Advice on avoiding voice strain adapted from a conversation in the Caster Gitter channel 14-16/07/2019.

Alex Boche

I have had some pretty bad voice strain in the past which started almost right away when I started using voice recognition to control my computer. Here are a few things I found helpful. I can’t say I totally understand what causes the problem to get worse and better,but there are definitely some things you can try. There were times where I felt like I could barely do 10 minutes without straining my voice,but this has improved considerably. Oftentimes now I can go for several hours or even all day without much trouble,but not always and the problem seems to come and go.

• Drink a lot of water especially when you wake up. (ideally every 30-60 minutes throughout the day sip a little). You don’t want your throat to feel dry. Sometimes it takes a while for the water to absorb. I find my voice strain is worse when I wake up,so I try not to use a computer for about an hour after I wake up.
• You can try doing a vocal warm-up before you start talking to your computer especially when you wake up. Here’s what I for my warm up: some yawn sighs followed by me singing at a constant pitch while saying “meum” repeatedly. When saying “meum” I try to keep my voice as resonant as possible, vibrating my mouth and nose/face area and not using any effort in the throat. I then practice just talking using the same resonance and pitch as when I’m doing the “meum” exercise; of course it’s okay to vary or pitch a bit. A good way to practice feeling resonance/vibration is to first place your hands over your mouth to create a sort of echo chamber; once you feel the resonance/vibration, try slowly moving your hands away and keep up the same resonance/vibration. I try to keep up this resonance/vibration as I talk in real life and use voice recognition. Here’s another exercise I do sometimes using straws. My voice therapist recommended doing all these exercises several times per day. With the straw exercise, I think it’s good to try to make the pitch glides smooth so there’s no breaks in the glide. Here are a couple videos with some more exercises you can try: video1 video2
• I also try to hit my optimal pitch (optimal pitch just means the pitch that makes your voice most resonant for me it’s about B2/C3, I’m an adult male; you can try to figure this out yourself, it’s not an exact science just a general sense of what pitch feels the brightest/most resonant when you talk at it). I actually tried to raise my voice a bit higher in general not just for voice recognition because my voice therapist recommended that. (I was talking more around E2 so I had to increase almost half an octave to my optimal pitch). For a while, I had a command that played my optimal pitch note for me. I think the purpose of the optimal pitch stuff is just to help you talk with more resonance.
• Try talk to your computer in the same relaxed way you talk in real life.
• I found, repetitive single command utterances are often the most straining. Try to string together commands
• voiceless consonants put the least strain on your voice since they don’t use your vocal cords. I use “sh” to click and “s” to double-click in Dragon. To set this up just type in “sh” to a full text control application, then highlight it and say “train that”, then say train, then pronounce the “sh” sound, then say “save”. This will train the command without adding it to your vocabulary (I don’t totally understand how that works). Then assign “shsh” to a command that clicks. Some people use separate non-Dragon noise recognition: I think David zurow has some stuff; Talon has some stuff like a popping noise and hiss.
• Sometimes your commands and stuff aren’t working properly and you start to get really frustrated. Then your throat typically tightens up and you start shouting at the computer.that’s very bad. if your commands aren’t working, it’s usually not because you’re not talking loud enough. just stay relaxed and try to figure out what’s causing the problem.
• Talk at a comfortable volume, not shouting and not whispering. Try to get a microphone gives you a decent range (or a headset) so that you don’t need to shout in order for it to hear you. An audio interface is a good way to extend (and instantly adjust) the range of some microphone such as XLR (focusrite scarlet solo is one audio interface have had success with).
• If possible, supplement voice recognition with other modes of input. Autohotkey is a good method of writing hotkey commands at least on Windows. Eye tracking input is another option: e.g. Optikey is a product designed for full control of the computer (I haven’t tried it though). Foot pedals, pressing keys with my toes, and capacitive touch sensors, are things I’ve tried.
• Be careful with your voice outside of voice recognition. Since I started using voice recognition, I stopped going to loud bars/clubs and avoid hard liquor (which can be rough on your throat.) I also stopped shouting to my family members from upstairs. Avoid smoking and coffee.
• I found that some sucking candies like lifesavers were useful for lubrication when my throat felt really dry.
• Take regular breaks and use a break reminder/enforcer if you can’t remember/enforce them yourself (Pcworkbreak is one I know, not great; rsiguard I think is another). Don’t let the problem build up; as soon as you feel the strain coming on,step away from the computer for a few minutes. If your voice/throat gets really bad, you might have to take a few days or even a week off voice recognition. Then start to get back into it gradually and increase your usage slowly over time; don’t just jump in from nothing into doing it five hours a day.
• The Alexander technique/method is another thing I’ve heard of but I have never tried that.
• Some people (often singers) say keep a low larynx. I haven’t tried that but here’s a video that tries to explain that

If the problem persists, consider seeing a voice therapist (in the US this is typically called a speech language pathologist). When you see the voice therapist, bring your computer and have them listen to you doing voice recognition (especially commands). To see a voice therapist, you might have to be referred by your primary doctor or a doctor specializing in otolaryngology aka ear nose and throat; the latter can look at your vocal cords using a special scope to see if there’s any damage. If you don’t have access to a voice therapist, a singing coach might be the next best thing (though I have never tried that).

SwellGuy

I have had problems with my voice too. They seem to have improved.

• For me saying kick or click was causing a lot of strain. Moving to a touch screen was the single biggest help for me. It alleviated a ton of mouse usage causing arm problems too. Coffee as much as I love it dries out my throat. I still drink it sometimes but if I’m having a bad day I avoid it.
• I still have a terrible time with dragon getting into fits of not understanding me and repeating myself a dozen times. I don’t know what else to do about it. I have a good mic with USB sound card and have the accuracy slider set to Max - I followed the know brainer instructions for dragon configuration. Maybe it has something to do with lots of active processes or something. Usually restarting my computer gives me a few good hours. Outlook seems to cause hangs and delays as well - I think dragon must be calling accessibility apis that are slow with too many screen objects since it’s supported for select and say. Sometimes normal mode ceases to work and i have to use commands to type in outlook. Would be curious if others have advice on this issue. Dragon is a pleasure to use when it works but gets me cursing daily.
• Silent (acid) reflux at night was contributing. Sleeping with my mattress on an incline helped as did not eating 3 hours before bed.

Jacob Eggleston

A few things I can add add that have helped me:

• In addition to coffee, I also pretty much avoid any kind of sodas or sugary drinks, and mostly just drink water. I find that for me, personally, things that are sugary seemed either dry out my throat or make me feel like I need to clear my throat, which brings me to the next point.
• Clearing your throat is hard on your vocal cords. After I learned this, I started becoming aware of how often I tend to do it.
• I find that, for me, any kind of stress or tension tends to manifest in my voice. When I’m under a lot of stress or get tense, my voice tends to get strained a lot more quickly.