Keith (not) at Irvine Spectrum -- 26Jun2010

I had to cancel (aka "no show") at the last minute for the first time -- due to a sudden, mysterious, and frankly scary, near-total failure of my voice. I don't have a sore throat, but there's a "sore gland"-like pain in the left side of my neck (though without any swelling), and I simply can't make my voice go up to even slightly-high notes. I aim at 'em, but my voice won't go there. My neck/throat feels "tight" when I try.

I discovered the problem on the way to the gig, singing along with myself (on CD) to warm up. But I never got warmed up. I can't hit high notes, and the medium notes waver radically. I sound like someone who's purposefully making fun of singers -- completely off half of the notes, and all wiggly.

I've never felt (or heard of) anything like it, I have no idea what it is, what caused it, nor when (or if) it'll go away. It's been 4 days as of this writing, and it's just about the same, still, so I cancelled next Saturday's gig already, in hopes that they can book someone else.

I'm considering going to the doctor, but there's nothing to see, and no symptoms to report except the sore spot in my neck, a tiny bit of scratchiness, and "I can't sing anymore".

I can talk fine ('cuz that's lower in my range), but I dunno. Maybe it's Goiter. Maybe it's a "pulled muscle", (though it's not like it happened while I was tryin' to sing a double-high-A). Maybe it's a new, weird, non-hurty Cold. Maybe it's thyroid cancer. Maybe I just slept on my neck wrong. It's really scary, though, 'cuz, like, what's the point of knowing how to play all this guitar if I can't sing along with it? So I guess I'll have to go let the doctor stick some needles in it/me, 'cuz, you know, that's what they do.