Breathing and Breath Support for Singers

hey everyone thank you so much for joining me today my name is Katie today we're going to talk about breath support now a lot of you are thinking breathing I'm great at it breath support is the foundation of singing basically it means you are engaging your abdominal muscles so that you can sing with less effort we want to work less and take the strain off of our voices and our bodies there are people that have dedicated their entire lives to this study and there are actually just full-on courses that you can take just on a posh feel alone there's so much to learn this is a very general overview so hopefully it does just give you a taste of it dipping your toes in the water so that you can just be introduced to proper breathing technique so for the majority of my beginner students when I tell them to take a deep breath this is what they do they go like this they go this and they get really tight really tense and their shoulders rise to their ears and then they stretch themselves up their sternum is high and I'm here to tell you I'm sorry that that is a shallow breath because they're only using this part of their body when really you need to be feeling from the bottom first okay so how do you do that so let's go over how the inhalation process works we'll be going over some terms generally and describing how they work the inhalation process involves the intercostal muscles so they're also known as the obliques diaphragm lungs trachea and larynx this is where the vocal folds are housed you have two folds that vibrate when air is passed between them the diaphragm for the most part is shaped like an upside-down Bowl this is your main inhalation muscle the lungs sit right on top of it and moves when the diaphragm moves when it contracts it flattens and creates a vacuum in your chest when you inhale the muscles that pull the ribcage up and out on called the intercostals air comes through your open vocal tract and your lungs fill with air activating the side muscles of your abdomen essentially slows down the exhalation process keeping your abdomen expanded for a longer period of time providing a slow steady stream of air to your vocal folds that's known as breath support so why is it important to activate these muscles in the exhalation process to support your singing now the air needed in order to activate the vocal folds for speaking is different from the air needed in order to activate your vocal folds for singing there needs to be more air pressure and it needs to be a steady stream of air and so how do you do that you engage these muscles so that you can maintain the circumference the expansion of your abdomen for as long as you possibly can because that will sustain your singing voice so some people mistake this portion of their abdomen as their diaphragm that is not true that diaphragm is that dome-shaped muscle that's sitting right here and your lungs are on top of it when that diaphragm contracts the lungs want to fill with air and if you are truly taking a deep breath what happens is that this portion of your abdomen which is called the viscera that's where your organs are stored you have your intestine and your stomach and things like that I've also heard it called your vittles that type of thing and when you are truly taking a deep breath that is going to expand almost like you have a belly but it's not just this portion of your abdomen when you are taking a true deep breath you're going to feel an expansion all around the circumference of your abdomen should expand I've also heard it as back breathing so you should feel it expand in the front and the sides in the back not just in one area so when you breathe in what I want you to do is I want you to take it doesn't matter what hand you take I want you to find your belly button and I want you to find about three fingers below your belly button all right you should feel this right here and the lower part of your abdomen when you breathe in it should relax and expand so I'm going to turn to the side so that you can see this when I fill up when I breathe it should expand so when I breathe in it should relax this way so first I actually sit my students down I have them put their feet on the floor take their elbows rest them on their knees and then breathe in so they lean forward their back is still straight but when you breathe in you'll notice that your lower abdomen Bandung first so if you breathe in you should feel that belly expand that lower part of your abdomen expand rather than contract alright so place one hand on the lower abdomen and I want you just to relax just breathe in very easily very gently should be able to feel that lower abdomen expand first rather than here so try it again and exhale okay now I just want you to lift your posture just a little bit still placing your hand on your lower abdomen now breathe in and exhale focus on that lower abdomen now lift up just a little bit more back is still straight breathe in and exhale so put your hand on your lower abdomen again just breathe in very easily and try to feel that lower abdomen expand now place one of your hands on your ribs or both if you'd like to so I'm going to fill the bottom first just relax and then I'm going to focus on the sides of my ribs just relaxing the ribcage letting just letting it naturally expand so we have breather expand the lower part of the abdomen all right now hands on the ribs