When You Sing, Do You Breathe Virtually?

When You Sing, Do You Breathe Virtually?
by A K Whitehead

Whatever kind of voice we have, using it to its full potential depends
very much on whether we breathe efficiently. Singing is one of those things
which virtually all of us do. But do we do it virtually or properly?

Well, that's being rather hard. But the point is that, if we want to sing in
some kind of serious way, there are certain principles which can be
ignored only to our own detriment. That's the case whether we prefer to
sing pop or classically. The principles involved used to be mostly
associated with the latter. But now more and more people are realising
that they can be applied with good effect to any kind of singing.

For example, do you have confidence when you open your mouth?
Can you sing phrases which are as long as you would wish? Or do
you have to loose the sense of what you are singing because of
pauses for more breath? Do you have control over the pitch and
volume of your voice? Or do you sing in ways you did not intend?

All these aspects can be improved on by developing a few techniques
for good singing i.e. for singing better than you currently sing.
Certainly, the best idea will probably be to get a good singing teacher.
But it is possible to make some prior progress. But essential to that
progress is breathing - breathing effectively and not, as most of us
tend to do, breathing inefficiently.

And the technique of breathing effectively is really quite simple.
But it will need working at. First of all, however, always be sure that you:

1. Care For Your Voice
Your voice is, in fact, comes from quite a delicate system of sound
pproduction. The system can be damaged, sometime irreprerably. So
always take care not to push it too far and try to do things which it has
not been educated to do.

2.Practice
Ever heard that practice makes perfect? Well, it does. Good
singing does not just come. It takes practice. Of course, no one would
sing something for a public audience without having sung through the song
at least a few times in private.

But is that where the practice should start? With the song itself? No, it
should start a good deal before that. For example, one cannot sing
without breathing - and that needs to be practised.

But practicng once a day is far better than once a week - much
more than seven times better! That applies to virtually anything, but
certainly to this. Your lungs need to develop and gain in doing what you
want them to do.

However, breathing is not just a matter of sucking in the air. So:

3. Breathe To Fill The Lungs
In a very short time, developing a good breathing technique will show
how inefficient your beathing used to be.

Breathing is much more than opening one's mouth and taking a lung-full
of air. In fact, just opening your mouth and trying to take a lung-full will
most likely not produce a lung-full. Most of us take breath in such a way
that we try to fill the lungs from top downwards. That's just inefficient.
The result is that often we do not speak or sing for as long as we
wanted or, even worse, for as long as we thought we could. Even worse
than that, sometimes, we actually have air left in the lungs which we do
not use because we do not know how to use it.

Fill the lungs from bottom up. Try to breathe so that the lower parts of
your lungs expand first, right down at the bottom. Continue to inhale
and feel the lungs expand from the bottom upwards. The first time can
make one a little dizzy, but it is only the first time.

Breathe in counting fairly slowly from one to ten. Hold the breath for a
second and then exhale over a count of twenty at the same rate. You
may not manage twenty at first, but with practice you will. And as you
practice, over a prolonged period of time, gradually slow down the rate
of counting to one second each count. Eventually, you may be able to
exhale over thirty seconds or even more.

4. Breathe Anytime
You don't need to leave your breathing exercises at home. Take them
with you whenever you are walking. Breathe in to a given number of steps,
and then try to breathe out over twice as many. It's a harder excercise
than stood at home, but rewarding in the development of your technique
and what you can and once could not do with your breathing.

5. Breathe On Your Feet And On Your Back
Standing up is the usual position, but there can be advantages in other
breathing positions. For example. sit down in a chair with a firm back,
or on the floor with your back against the wall. Breathe in deeply, filling
from the bottom as usual. Feel your lungs fill and expand as they push
against the wall or chair.

Try doing the same laid flat on your back on the floor. After some
practice, try lifting a fairly heavy object up in your hands as you breath,
lowering it as you exhale.

6. Developing Additional Breathing Techniques
There are only a few basic principles attached to producing good
singing. The problem is that they all take considerable time and
practise to develop to anything approaching perfection. Breathing is just
one example, albeit a very important one.

Sometimes in actual singing one needs to get as much breath into
the lungs as possible within a very short space of time, perhaps when
there is a rest of only a quaver or eighth note. Sometimes the composer
has left no rest at all but a breath has still to be taken somehow between
one note and the next. In these cases it is important to be able to get
as much air into the lungs as possible in order to get through the next
phrase that has to be sung.

To help with this, practice taking very quick intakes of air and then
exhaling over increasing lengths of time.

During the early stages of breathing development it is useful to get some
variation into the practice period. If you spend, say, fifteen minutes on
breathing, follow the general approach outlined above. After a year or
two,breathe in for the usual count of ten so that the lungs feel full. But
then try continuing to breathe in for another ten. Then exhale in the
usual way.

Later still, follow the last paragraph, but after the second count of ten
try holding the breath for another ten, and then exhale over at least a
count of twenty but working up to thirty.

In the early stages, breathing practice can seem a bit deadly. Try to
get some variation into it. Perhaps most of all, make regular assessments
on your progress. That will help more than anything to keep the
motivation going.