My Voice Over The Years: Why I Had Surgery

Hey Everyone,

Before I get into the meat of this post, I just want to give a brief update on how I'm feeling the day after surgery: I feel great. My throat is a tiny bit sore, but not bad at all. Plus, the amount of love and support I am getting from everyone is making this whole process easier. Thanks for your support, thoughts, and prayers. It means a lot to me. Seriously. Thanks. 

And if you still want to send me emails, texts, fb messages, etc, I won't complain.

Onto the bulk of this post: 

Why did I have surgery?

I figured the best way to do this was to show (not tell), how my voice has changed over the years to help give you an idea. Each of the links goes to a mashup I made from various songs written during the time period provided. They are all between 2-3 minutes and you can jump through them. If you want to hear the whole song, just let me know. I'll happily send it to you. 

Here is my voice in High School:


This is a mashup of a few songs off my first CD that was written during my Senior year of high school. My voice isn't raspy, I can belt, and my vocal stamina at this point was incredible. People who met me in college, I promise, this is me. 


Here's my voice in Israel (Yes, even the least musical person in the world can hear a difference)

In Israel, I lost my voice. While at camp or on retreats, I always lost my voice, it would come back within a few days. The same did not happen in Israel. I recorded a CD while I was there, and my voice had changed a tremendous amount. You can hear that it got lower, more raspy, and that it sounds like I'm working much harder to get sounds out. All of those things are true. I just didn't realize what that meant.


My Voice Freshman Year of College (As Bad as it Got)

When I got to college, I sort of assumed that my voice would get better, just like it did in High school. To say the least, it didn't. Here are some highlights (really lowlights) of what my voice sounded like at that point, before I went and saw the incredible team at the UCSF Voice and Swallowing center and got diagnosed with cysts.

This song is vocal rock bottom as far as my voice goes. It is written in memory of Ricky Normington

Lyrically, this one's fun, but vocally, it's not much better


Here are some other songs from Freshman Year. They're better, but not very much.


My Voice As it Started Getting Better

Last summer, I was diagnosed with Bilateral Vocal cysts . Here's what that means. I went to the UCSF Voice and Swallowing Center (which exists) and started working with an INCREDIBLE speech pathologist named Soha Al Jurf. She helped teach me how to properly utilize my breath, redirect the vibrations in my vocal tract, and reshape my relationship with my voice. A few weeks after working with her, this is what my voice could do:




As I kept working on what she taught me, my voice could do even more, and I felt myself writing music that sounded and felt like me again. I'm going to post a few songs that I am particularly proud of because I'm sick of making mashups. Flip through stuff if you're interested. If you're not, I won't take any of this personally.

My voice a month before surgery

Neither of these songs are really done, but they show how far my voice has come. The reason I am getting surgery is so that I can continue to sing like these songs show I can, but with increased vocal stamina.


To Wrap Up

If you read this far and actually listened to these songs, give yourself a pat on the back. This was a long post, and it took me a ton of time to do. I hope you all appreciated it.

Thanks again for your support, and be in touch,
Becca