and breathe in naturally expanding the ribcage to see that my shoulders were down so lower abdomen one ribs to expand and relax good all right one more time one expand two ribs okay now this next technique I learned from my very first vocal coach and she taught me that she felt like she just got so much more if she did step one step two and then added a third one up here just lifting the sternum just a little bit more I've heard from a lot of vocal coaches saying that you should never ever ever breathe from here I think what they mean is that this should not never be the first step that's just my interpretation of it if this is something that doesn't work for you then forget about it don't worry about it but for me I feel like I just get a little bit more power I'm able to fill up just a little bit more so I have expanding of the lower abdomen relax now ribs and then just a little lift here just a little bit it's gonna be very very subtle let's try that again one two three it's a very very gentle make sure you don't try to inhale too much because what happens is that if you fill up too much the epiglottis will shut and that causes tension right here we do not want any tension we want everything to be as relaxed as possible let's talk about breath support we learned how to expand and use our diaphragm expand the ribs lift proper posture okay so how do we support it what I want you to do is I want you to imagine two arrows squeezing in and down this way and so then I make the analogy of if you're getting ready to be hit by a pillow on a pillow fight and you kind of tighten up and you squeeze the obliques this way so I'm thinking squeeze down and inward this way like two arrows going this way alright so you want to have that strong core and I'm not squeezing here the lower abdomen I'm actually thinking more concentrating on the sides right there instead of the bottom because if I squeeze inward oh this is not expanded and not relaxed what's happening is that this sinks in here and so you want to keep this nice and relaxed and pushed out and down so we squeeze here push down imagine it pushing everything down keeping this part relaxed so when I'm talking about squeezing from here think about a tube of toothpaste I've heard as well as possibly a pouch of applesauce you don't want to squeeze from the middle you want to squeeze from the bottom so imagine your air is in your lungs you don't want to squeeze from the middle you want to squeeze from the bottom first now what I want you to do is I want you to take that three-step breath try to make it as seamless as you possibly can just make it one motion as you possibly can thinking of each part of your abdomen one two three and then as you exhale you are going to squeeze and imagine those arrows going inward and down take your fist you're gonna place it over your lips just as something to push against and you're going to blow into this portion of your hand just to have something they are just an escape all at once and my lips are also going to be a little person like that just so that you have something to push against rather than it all blowing out at once so already three-step breath one two three and exhale squeeze down breathe in gentle make sure that you are breathing in at a nice slow even pace and then time yourself and when I mean by time yourself I want you to breathe by counts so breathe in four four one two three four exhale four four then try eight then try possibly it twelve or ten something that's just a little bit longer than you did before just to help you to be able to engage your muscles to feel how it actually feels to properly breathe and what it feels like to support because once you connect your voice with your breathing you're going to notice a difference another way to engage that lower diaphragm is to lay flat on the floor just in a very very relaxed pose and then take a large book and place that on top of your lower abdomen as you breathe make sure that you're focusing on the lower abdomen and that book lifting first before you ever try to engage this part of your body so you engage the lower part of your abdomen first before you try to expand the ribs and then lift the sternum just very gently again can't over stress that just make sure that everything is relaxed do not try to overfill make sure that everything is just one fluid motion and then try breathing two counts 4 8 10 12 whatever is going to work for you that is best for you just try to extend it longer and longer little by little hopefully you'll be able to feel a difference all right now you're ready for the next step stay tuned for the next video and I'll see you in the next one bye make sure you are perfect route so I have my expanding of the lower abdomen my ribs hope that was the piano

Channel: One Music School

Views: 56,155

Rating: 4.9554377 out of 5

Keywords: Breath Support, Breath Support for Singers, Breathing for Singers, Proper Breathing for Singers, Appaggio made easy, Easy Appaggio, Appaggio technique, Katie DeNure, ONe Music SChool, Heid Music, Voice Teacher Techniques, Singing 101, Apagio, Appagio, breath support exercises, Respiration process, How breathing works, How the lungs work, How the vocal chords work, Supported Singing, Supporting Singing vs. unsupported singing, Diaphragm breathing, Breathing from the diaphragm

Id: CBvtyPlzAPo

Length: 11min 49sec (709 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019