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The Great Breathing Debate (Singing Teachers)
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I don’t have set excersizes for breathing but try and teach them to breathe from their diaphragm while they are actually singing. I have found that it gives their voices more support especially while trying to hit those long high notes. I have also found that breathing properly gives students more confidence and belief in their abilities.
It’s different for every student though and it’s also difficult because naturally while walking or running or doing any sport we don’t breathe from our diaphragms. I found out the only sport where you do breathe from your diaphragm is swimming
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Wes – so true about swimming! I took swimming lessons a couple of years ago to learn how to swim underwater, breast stroke and front crawl, and it really improved my singing!
Kat – it’s not deep breathing that helps necessarily, it appears to be natural diaphragm recoil. This is what seems to have wowed me of late! A physical help yes.
I think that’s really interesting and true with the rest of what you said!! That’s why I’m changing my method. Teaching breathing means that focus can end up being too much on breathing, which inadvertently increases air in the student’s singing I’ve found! I tend to think, drawing on what you said about a chest sound feeling more supported, is that it’s the proportion of sound and air together… that’s the bottom line here… (at risk of stating the obvious?!) and the student just needs to find that balance! -
Eliza- Rad! That’s good to know about it being more about recoil. Gives me something to research and ponder to see if it can help my teaching :).
And what you said 100% – it’s totally about balance!! This is a reason I spend so little time on breathing. Because often you can address the balance by changing things on the throat level first, and that’s just so effective (and the breathing gets better as a bi-product!). Using tools like vowel, pitch and volume to affect the intrinsic muscles of the larynx is really helpful for most in addressing that balance. Woohoo!
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If it’s any help, I think the recoil bit is from the Vocal Process method which is what my vocal coach is trained in.
Woohoo, I am so glad we are on the same page. It’s a nightmare to explain. But yes, I have found lately that tonal changes with just things like mouth shape can be enough to affect the airflow naturally without actually trying to change foundation of breathing that we are born with. But as each student sings, I’m always saying “try this, now this, now a bit of this” till we get the thing that works! It’s just not black and white. Maybe they feel like I contradict them sometimes, but it’s just saying different things until the balance is right. I think I’m making sense. But it is 2am…
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Awesome, will look into Vocal Process.
And yes, Eliza, I totally agree!!!
You DO have to adjust as you go to keep the student in balance – I think of it like a pendulum swing, the student will often do things towards one extreme at the start (too muscly or too breathy for example), and then as they learn new co-ordinations, may swing the other way! The key is to help them identify with the condition of balance (the right amount of airflow synching up with everything else) rather than the tool. When a student stays with the same tool for too long, it sometimes becomes a hindrance rather than a help as they drift toward another extreme. Totally on the same page :).
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