My friend who does choir tries to avoid dairy before big concerts. Do you know why that is and if this would apply to coxswains too? I use my abs a lot when I’m coxing but I still feel like my voice is not very strong.
I do, actually! If only all the useless random facts I know counted as something I could throw under the skills section of my resume…
The whole “don’t drink or eat dairy” thing before you sing is partially a myth. Singers tend to think that if they eat anything with dairy it’ll produce a lot of phlegm in their throats and make it harder for them to hit their notes. This isn’t actually how it works though unless you’re one of the few people that are allergic to milk proteins. What actually happens is the mucous that’s already in your airway gets thicker due to the high amounts of fat in the dairy you eat. The lower the fat content of the dairy products, the less of an issue this is since it won’t thicken the already-present mucous as much.
I suppose that could also apply to coxswains. Trying to talk or project your voice when you’ve go a ton of crap in your throat can be tough because you spend more time coughing to try and clear it which just leads to your voice getting all scratchy and hoarse. I’m always clearing my throat (not because I eat a lot of dairy though) so that sometimes happens to me. That or I end up with a really bad migraine which is just about the worst thing to happen to a coxswain short of completely losing their voice.
Some people just don’t naturally have strong voices, which is fine. To strengthen your voice, go on YouTube or Google “voice strengthening exercises” or something similar and try out some of the exercises that come up. Or, since you’ve got a friend in choir, ask her to teach you some of their vocal warmups. Obviously you won’t notice a difference overnight but if you do them consistently then you’ll probably start to feel like your voice is a little stronger after a couple weeks. Remember too that there’s a difference between having a deep voice and a strong voice. How deep a person’s voice is is something that you don’t really have much control over whereas how strong it is has to deal with the strength of your vocal muscles and how confident and/or authoritative you feel.
In addition to all that, try doing some core workouts a couple days a week. As I’ve said before (in the post linked above), the stronger your core the easier it’ll be for you to project your voice.
