All Region tryouts for choir were this weekend. There was an abundance of eager students looking to claim 1st chair. To become first chair you have to be chosen by a set of judges for placement in each section. Among these students is Emerson Brown, a senior currently dealing with vocal cord nodules. This prevents her from fully closing her vocal cords.
“It makes my voice pretty airy,” Brown said. “My voice goes away a lot, so it makes it hard to be in choir.”
She communicates through ASL or by writing things down on a white board. Communicating can be tedious and time consuming because Brown has to write out her answers to questions.
“It’s pretty isolating unless I’m around good friends, because they’re the only ones who aren’t weird about it” Brown said.“On the days when I’m on vocal rest, I usually have more fun because people think it’s funny when I write on the board, although it also is hard some days when it feels like people might only like talking to me when I can’t actually speak.”
This is not the first year she has been dealing with these calluses on her vocal chords. Brown has been dealing with this for a while, so she rests her vocal chords as often as she can.
“I’ve been dealing with vocal problems since 9th grade, but I got diagnosed about two years ago,” Brown said, “Which is when I started using vocal rest and talking on the whiteboard.”
Brown uses her whiteboard in class to answer questions. The challenge for her is being able to answer questions in a swift amount of time. Writing is tedious and time consuming but it allows her to not strain her voice.
Even though these nodules put a stop to a lot of what Brown does, she is still able to try out for All Region. Vocal rest and care has become important as the days count down to All Region.
“Most of the month before All Region I was on vocal rest because of allergies and other things, and just saving my voice and stuff,” Brown said. “The week before All Region I started singing full out to figure out breath marks and two days before I went on vocal rest. It was a lot of planning to try to keep my voice in okay condition.”