Does having your tonsils taken out really increase your vocal range?

[beltingbaritone]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 5:07pm

I heard on a Broadway.com interview that Kristin Chenoweth's range went up two notes when she had her tonsils taken out. Is that a normal side effect? I have to get my tonsils taken out and am EXTREMELY nervous as a singer. Needless to say, I'm trying to look for the silver lining here. Does having your tonsils taken out really increase your vocal range?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 5:09pm

Yes, but it's nothing compared the range expansion you get when you have your penis removed.

[choitoy]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 6:20pm

LOL!

I'm not a professional singer (mostly singing along with showtunes while driving in my car), but I found that I lost a good bit of my falsetto range after I had my tonsils out (I used to do a pretty good Mary Sunshine, now not so much). I also found out that my speaking voice is a little higher, but my singing range is a little lower (a chorus teacher at my high school once placed my range about a tenor when I auditioned for a show, but now I know that I'm below that).

I don't know about trained voices though, but that's my personal experience with my removed tonsils.

The worst part of it all is that it is very painful to undergo a tonsillectomy as an adult. I didn't want to eat or drink for a week, and became very dehydrated because of that. I found out that I could tolerate drinking Ensure though, because it has a thick, slightly oily consistency, and that helped me get some of the nutrients back that I lost by not eating much of anything. Expect a good 2-3 week recovery time.

Good luck with that beltingbaritone

[singtopher]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 6:54pm

Make sure you tell your doctor you're a singer, if they don't already know. They must be very careful how they make the cuts. (I have a friend who had a written letter from her voice teacher to her doctor on how to make the cuts, lol) I have heard of this procedure having positive side effects on singing ability.

[ZONEACE]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 7:06pm

No, but having part of your colon removed does make you an impotent whiner.

[spiritx33]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 9:30pm

It didn't increase my range at all. In fact, my range decreased. But that could be because a large portion of my tonsils had been embedded into my muscles.

Everyone's different. It probably depends on the positioning of your tonsils, what kind of technique the doctor uses to remove them, etc.

[JazzSquare55]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:21pm

As Spirit said...

Everyone is different.

It can ruin you or it can help you, or everything can stay the same.

No scientific proof to support either theory.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 11:34pm

I had mine out and my head voice is much more resonant and open, and I can hit the notes much more easily, whereas before, I could get a little whiny up there.

[LadyDramaturg2]

Posted: 4/29/09 at 1:14pm

Make sure you tell your doctor you're a singer, if they don't already know. They must be very careful how they make the cuts.

Lost a minor third off the top when I had tonsillectomy -- I hope there is such a thing as surgical technique that can preserve a singers range, and I think it's worth it to find such a surgeon if indeed they exist. It was a real bummer to lose that much voice.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 4/29/09 at 2:20pm

yes. it also helps you to repress your gag reflex. or so i've heard.

[twogaab2]

Posted: 4/29/09 at 5:20pm

No.