Freddie Mercury. Bette Middler. Rod Stewart. Justin Timberlake. Whitney Houston. Robert Plant. Julie Andrews. Annie Lennox. Madonna. Nathan Lane. Joni Mitchell.
What do all of these awesome people have in common? Herpes.
Just kidding! But at some point in their lives they have all developed a condition called
vocal nodules likely due to the strain they put on their vocal chords from their acting and singing careers. Basically, we're taking about a mass of tissue growing in the middle of each of vocal chord, preventing the normal airflow that it takes to create a clear, unobstructed sound.
Thus the person with the vocal nodules is sporting a not-so-sexy hoarse and painful voice that frequently breaks like a pre-pubescent boy and has trouble sustaining long notes or projecting over ambient noise.
Now I'm not a professional singer or actor, but I sure got 'em. I invite you to take a gander at the current state of my vocal chords and then I'll teach you more. These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago. Say hi to my chords!
When you are not talking, your chords stay open like the second picture. When you talk or sing or clear your throat or hum, the folds flap open and closed like the wings of a hummigbird, and that vibration is how we make noise. The problem with vocal nodules (or nodes, as they are often referred to) is that when you are making noise and your vocal chords are flapping open and closed (at practically a supersonic rate that can only be detected by slow motion scope cameras), those bumps are slamming against each other. That means it's almost impossible for them to heal.
See in the first picture how there are air pockets on top of and below that nodes? That means there is extra air escaping when I talk, which explains why I have a breathy, smoker's man-voice. And since that extra air is escaping when I hold out notes, that's why I run out of breath much faster than those around me when I'm saying a long sentence or trying to sustain a note.
Ok - so why did this happen? Well it's hard to tell. But I know it started months and months ago, if not years. And I know that I'm in two choirs, taking improv classes, and on nine nights out of 10 I'm at concerts, comedy shows, in bars or restaurants, or chatting with friends pretty much up until I go to sleep. Plus (and I know this is all no one's fault but mine) I'm kind of prone to loud-talking, over-talking and yes, yelling at times. Now any one of those things could be enough strain on your voice to give you nodules, but all of them together? That's a big fat recipe for nothin' but nodules.
The game plan: Well, in some awful cases of the infliction, surgery is required. But you can tell from the pictures that mine aren't gigantic, and since I'm only 25 I can try to fix this stuff now before it worsens. After my initial ENT appointment where I got diagnosed, the doctor and vocal therapist prescribed eight weeks of vocal therapy and training, which aims to heal the voice I've got and to reteach me how to speak in a way that is much kinder to my chords.
And let me tell you, it is supremely difficult. Reteaching yourself how to talk feels like, I don't know, like reteaching yourself how to walk if you couldn't feel your legs. I think about every word that comes out of my mouth. In therapy, we start with one letter at a time and learn how to use words that start with that letter in a higher register, with more breath being released, and even holding my head in a different place. Through physical therapy we are literally trying to coax my voice box down to a better place in my neck (how alien is that?).
Anyway. I'm not dying! I'm not even sick. It's just...work. And I quit choir. And I'm trying to stop being such a loudmouth and learn how to be a better listener, not just because it's better for other people but literally if I don't stop using my voice so much, there might not be any voice left for me to use.
Plus, if Miley Cirus can get rid of her vocal nodules, then I really should be able to do the same. Party in the USA, guys, right? Party in the USA.
