My Biggest Singing Struggle

by Alex
(UK)

I start out singing fine but after about 1 hour of singing I get a really bad pain at the top of my neck at the back. It just stops me from carrying on although my actual voice doesn't feel at all tired. What is causing this?

ANSWER FROM EDITOR

This problem could be a number of things. The most likely scenario is when you sing you're tensing up your neck in a certain way that is causing you to feel pain.

In the book, The Inner Game of Music there is an interesting story where a pianist get's a sore back every time he plays, and it's actually to the point of threatening his career.

The way he gets over this problem is by focusing on tightening the muscles in the pain area, and then loosening them for a few seconds each.

For example, if the number 10 represented tightening a group of muscles as much as possible, and 1 represented loosening them as much as possible, the pianist continually rotated between a 1 and a 10.

What this did is gave him the AWARENESS of when he was tightening these muscles.

After doing this exercise he as able to play the piano without tightening the muscles that were causing the pain.

Perhaps this is an exercise that could help with your singing.

If you can learn which muscles you are tightening when you sing, you may be able to be able to relax them.

One final tip...

If you sing with good posture this may also help you from getting a sore neck.

Try practicing singing while standing up straight next to a wall. This will allow you to sing with good posture.

Hope these singing tips help!

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