Pamelia S. Phillips - Singing For Dummies

If you’re really confused right now or feel short of breath, that’s okay. Feeling short of breath when you begin working through these exercises is normal. Be patient, and you’ll begin breathing efficiently. Creating a new habit in your body takes a while, and breathing for singing is definitely new. Your inhalation was perfect when you were a baby. If you watch infants breathe, you can see that they know exactly what to do. As people age, they start to carry unnecessary tension in various parts of the body, which can prevent efficient breathing. The body gets stressed out. But not in this book — stress busters are on the way!

Another area of the body that you can open for inhalation is your sides. For now, think of your ribs and your sides as separate. The sides are the love handle area — the area right below your rib cage and above your hips — the oblique muscles. This area may automatically open when you open the ribs, but you want to be sure.

Place your hands on your hips and then move them up a couple of inches so that you feel the indentation just above the top of the hipbone.

Pretend that your lungs are just above your hip bones. To help open that area, exhale, and then inhale allowing the area under your hands to expand. You may need to provide a little resistance with your hands so you can figure out how to open those muscles.

Your sides are a great place to notice exertion in the body. When you cough, you may feel your abs move in and your sides expand. The movement for singing is similar but happens more slowly. The sides also engage when you sing loudly. For now, be aware of how your sides move; later, you can move your sides when you need an exertion of energy to sing loudly.

Singing with a clear tone doesn’t use as much air as singing with a breathy tone. See Chapter 6for more information on singing with clear tone. You can sing with a breathy tone on purpose, but it requires a lot more air, and it’s more difficult for a microphone to amplify a fuzzy tone.

Many singing teachers feel strongly about the movement of the abdominal muscles (abs) and singing. You may have been told to control your abs to control your exhalation. That idea is a good one, but you also want to control the other muscles in your torso, because the abs aren’t the only muscles that control exhalation.

To feel the release of the abs with inhalation, get down on your hands and knees (on all fours). You can get something soft to put under your knees if this isn’t the most comfortable position for you. Exhale and notice the movement of your abs. You probably feel them moving in, and that’s great. Notice how they move when you inhale. If you feel them dropping down with gravity, you’re on the right track. If you don’t feel them drop, you may be trying too hard to move your chest to breathe. Allow your chest to remain steady and try again.

Taking in too much air is called overbreathing, which can cause adverse tension in the body. When you get used to breathing for singing, you can judge how much air you need to take in for each phrase.

The following exercise enables you the opportunity to let breath fall into your body, releasing the abs.

1 Exhale.As you exhale, your abs move in.

2 Hold your breath and silently count to ten.Don’t inhale while you’re counting to ten.

3 After counting to ten, inhale.Most likely, you need the breath so badly that it just falls right into your body, and your abs release and drop.

4 Notice the movement of your body as the air comes rushing in.Your throat opens and your abs release so the air can drop in.

After expelling all your air on a long musical phrase, let the air that you need just drop into your lungs by opening your body.

The goal for inhalation is to open the body quickly so the air drops in quietly. If your muscles don’t know how to open quickly, you can slow down with this exercise and find how to open the muscles.

When you were a kid, your mom probably told you not to suck air through your straw, right? It makes that horrible slurping noise after all the liquid is drained from your glass. Now you need a dry straw that doesn’t have any leftover milkshake stuck inside. Breathing through a straw helps the air that you breathe drop into your body, making it easy to feel your body expand as you breathe. You also can’t gasp or suck in air too quickly with a straw.

Just follow these steps to slow down your breathing:

1 Find a straw and cut it down to 3 inches.

2 Insert one end of the straw into your mouth.

3 Breathe through the straw, making sure that you don’t raise your chest or shoulders, and notice how your body opens as the air drops into your lungs.

4 Inhale for three slow counts and exhale for three slow counts.Repeat this step five times. Remember to keep your alignment. Chapter 3has tips for great alignment.

5 Inhale for four slow counts and exhale for four slow counts.As you inhale, notice what’s moving in your body. You want your ribs to open, your sides and back to expand, and your abs to release and drop. If the motion is still unsteady, keep practicing until you really feel the movement in your body. It may take a couple of weeks to feel the movement enough that it becomes familiar.

Your song may have a long phrase and then a very short rest to catch a breath. The struggle is to get in enough air in a short time. To understand how to catch a quick breath in your song, you want to know how to quickly open your muscles. If you opened the muscles slowly in the preceding exercise, you may be ready to open them quickly. Try this exercise to explore a catch breath.

Get yourself slightly winded by running in place, dancing around, or doing any other movement that gets you moving. When you start to breathe faster and get winded, stand and sing part of your song. Your body really wants to inhale. When you finally take a breath, notice how the breath drops quickly into your body. Most people describe the sensation of the body opening quickly to get air in. It’s different from pulling in air or gasping. With a gasp, your throat is tight and you’re pulling or sucking in air. Opening the body (including your throat) helps you make a quick and quiet inhalation.

Although inhaling may be natural for everyone, you need to practice the efficient and ideal posture to inhale in order to breathe your best while singing. Correct inhalation means keeping yourself properly aligned, with your body free of tension, your throat open, and your shoulders steady to allow the most air to fall into your body. Try the following to feel the difference between incorrect and correct inhalation:

If you gasp, you can feel a tight sensation in your throat as you try to squeeze air in while your vocal cords are closed. However, if you pretend that you’re hiding and don’t want anyone to hear you breathing, you leave your throat open and can take in plenty of air.

If you inhale and intentionally raise your shoulders or chest, you can feel that, as your shoulders rise, your neck gets tense. However, if you keep your shoulders and chest steady and inhale, you get more air into your body.