soprano.wetpaint.com home 6/12/2006

Basses and Sopranos Should Avoid This Virus: Bell’s Palsy

A few weeks ago I was desperately trying to eliminate plosives and fricatives from my speech.

Plosives are the sounds you make when you pinch your lips together and explode air behind them: P-P-P-P-P and B-B-B-B-B.

Fricatives are the sounds you make when you touch your top teeth to your bottom lip: F-F-F-F-F and V-V-V-V-V.

One morning only half of my mouth woke up. The other half was numb. As the day waxed it did not get better, but worse. By the end of the day, I couldn’t even blink my eye on the numb side. The right side of my face was paralyzed.

The doctor diagnosed Bell’s Palsy, a flareup of an old virus that paralyzes the facial nerves for a couple of months.

A couple of months! For a gregarious singer, this was a calamity. I gained a new appreciation for consonants.

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