In this month's 'In Conversation With...' Imelda Drumm, SingersResound mentor, renowned mezzo-soprano, and Professor of Voice and vocal pedagogy at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, discusses 'Hormones and the voice', looking at how singers can regulate their nervous systems, how our brains recieve and interpret emotional and physical information when rehearsing and performing, and discusses how the larynx is a reproductive hormone target organ, leading to changes in muscle responses!
Hormones and the Voice
To understand why our hormonal balance is so important to our body in helping support our voice we need to understand some basic facts. There are many hormones (not just reproductive) that keep our bodies healthy and functional during our lifetime.
Every individual has a unique balance of circulating hormones at any one time. Our personal hormones try to keep our bodies healthy but chronic stress, our habits, pollutants, and aging can alter the delicate balance of these harmonising processes. Hormonal imbalance can directly influence our voice production and influence our anxiety levels.
The larynx (our voice) is a reproductive hormone target organ. Fluctuations in hormone can cause significant changes in muscle response. Some other hormones, such as Thyroid hormones for example, regulate vital metabolic functions like heart rate, body temperature, digestion, and brain development, while also influencing bone maintenance, muscle control, and reproductive health.
Reproductive hormones are crucial to the balanced functioning of the brain, (neurocorticoids) and how we process information; one such example, is how quickly we can reduce feelings of stress and fear. The balance of reproductive hormones, both male and female have a direct impact on the wiring and rewiring of information processing between brain regions. Chemical alteration for instance; chronic stress, contraceptive medications, fertility treatments, pregnancy, menopause, or illnesses such as PMOS, Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (Previously known as PCOS) polycystic ovary syndrome. PMOS is a metabolic syndrome which is capable of being inherited by both sexes; who then pass it on generationally. (Epigenetic’s). This hormonal dysfunction/syndrome can have very unpleasant symptoms.
Singing training needs the brain to execute complex motor skills, and we teach singing by training our ‘feeling’ brain and executive function or ‘thinking’ brain through the process of interoception. The vagus nerve pathway, whilst carrying interoceptive physical information also is the highway of emotive responses along the same architecture. Memory encoding requires regular repetition and concentrated focus to firmly encode the correct muscle memory responses.
Learning to sing strives not to over-activate or stimulate the body into distress. Singers must learn to keep as calm as possible through-out this process (which takes many years). Therefore, training a singer, requires ongoing teaching and training about how to balance the nervous system. Understanding the current research about how hormones may overtly influence the voice and, the process of learning itself over the duration of a professional singing career may help many in the profession.
Dr Imelda Drumm. Professor of Voice, RIAM (Royal Irish Academy of Music)
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In this month's In Conversation With... we are joined by the wonderful Peter Savidge, celebrated baritone, professor at the Royal College of Music and one of our mentors! In this edition, Peter gives his advice to young singers as well as his thoughts on the industry at present and discusses what qualities he admires in singers.
