Clap your hands. Clap louder. Clap REALLY loud. What do you feel? You probably feel your hands stinging.
The fingers and palms are packed with nerve endings, which is why we’re able to do so many various tasks with our hands, from stroking a baby’s cheek to pounding nails with a hammer.
Imagine if your hands had no feeling. How would you know if you damaged them. except that you’d no longer be able to perform basic jobs.
The vocal folds have no nerve endings, so you can’t feel when they’re tired or swollen.
That’s how it is with the voice. The vocal folds have no nerve endings, so you can’t feel when they’re tired or swollen. Except that they don’t seem to work any more.
Sure signs of vocal fold swelling are hoarseness or raspiness in the sound (as the folds can’t achieve full closure) or a sense of having to work a lot harder than normal to get the same results.
The solution? Short term, rest and hydration. Long term, fix your technique – stop pushing breath in order to sing louder.
If you could feel how much damage you were doing, you’d stop straight away!