2023.06.27 – 0908 – When You Simply Can’t Speak At All
The clinical name for hoarseness is ‘dysphonia’ and complete (or almost complete) voice loss is ‘aphonia’.
Often the symptoms are caused by infection, physical abnormality or disease, but emotional distress can also be at the root, when it is referred to as a ‘psychogenic’ voice disorder.
Extreme performance anxiety may include paralysis: freezing, fainting or losing the ability to talk at all.[1]
In the singing world (where of course, artists perform in front of a living, breathing audience, unlike the solo studio presentations of most broadcasters and podcasters) some of the biggest names from Maria Callas to Vladimir Horowitz – have struggled to deal with performing under intense expectation. Then there’s Ella Fitzgerald, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Barbra Streisand[2], Adele[3], Luciano Pavarotti, Arthur Rubinstein, actors Stephen Fry[4] and John Sim[5], Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Frederic Chopin who wrote: “I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me. I feel choked by its breath, paralysed by its curious glances”.
Note that a live performance is usually better than a pre-recorded one as performers are often at their best when there's a bit of tension. There’s a buzz an excitement, a scary thrill. Nerves can keep you alert and sharp at the mic, you need to harness that energy and heightened state of awareness to bring in your best personal performance.
[1] More on this topic in Dianna Kenny’s book “The Psychology of Music Performance Anxiety” https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychology-Music-Performance-Anxiety/dp/0199586144 and Sarah Solovitch “Playing Scared: A History and Memory of Stage Fright”
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Playing-Scared-History-Memoir-Fright/dp/162040091X
[2] Barbra Streisand, the most successful solo female singer of all time, gave up live performance for 27 years after she forgot the words to a song in a concert in Central Park in 1967. She later claimed to have spent 2,700 hours in psychotherapy, at a cost of $360,000.