How to Breathe Better for Singing

today we're going to talk about breathing for singing we're going to talk about the basic anatomy involved talk about the difference between releasing and pushing and then I'll share some exercises to help you work on your breathing you are your voice everything that goes on in your mind and in your body is going to have an impact on your voice but it's also useful to think of your voice is actually being an instrument every instrument has a vibrator and a generator in the case of a violin the strings are the vibrators and it's the bow that is the generator that makes this strings vibrate in the case of your voice your vocal folds are the vibrators but it's the breath that generates the sound there are two basic categories of breathing costal breathing involves the ribs the upper body the sternum and a spine diaphragmatic breathing involves the abdominal area because it's important to maintain good alignment when you're singing we're mostly going to be talking about diaphragmatic breathing you can see how when I do my costal breathing the ribs collapse when I exhale it's going to be bad for my alignment so I want to keep my upper body stable and use mostly my diaphragm to breathe in and out the diaphragm is a large dome shaped muscle it attaches to the sternum in the front it goes all the way around the ribs and then hooks into the spine on the back and when you inhale it pulls down like a plunger and sucks air into your lungs keep in mind that the diaphragm is active on inhalation the diaphragm is used to pull air in it's not used to push air out when you exhale that's the diaphragm relaxing try this I'd like you to inhale and exhale a few times keeping your upper body very stable and open and just using that nice low diaphragmatic Adamo breathing to pull air into your lungs you can see that I can do that low breathing while keeping all of this expanded I've had to work on that you might not be able to detect that right away when you try this but see if you can do it see if you can keep your sternum high and your ribs expanded and then just use your lower body breathing muscles to inhale and then release the breath once you feel like you've got a sense of that what I'd like you to do is inhale fully and then release your breath on a sigh and just let a little bit of sound out with it so it's going to go something like this oh oh oh I don't even really feel like I'm doing anything with my vocal folds they're staying passive and just allowing the breath to release is enough to set them in motion now try starting the sound like that and then just seeing a simple descending five note scale notice that releasing the breath is enough to produce quite a lot of sound I didn't need to push anything all I need to do is create conditions where I can inhale fully maintain upper body stability release the breath and then my voice just goes and it feels really free and easy this is Rachel rachel is mezzo-soprano and she's working on the Aria must the winter come so soon from Samuel Barber's opera Vanessa Rachel I understand that the last phrase of this song presents some challenges as far as singing it comfortably on one breath yes I having difficulty with that well why don't you sing it for us and let's see if we can work on it and make it easier it's a really long phrase now your voice sounds wonderful but I think that you could be using your breath more efficiently I do notice that your sternum is dropping a little bit on that last phrase so let's see if you can keep that a little bit more elevated and try the exercise that we just talked about what I'd like you to do is inhale fully and I'm just inhale and exhale having your sternum stay high and feeling like your ribs are really expanded now see if you can maintain that good alignment and just get a good breath and then release it on the slow steady hiss so I'd like you to go simply like this is moving up instead of down your hips continue to move out whenever you're ready inhale good and keep it going keep it going keep your sternum high keep your ribs out don't let it collapse good job now I think that you maintained good alignment and released your breath for at least the length of how long that phrases so I'd like you to sing the phrase again and I'd like you to do two things first I'd like you to give yourself more time to inhale before that very last phrase singers almost never take enough time to inhale if there's no rest in the music you think that you're not allowed to take any time but the composer knows that you need time to breathe and you'll find that they've set up the accompaniment in such a way that the pianist or the orchestra can wait for you while you prepare that nice long phrase so I'd like you to take a little more time to inhale and don't feel like you've got to start that last phrase until you're really ready to and then when you do see if you can keep your ribs expanded and your sternum high see if that works better I thought that was a much more successful what did you think and since that was so good I'd like you to try one more time and this time I would like you to see if you can articulate your words in a way that will facilitate the free flow of your breath as well the last two words are so soon that s is an unvoiced fricative consonant and we tend to push breath through those if you could just go for me some kind of push on it right for some reason we think we have to do that it we're not going to be understood but you can really just sort of release inside through it can you instead just go right so you can just continue to release your breath at the same rate that you were doing when you were singing and then you're not going to waste extra breath trying to articulate those s's in so soon the other thing that I'd like you to do is see if you can use your lips a little bit more to articulate that closed oh and you in so and soon ah because the more you're able to make your vowels out here um the freer a pathway you're going to create for your voice to go through so if you can remember all those things I'd like you to sing it one more time take your time inhaling keep your ribs expanded and just sigh through those s's and through your vowels well done Rachel thank you for showing us how doing a little bit of work on your breath management can really help you sing long phrase as well you can see what a big difference it makes when you do a little bit of work on your breathing for your singing remember that the diaphragm is used to pull air into your lungs not to push it out remember to keep your sternum high and your ribs open maintain good alignment and then release your breath fully do you have some phrases that are presenting breathing challenges for you please feel free to upload your videos and recordings and we'd be happy to give you some feedback on your singing

Channel: Claudia Friedlander

Views: 797,855

Keywords: voice studio, claudia friedlander, rachel labovitch, breath, breath management, vocal technique, tutorial, diaphragm, Music education, voice lesson, vocal, voice, training, sing, singer, singing, classical, breathing, breathe, how to, master class, masterclass, Musical Exchange, vocal pedagogy, carnegie hall, voice lessons, singing lessons, singing technique, voice teacher, singing teacher, learn to sing, improve your voice, improve your singing

Id: 5djAyb8STOs

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2012