Enjoy Musical Journey During Cold & Cough

Music Heals!

Recently, like three days back, I suffered with severe cold, thankfully not cough. Precisely, it was not an English ‘suffer’, but certainly it was aHindi wala safar i.e., journey, in fact an intense musical journey. I explored how it become musical pleasure for you. You must be wondering how can illness serious cold or nasal infection becomes pleasure? Imagine the headaches, blocked nose, sleepless nights, lil feverish… Hell? Well! Wasn’t this time.

I feel catching cough is a real hell but not cold and there are a few ways when you can avoid suffering with cold or enjoy cold-stacked singing instead. As long as the throat-cough is not interrupting and only nose issue is there, you should not suffer.

During severe cold, my voice actually reached the deeper root notes. Real Bass voice was reverberating throughout the body this feeling give me a push to practice more daily and make the voice go deeper and deeper. I practiced Raga Bhairava notes in the Mandra (Lowest) C chord.There was an ambrosial touch in my voice. I simply loved my voice and wanted to sing more. My classical tessitura (comfortable range) is normally G#, but I practiced in G during cold: a half way down. And I could go to the Mandra Sa i.e., an octave lower. I was fascinated by the lower notes and I all the more played around only from the lower to the Unison because my throat was allowing me that much only; that was perfectly fine. It was bliss! I could feel the centre of the body reverberating; a kind of resonance, conformity, tranquility was penetrating through the body. I could feel the healing within.

In addition, this was an appropriate voice texture for the Ghazal genre. The practice of the base-driven Ghazals like Koi Ye Kaise Bataaye by Jagjit Singhwas scintillating to vocalise in this condition. Now the voice took a little shape, got heated after Mandra Riyaz and this Ghazal so tried the Begum Akhtar types: Door Hai Manzil Raahein Mushkil, Aalam Hai Tanhaai Ka…. wow! I can dive deep in this Ghazal anytime. Another my favourite one and I think everyone’s favourite by Farida Khanum:

Mere humnafas mere Humnawaa mujhe Dost Ban ke Dagaa na de.

Also tried these in Baritone voice-G scale- and extreme nasal infection rushing to the sink to blow in between… much much fun!

Phir le Aaya dil …. Awaargi…. Chhupa lo yun dil me pyar mera so on….

I found myself transcending in immense ecstasy I realised that I could emote these Ghazal with the way they may be perceived as if all these ghazals are traversing from the mooladhara to sahasraar subtly, effortlessly, superfluous. I genuinely like the voice quality which has little base like Farida Khanum begum Akhtar so maybe it was all the more scintillating for me.

Not only this, I explored some science behind achieving this joy in cold, of course without acquiring cough.

Anyways, one should suffer one of these more often so that the toxins and dirt in our body is removed in the form of phlegm or cough. Often we catch cold in the change of weather or exposure in extreme low temperatures, when body produces heat to fight the winters. Artefacts of that heat is mucus from congestion which gets accumulated and the body wants to trash it in the form of cold and cough for that matter loose stools or motion. Therefore, catching cold or congestion in the chest is the process of cleansing which is essential.

There are few points by which we can heal ourselves and we can enjoy this process of toxins removal through music without much suffering.

  • Never take medicine: Medicines often compresses the cough down and results in the temporary healing. it’s like you sweep the floor and collect the garbage in the corner of your room, you have cleaned the room but the trash still exist. So you might wanna trash it permanently in which medicines fail.
  • Stay Hydrated: Keep sipping warm or hot water. As I stated earlier, throat infection and chest congestion makes life hell unlike nasal infection. We can prevent the throat-cough by staying hydrated. Water keeps the phlegm thin and watery and keeps your nose blowing and fluent constantly, through which it is not assimilated in the throat in the form of congestion or throat infection. When you drink water you have a naturally flowing nose or throat which might be irritating at times but actually it helps trashing or removing all your cough.
  • Never Inhale the Phlegm in, Always throw it: I know it embarrassing and agitating as well but you may keep a towel or a handkerchief for constantly blowing and flowing. It really works and heels within in 3 days. Logic behind this is in three-four days all your junk is out of the body. All you are left with is heavy, bass, nasal voice and a towel.
  • Sit with your eyes closed, relax: We normally suffer a lot of headaches during the nasal or throat infection. most of the headaches are towards the forehead, over the brow area which is our prefrontal cortex. we also experience the watery Eyes. Watering of the eyes during flu indicates lack of relaxation or sleep of our body. We have not blinked the eyes for longer period. We should sit with our closed eyes more often to relax which helps in curing headaches. For that matter, we should get more sleep to heal ourselves these are some of the steps with which we can avoid the sleepless nights.

In terms of enjoying musical session with the nasal infection applying these tricks we can refrain from any bigger congestion problem and explore the nasal bass, baritone voices in ourselves.

Believe me! The nasal voices do have certain feel and emotions like the voices of Udit Narayan or that of Mukesh Kumar. Similarly do not get agitated with the cold instead find pleasure in thinking that you are a ghazal Maestro. More importantly, as a musician do not miss the opportunity to vocalise the root chords as they will help you in prolonged and enhanced singing when you recover.

Hope this articles helps. Stay musical!

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