The reason why Zhou Shen did not eat shredded potatoes was that he was afraid of being pricked in the throat, and I almost believed it

A few days ago, Zhou Shen, the terrier king, contributed a small April Fool's Day humor to everyone, saying that in order to manage his throat, he did not eat shredded potatoes because he was afraid of scratching his vocal cords. This potato stalk quickly became a hot search, and it was also very happy.

Jokes aside, it still succeeded in arousing everyone's curiosity. After all, the majority of netizens who love the singing career, many people usually love to sing K with friends, and the home family will also record the K songs of the whole people to send a circle of friends, I believe that everyone is a senior Mai Ba (and vocal music white).

We don't know whether the potatoes have been wronged, but we still asked the professional singers to see if they would really not eat specific foods because they wanted to perform; how to protect their voices; and what advice the professionals would have for ordinary people who wanted to sing better.

Do professional singers really not eat specific foods?

Singing seems to be something everyone knows, and sound is produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords. When performing, the vocal cords vibrate more than 1,000 times per second. The billions of tiny collisions that occur in the throat can present a vocal feast. Located in the middle of the throat, the vocal cords are made up of three parts: the vocal cord muscle, the vocal cord ligament, and the mucous membrane, and it is a symmetrical structure that looks like a wishing bone. When people are not speaking, the vocal cords are open, and air enters the lungs through a triangular fissure in the middle of the vocal cords (hilar fissure) while people breathe. And when people are talking or singing, the air comes out of the lungs, the vocal cords move closer to the middle and vibrate, which produces the sound we hear.

The vocal cords contain the densest form of neural tissue in the human body, and the vocal cord muscles regulate the tension of the vocal cords, thereby changing the frequency of vibrations. The greater the vibration amplitude, the higher the tone. Everyone can go to the KTV and roar twice, but it is not easy to sing beautifully. The incorrect use of the vocal cords may also cause some damage and affect the presentation of vocal music, so professional singers pay attention to the health of the vocal cords, which is not a joke.

But in order to protect the vocal cords, what food to eat and what food not to eat, it is completely different from person to person, which is related to congenital conditions and eating habits.

For example, many Cantonese people may feel uncomfortable even talking when they eat too spicy, let alone go for a period of "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau". But you have to live in Sichuan and Chongqing, even the pot of stir-fry is spicy, and it seems that others have no problem eating like this since they were young.

Zhang Rose, an associate professor in the Vocal Department of the China Conservatory of Music, is a native of Sichuan, and she eats spicy hot pot every week, does not eat uncomfortable, and the expressiveness of her voice is still excellent. After the performance, the world-famous tenor Pavarotti likes to chew ice cubes, similar to the ice pack before the athlete's competition, using ice cubes to cool down the vocal cords and reduce swelling.

What you eat doesn't necessarily affect your voice, but not drinking enough water does necessarily affect your vocal cord health.

Drinking water is not simply swallowing two sips of water and moisturizing the surface of the vocal cords, but the body must absorb enough water to maintain a good elastic state of vocal cord muscles. It's not good to drink it when your mouth is dry, so the singer carries a kettle with him to replenish a lot of water around the clock.

Like the singers, many people don't like to fly, because the cabin is too dry, and staying in too dry an environment for a long time will affect the condition of the vocal cords. But they often have to go to various places to perform, and it is common for international flights to sit for more than ten hours, and some actors will wear masks on the plane to moisturize and keep their throats in the most comfortable state.

A good voice requires health management like an athlete

Ordinary people singing K may start to be very heroic and loud, and then sing two songs and start to go down, and the voice is dumb and out of breath. But the singers can go down to a concert for two hours, and may have dozens of consecutive performances everywhere, why can they always maintain such a full and thick tone?

Maintaining the health of the vocal cords also requires overall health management. Singing in KTV during the holidays, everyone may have drunk two glasses of wine first, and then the environment is noisy before talking and chatting by yelling, and when the vocal cords start to really start singing, they will soon get tired. Singing actors generally quit smoking and limit alcohol, usually pay attention to protecting their voices when they speak, and then do not stay up late, just like athletes to maintain a good physical state.

We usually use the throat to make sounds when we speak, but vocal training emphasizes the use of breath, and we must use the resonance cavity to make sounds, rather than simply relying on the voice to shout. It is as if athletes need to coordinate their limbs to complete difficult movements, and when singing, they also need to coordinate the singer's various body parts, mobilize the resonance chambers of different positions on the whole body, and try to use the least amount of force to make the most magnificent sound, so that they can sing for several hours.

