Do WW instruments damage the voice???

[nafmeadmin]

I am recruiting band members for 6th grade band, and I just had a student come to me and say that she wanted to play flute but couldn’t because she was a singer. When I asked her to explain, she said her sister (an opera singer) said that playing a wind instrument would damage her voice. I have never heard this before. Could someone either explain this to me or tell me the student should be fine on the flute?

[nafmeadmin]

This sounds completely weird. I’m a singer myself and the only thing I can think of is that some beginners will articulate using the vocal folds (glottal articulation) rather than the tongue, which will cause a little unnecessary muscular tension. But as you well know, this is a bad habit that any good teacher will address long before it causes vocal problems.

[nafmeadmin]

Umm, no, except in the case of poor tonguing technique mentioned above. In fact, with the exception of clarinet, most pedagogy I have heard encourages warm air, which requires that the soft palette lift, much like the shape created by a vocal “ah” or a yawn, which is a vowel shape encouraged in singing.

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