First of all - I love Adele.
I really like her voice both in the sense of the sound and timbre she creates with her vocal instrument and in the way she "speaks" through her music. I like her music too. There is an intensity there that can survive the COUNTLESS times her song "Rolling in the deep" was played on every media outlet this summer. (It is really a great song and the way it builds is just genius.)
I am not even going to say "but" -
Her voice is fine. Some people might think that because I am a voice teacher and that I teach primarily "classical" vocal technique that I am going to take issue with the WAY that Adele sings. That I am going to criticize her vocal technique. Nope. Sure, she uses primarily chest voice and some classical voice teachers avoid "chest" voice like the plague. (I don't) Sure, she takes that chest dominant sound rather high. That's not a problem for me. Luciano Pavarotti took his chest voice pretty high too. It's cool. Yeah, there is a little raspy-ness in her sound. But it worked for her. And she is using a microphone for her primary amplification. I have no problem with that. (Unless she was going to try to sing "O mio Babbino caro" or something like that. Then we would have issues.)
Before you read what I want to say about her voice, first read HER words about the whole vocal fold hemorrhage thing. (By the way, a hemorrhage is a leaking blood vessel.) Something to know for background. Adele smokes. According to an interview, "up to 30 cigarettes a day."
http://www.adele.tv/blog/352/important-blog
I take issue with her statement that all this happened with her voice and she had to cancel "through no fault of my own."
Even setting the smoking issue aside, Adele ignored her vocal problems to her own peril. She says herself that she was aware her voice was not behaving as normal and yet she continued to perform in the same way. (Adele's music is not just some squeaky folk songs. This is intense, muscular stuff.) What is the definition of insanity? Performing the same actions repeatedly and expecting different results. Adele knew her voice was injured and probably had been told what had caused that injury yet she continued the exact same behavior and is now surprised at the result? Please.
Adele, a personal plea for the sake of all of us who love your voice and your personality and your "BIG"ness, Go work with a Singing Voice Specialist - a voice teacher who has special training in the rehabilitation of the SINGING voice. Not just a speech therapist who also knows a little bit about singing. Or even a speech therapist who sings him/herself. They are trained in the rehabilitation of the speaking voice and can be incredibly good at that. However, that does not mean that they can help you belt a D5 like you have in "Rolling in the deep" without hurting yourself. And let's be honest. How can you avoid that high belt? That is why we love you and what you clearly love about your own voice.
Then start working with a voice TEACHER (not a voice "coach") who can help you learn how to do what you do without hurting yourself. It might even be the same person as above. There are quality people out there who REALLY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING and use fact-based teaching techniques that are grounded in vocal function and can help you maintain that power in your chest register without trying to fundamentally change your sound. They do exist. Somatic Voicework (tm) would be one place to start.
If you were an elite athlete and injured your knee, you wouldn't just wait until it healed, you would look at the fundamentals of how that knee worked so that the injury would never happen again. Well, you are a VOCAL ATHLETE and need the same attention.
And for crying out loud, QUIT SMOKING!!! That hot smoke full of irritants is probably what caused the inflammation in your vocal folds to begin with which resulted in the bleeding. Take this time to go back and get some training because you are amazing and I personally want to be able to listen to your musical voice for a really long time.
