Vocal Longevity: The Icarus Effect

At the time of writing this article, I had one particular client who gigged regularly down in London. One of the issues they raised was that they feel that longevity and robustness is a serious problem for them. If they were doing a recording session, they felt they could deliver a handful of good takes and then the voice would just get weaker from that point on. If they were doing a string of gigs, they may even feel like they need months off to recover from them.

This performer’s age is relatively young, so it’s not an age related issue. They can hit all the notes they are trying to hit. They are also not overly aggressive with their singing, if anything they are slightly light with their voice. And they are not alone in this struggle – I regularly get experienced singers in suffering the same issues.

So what’s going on?

Many singers suffer from these issues to one extent or another, and it is increasingly common with younger singers. This is for reasons I’m going to explain. The best illustration I can give, is the Greek tragedy of Icarus.

The Icarus Effect

In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who was imprisoned with his son. Daedalus built them each a set of wings made of feathers and wax to enable them to escape and to fly out of their prison.

During the flight, Icarus was amazed at what he could do with his wings and flew up high, far too close to the sun for far too long. This was despite warnings from his father. The prolonged exposure to heat from the sun melted the wax holding the feathers in place. Icarus’s wings fell apart, and he plummeted to his death.

The issue with many singers of any age is that they over-estimate their ability.

This is especially true with those gifted with a half decent instrument, but often a trap that hobbyists fall into. They keep running their voice into the red, biting off more than they can chew, until… well… they can’t do it anymore.

To be clear, I’m not talking about just merely hitting the notes – I’m talking about something several dimensions deeper than that.

– What does it take to hit a reasonably high note just ONCE in a song? Probably challenging but doable.
– What does it take to sing a final chorus where the whole melody is relatively high? Hmmm, tiring, but manageable.
– What about if the whole song sits in that range? Oh… that’s getting really exhausting.
– What about if you’ve got a whole set of songs that sits in that range? Errrrrr….
– What if you have got multiple gigs a week, with a whole set of songs in that range? Uh-oh.

But THIS is exactly what many singers do. They realise they can sing a high note once, maybe several times, then suddenly everything becomes about shoehorning every song into that area of their voice, without addressing how LONG they can sustain that kind of demand of their voice.

The issue is NOT how high someone can sing.

I’ve met untrained singers with great initial aptitude for higher notes all the time. The issue is NOT even how often they can sing those high notes. If there is a portion of the song that is lower that the singer can retreat to for comfort and ease between climaxes, then repeated high notes are really not too exhausting.

Why Icarus ACTUALLY fell…

Icarus didn’t just fall because of how close he flow to the sun, he met his fate because of how LONG he spent that close to the sun. It’s the duration at a particular level of exposure that we’re talking about.

If a singer insists on placing songs in keys where EVERY note requires application of effort, even if it’s only a tiny amount, the resulting vocal condition places the demand squarely in the court of how LONG can they spend hitting those high notes… i.e. how long can they spend in the sun without their wings melting.

THIS is an altogether different parameter to measure your singing ability against. It is absolutely possible to spend a long time in those places (correctly!), but it’s an ability that takes a long time to develop and control.

Truth be told, most OVER-estimate their ability in this regard. Most tend to be able to hit a note without strain a few times in practice, or look back on a gig and think “wow, I was NAILING the high notes at that gig”, and they become convinced they’re able to sing well there. I see this time and time again.

Some examples

In the opera world, Pavarotti talked about how challenging it is to keep singing those high notes and how the body naturally finds it harder to keep the system perfect the longer you are “up there’. You can read about this in the book ‘Great Singers on Great Singing’ by Jerome Hines.

In the pop world, you can look up Bruno Mars bootlegs on YouTube where the man with the biggest and most consistent live range of the early 21st century places songs just around his first bridge, or even just in chest voice.

The Take-Home Message
If you are a singer who is repeatedly facing vocal health and longevity issues in relation to periods of singing, it is very likely you are flying too close to the sun, hence my advice to you will be the same as to the client I had the other day.

Take your songs down several keys. Assess yourself AND your set-lists and the songs you sing. Your primary goal is to sound GOOD – don’t compromise on that. If you can’t sprint a whole marathon, if you can’t lift maximum weights in the gym with no rest, then you can’t sing every song at the tippy-top of your range – you will wreck yourself.

You must pace yourself, and make sure you don’t spend too long “up there” taxing your voice.

Learn More: Related Articles

If you want to learn more about vocal health and voice issues, you may enjoy the following articles:
Shouting masquerading as singing: Why so many singers are just yelling
Why vocal problems so regularly derail careers, permanently
Famous Singers with Voice Problems
Vocal Health Issues
My Singing Voice Hurts: 5 Habits for Vocal Health
Why do I keep losing my voice: Overuse, Misuse and Abuse
The Seriousness of Vocal Fold Nodules

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