The control of breath requires constant practice, and only through practice will you know where the advantages and limits of your voice are, so that you can use this tool well. The concert we see at a concert is only two hours long, but the preparation can take months, just like a racing driver adapts to the road conditions and weather conditions of different stages, and the singers will also adjust to different performance venues.

From the chamber music concert hall of three or four hundred people, to the grand theater theater of thousands of people, and then to the performing arts center of thousands of people, the vocal method needs to be adjusted accordingly, and too much force in the small hall will make the audience feel too much, less of the gentle interpretation of the eloquent; the same strength may appear to be underheated in the theater, and the penetration of the sound is not enough to directly hit people's hearts.

And the singers will also be like racing drivers to repeatedly deliberate on the small details of each work, what road surface with what technology, how to cross the corner time of the shortest risk is also controllable, the work singing also needs to be adjusted and planned little by little, before the start of the concert to design the technology and possible risks that each work needs to use.

Usually netizens sing on their own APP at home, before recording can also practice several times, which lyrics with what kind of emotions, where brisk and high-pitched, before the official recording roughly has a blueprint, the recording effect will be much better than casual singing.

Mindset and stress can also have an impact on the voice. Sometimes everyone encounters the company's annual performance, or go to KTV to find new friends, singing is easy to feel nervous, and the more you sing, the more nervous, singing to the back inevitably the voice is getting smaller and smaller, the breath is unstable and a little trembling. This kind of pressure is actually very normal, even a world-renowned tenor like Pavarotti, he will feel nervous, Pavarotti likes to look for the nail in the concert hall before the performance, and he will be happy to find it, thinking that this performance will be very smooth, which is a positive psychological hint to himself.

Acting itself is a stressful thing, and it's not easy to show yourself in the spotlight without reservation, even the softest place inside. Therefore, professional singers will also learn to regulate stress like athletes, such as reading some books on sports psychology, learning self-discipline and resilience. Self-discipline can complete thousands of trainings and improve the ability to cope with unexpected situations, such as performing on stage, or Mai suddenly has no voice, and stable singing ability can better deal with crises.

Ordinary people want to sing better skill points

Many singing lovers will often sing at home, nothing to go on the national K song, sing bar or something to record a sound to send a circle, holidays about friends to go to the K room to release the pressure, and even small party celebrations to sing a song to relatives and friends to help cheer. So if ordinary people want to sing better, what skill points can be blessed?

1. Flexible use of home space

Usually there is no professional recording studio at home, and singing on an open balcony feels that the sound quality is not very good, because the sound will not be reflected back and there will be no reverberation. If you record songs on the open balcony, there may be noise interference, such as suddenly a car driving over the horn when recording, occasionally a loud cry or two of neighbor children, and even the sound of downstairs decoration is also recorded. In fact, you can choose the cloakroom at home to practice songs at home, the confined space plays a noise reduction effect, and a little reverberation is added, and the sound quality will be better.

2. Learn some vocal skills

Whether it is learning from a vocal teacher or finding resources online to learn on your own, it is important to understand some music theory knowledge and learn the correct vocal methods. In fact, singing actors also need to constantly learn from the vocal teacher, because the teacher can give pertinent evaluation and feedback, and will give more guidance in the arrangement of the track and the singing style. Ordinary people feel that their singing is not good, most likely because the song they choose is not suitable for their own vocal range, and singing certainly feels difficult.

3. Let the vocal cords rest at the right time

Everyone usually do not reluctantly sing when the vocal cords are not in good condition, such as when you have a cold or fatigue, singing is easy to affect the health of the vocal cords. Singers have been trained for a decade to be able to present a full performance when their vocal cords are in poor condition, but there is no need for ordinary people to take such a big risk. Like many superstars in the music world, sometimes singing is flawed, but flaws are also part of the charm of the scene, and those live performances with personal imprints have also achieved many classics.

4, singing is to seek to break through the self

As a music lover, learn to enjoy the fun of every singing, don't feel that you can't sing well and be discouraged and don't want to sing, you don't need everyone to sing like Pavarotti, you just need to improve compared to yourself.

Singing is actually a process of self-discovery, professionals will continue to try to break through themselves, young singer Hong Zhiguang has recently used the current popular short video method to interpret the classic opera "Carmen". Singing the same song at different ages will have a completely different feeling, because your aesthetics, experience and mood are different.

Everyone usually has time to listen to a variety of different types of songs, find the most suitable works for their own interpretation, and sing with friends to communicate, this process of constantly breaking through the boundaries will make you feel very accomplished.

Professional director of this article: Nan Feng, young tenor opera singer, double master's degree in opera at Northwestern University and Yale University, member of the first season of Hunan Satellite TV's "Sound into People's Hearts".