Dick Van Dyke Quotes

Singing really oxygenates your blood. You stretch your lungs and take in much more air into them than before. It's really good for your health.

Seventy per cent humidity is ideal for vocal cords.

And singing is a physical thing - your vocal cords are these muscles.

If you actually relax your vocal cords they actually work better.

But actually just yesterday we raised the key of one of my songs two steps up, so my voice is obviously responding. It's a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you use it right, the more you should get out of it. So yes, I sing.

Essentially, your voice is an instrument; it's a muscle, and you have to treat it like a muscle, and so you have to work it.

I have learned how to breathe, to use my cords differently. I had been tilting my head in a way when I talked that wasn't good for my throat. I've been working on all of that, and it seems to be helping.

I find that touring keeps your voice in great shape.

I'm a geek when it comes to my voice. I know if it hurts, something's wrong. You shouldn't feel it! It's very important to look after your voice.

I feel like the kindest thing that I do to my voice is sing.

Singing lessons are like body building for your larynx.

I don't take care of my voice at all, which is one reason that I sound as bad as I do.

I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic undertaking singing actually is.

People think that lemon is good for the voice, but it dries it out.

I know how to treat my voice to make it sound as good as it possibly can - which is still not that good.

I took some voice lessons here and there as a teenager but nothing too serious. I started taking it more seriously when I was in Miss Saigon. I needed to improve my technique in order to survive doing that show as many time a week as I was doing it. It's not an easy show to sing, so I needed all the help I could get.

I have deliberately kept singing because I have to at my age. If I stopped for even a year my voice would slowly deteriorate until it's not there at all. That's a fact about getting to my age.

I do a lot of vocal hygiene.

I feel so very grateful to have the voice God gave me. It takes a lot of rest and training to sing, and I was lucky that I found a great teacher when I first moved to New York.

As a singer, you can't hear what's coming out of your throat; you're only hearing it from the inside, so you need a trusted person who knows how your voice works. It's like a car. You take it to the same mechanic because they know it inside out, and every time you get it back, it works fantastic.

It's very much like opera singers. They do the same thing. The first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, the thing they think about is their voice and how to take care of it.

There is one thing I should say, and it's important: Young Broadway singers and anybody who is an orator of any kind - lawyers who have to speak in court or pastors or anyone who has a lot of stress on their vocal cords: You should do the maintenance. You should do whatever it takes to feel fresh and good.

I feel like a lot of pop singers hurt themselves if they don't have the proper training.

That's right, I take vocal lessons - done it for years. There's nothing wrong with it.

The first thing I will say about looking after your voice is get a pair of in-ear monitors because one of the most common problems singers have is trying to hear themselves on stage.