Singing with a sniffle

I seem to always get what's coming to me. It was only Sunday afternoon that I was reminded that flu season is coming up and that I need to get my H1N1 vaccination shot. I was thinking "I never get sick during flu season," and then a mere five hours later, my throat is dry and scratchy. I had to sing a song at an evening meeting in church on the dry, scratchy throat. Amazingly, it didn't turn out too bad. I started off too breathy, but that's normal for me anytime I sing in front of people. It's all the nerves. Even when I feel calm mentally, my body reacts in a sort of nervous frenzy that causes my breathing to become irregular and labored. Only when I get to the middle of a song or aria does my breathing brecome more regular. My voice teacher and I are working on that.

Anyways, Sunday night my throat was dry and scratchy. Monday morning I wake up completely congested but still with a scratchy throat. Today I'm even worse. I just hope this bug moves though me rapidly instead of drawing out the symptoms for a couple weeks like usual.

How did this effect my singing today? Oddly enough, it wasn't as effected as I thought it would be. I could still sing my G5's and A3's without trouble. Any difficulty I seemed to have, other than my throat being slightly raw/tender, turned out to be psycological. If I think a cold is going to get in the way of my attempts to phonate, then it will.

What it all boils do to is air. If my throat is not hurting at rest or even when speaking normally, then I should be able to sing normally, too. If I use my air properly then the sound will sail on top of it like it always does (or should). We'll see if I can apply this to my personal rehearsal time this week as I learn "Die Lotosblume" and whatever that other one was. :oP