Adam Riemenschneider]

Good point, there.

[Denise]

Great advice which I plan to take to heart! 
Another suggestion is to avoid getting the ConCrud which can cause voice problems.
Try and stay rested (probably the hardest to do at a convention!)
And most importantly...
Keep your hands clean.  I've found that a bottle of hand-sanitizer really helped over the years.
Never touch your eyes, nose or mouth or anything that goes near them (food, cigarettes, pens) without washing your hands.  Don't forget that money is filthy, so clean your hands after handling money before eating. I know it's hard sometimes when you're a small operation with a limited number of people to run your booth, but try and NOT eat at the booth.   

[Graham W]

Oh, that's good, Denise. Staying rested. Yes.

A few things I've hinted at, but not said directly:

1. If you're working on a booth at a convention, you will likely be doing the following:

* Getting up as late as possible.
* Not saying much during breakfast.
* Talking to customers at 10am.

That is, while you're still waking up, you're going from a period of silence, right into six hours of using your voice intensely.

This is, essentially, a bloody stupid idea.

Do anything you can to smooth over that sudden start at 10am. In particular, start using your voice gently before 10am; and treat your voice gently for the first hour or so on the stall.

This is counter-intuitive: you'll probably feel you should start at 10am with a burst of energy. That's cool, but don't let that energy lead you to push your voice too far.

2. Be aware of how you're feeling and use yourself, and your voice, accordingly.

For example, on Friday morning, you might realise you're tired. If so, treat yourself gently for the first two hours.

3. Don't force yourself. If, for example, you spent Wednesday running 3 demos an hour at full energy, don't assume you can do the same on Thursday. If, at the end of the day, you're feeling exhausted, don't attempt to replicate the energy you had at 10am.

Again, excitement can lead you to push yourself too far. Realise how you're feeling, and act accordingly.

4. In particular, realise when you need to take breaks, and take them.

5. Don't assume that a five-minute vocal warm-up will fully warm your voice up. Your voice takes a while (say, an hour or two) to warm up.

That said, I think warm ups are good. By all means, do them, but be aware that they're not the whole deal.

6. A cautionary note about warm-ups: be careful of your voice during loud or energetic warm-ups.

If you do a warm-up, you'll likely be doing it at 9.30am, when your voice isn't quite ready to be used energetically. Push your voice too far, and you might damage it.

(Jason told me about some "Hoo-ha", group-bonding warm-ups, and it's those I'm thinking of.)



All right, I think I'm done. Quick summary of the most important points follows.

From the moment you get up, until you start on the stall...

• Sip water
• Hum or use your voice gently

Try not to...

• Cough
• Shout
• Go "Aaaargh"

Stop doing whatever you're doing with your voice if...

• It hurts.
• You're losing it.
• You feel a tickle at the back of your throat.

Thanks for your patience and I do hope that's of some use.

Graham