Hey guys welcome back again to Ken
Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing. We get a lot of requests and a lot of questions about singing and I just want
to go through a bunch of requests that we have. Now before we get started here
and I'm gonna repeat myself a few times when I answer these questions, I remember
vividly going through trying to figure out when a vocal coach says just do this
or another vocal coach says do that and they don't really demonstrate it
themselves and they don't really prove it out themselves so you're kind of left
going well gosh you know you told me how to do it or you read it in a textbook or
you read it online somewhere but you're not physically demonstrating this
for me. Can you please demonstrate what it is that you're talking about and man
I just spent I don't know a couple of decades of going to some of the world's
greatest vocal coaches and most of them could not demonstrate what they teach so
that drove me nuts and in fact it's what drove me to doing my singing course
called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else it that I could be very explicit
and very simple and not get bogged down with big technical terms and big fancy
ways of trying to make me look good and pretend that I have all this great
knowledge of the voice or pretend or really have great knowledge of the voice
whatever that means but and then not really be able to explain it to you
clearly, succinctly and simply okay. So as I go through some of these questions, I'm
gonna you know try to do my best to do just that so you really apprehend this.
Now please also understand that when you ask a question it is multifaceted. There
is a lot to this so it's not just one answer here, one answer there and not
one-size-fits-all or there could be multiple answers or there could also be
a combination of you know you start at this point and then you do this and then
you do this and you do this. So to give you a quick five-minute tutorial or a
5-minute answer is really, I want to use the word irresponsible. No one is gonna
be able to just get it from one quick tip or a quick answer but at least it'll clarify a lot of things for you to really help have
you see the vision of how you can see yourself doing whatever question is that
you're answering and I'll do my best to answer those questions okay. So with that
said I'm gonna put this at the head of a lot of these little or a lot not little but but big questions that I have coming in to really again clarify and
just make simple for you to understand how to do some of the things you guys
want to know okay. So with that said let's get started. Okay the question is how do I breathe when singing. Well that's a huge question because the way
we naturally breathe is very different than the way we breathe when we want to
learn how to sing or when we want to sing well okay and there's lots of
different types of breathing. I mean there's um ways that runners breathe.
They have a very specific way that runners breathe. There's a way that swimmers
breathe when they go to take a breath and how they pace out their breath
underwater and then they take their stroke and you know so forth. There's
different breathing for yoga and so forth. So there's lots of different ways
to breathe and especially in singing it's very different. So let me go through
the math of this but before we do that I want to emphasize that the way we
normally breathe we're gonna have to break some habits of how we normally
ingest air in the lung, in the intercostal muscles in the lung. Now I
have a video out and I'll put it in the description tag you know breathing for
diaphragmatic support or it's called diaphragmatic support how we breathe so
but I want to walk us through this again. So we have in our lungs and our.. in the
cavity of our lung we have these muscle tissue and like I said they're called
intercostal muscles and it's like a giant honeycomb that goes through the
lung and they're very vulnerable, they're very fragile so you got to be really careful
with it that's why when someone has lung cancer, that's one of the hardest
surgeries to perform because it's kind of like taking a you know those little
things of glue on a straw you go and you blow like a balloon in the straw you
blow a balloon up. Well imagine even thinner substance and a bunch those in a
honeycomb fashion throughout the lung, that's
pretty much you know what your lung looks like right. So it's very sensitive,
very delicate but with that said. So most people when they ingest air they take
the head of the breath like this they go and they ingest it from the lung okay. Now of
course we have to have air in the lungs so I don't want you to go away thinking
wow Ken said you know you breathe from your stomach and you don't breathe from the chest. Well that is and isn't true and let me explain. We want to take our
breath from the lung and have what's called ribcage expansion and again I cover
this in my diaphragmatic support. I have a couple of tutorials out on this and
we'll put that information in the description so you can follow along. Now
as I said at the very beginning of this video that this five minute tutorial or
ten minute tutorial is not going to be the total sum of you learning how to
breathe correctly because there's a series of exercises you really should do
in order to accomplish this but to get started. So we take the lung and we're
about half to three-quarters full already in the lung. So kind of imagine
walking around you know you're you know like a proud peacock, you're kind of
walking around have you know chest out you know whatever not out like this but
you're full, half to three-quarters full. Now your your spine again really can't
shouldn't be hurt.. lurched over a hunched over like this. It really needs
to be straight up and your neck needs to be straight. So so think of really big
posture because it's very important so posture for singing so we get our
posture together so it can sustain and support this concept of ribcage expansion okay. Now I want you to try and experiment and it's the experiment
that's in the diaphragmatic support video that I have so I need you to watch
that and lay on the ground and just ingest some air in the belly and feel
that that breath coming in and out of the belly. Now what you're gonna notice is is
that when you're laying back on your back right that your ribcage is
already split open. It's already in a in an open state alright. It's already
expanded and not contracted like when you exhale. So it's expanded and that
when you're able to relax and put your head on the ground and you can feel this breath coming in and out of the abdomen that is a good
start to really understanding how the actual breath itself works. Now where a
lot of people get frustrated is they don't understand the strength required
in that breath in order to be able to sustain good quality singing and have
that be the engine that drives your car to give you the strength um to be able
to sing clearly and powerfully and create longevity and we're gonna
have a whole tutorial on longevity because we got asked a lot of questions
about things like that so but anyway so you take this breath and just just sit
lay there for a little while and control that breath on the ground and watch
yourself. Watch the video that I have and then I want you to do a couple simple
triad exercises laying on the ground you're gonna do a sit-up and you're
gonna do a simple scale on an ah vowel or an easy vowel and you're just gonna go,
you're gonna take in the breath, the belly's gonna come out and you're gonna go (sings) and as you come up that scale, that will
be the top of the sit up. Now stay in the breath. So as you come back down off the
scale, you're gonna continue with the breath pulling in inside the tummy. Kinda
like you're going number two, going to the bathroom. Yes it's a gross way to to
give you that analogy but that is exactly what it sort of feels like. So
now what I said at the beginning of this, there's lots of different ways to take
the breath and lots of different ways to use the breath. So sometimes you want to
take a quick hit you know (sings) and you want to have you know different phrase stabs and stuff. So you can't always say well gosh Ken how do I
go, you know you take your breath and your tummy's going you know like this
let me back up right and you're going well. Okay so now I've seen a couple of other
vocal coaches on the internet that actually demonstrate that and one of
them is a very well known actually there's two of them very well known vocal coaches
and it's kind of interesting because when they sing they're not demonstrating
any strength in that sound at all, they're just going through the motions
and kind of and they are doing what it looks correct but they're actually not
demonstrating any strength in the sound. So you've seen me say the call register or
the belting register right. It's like I'm calling out someone's stealing my car
or my bike or someone just stole my cell phone off of the table.. picnic table or
something and you go.. just try it with your tummy you go hey hey. Now don't come from the chest just from the stomach. Hey hey hey hey hey and you do that a
few times and you understand that strength. Now I can't get into all this
and like I said this is just a small tutorial and there's a lot to this. I have a
singing course it's called How to Sing Better Than anyone Else and I cover
through all the steps on how to get good good abdominal strength and good
abdominal strength for breathing specifically for singing. Now why I keep
emphasizing the difference of singing breath and other breaths is let's use
the example of yoga okay. Now when someone is in a yoga position, they're in a relaxed state and they take their breath you know usually through
the nose sorry and by the way you should ingest through the nose as much as you
can because it warms the breath and adds a moisture to the breath so that doesn't dry the chords out because if
you ever noticed like if you have a head cold and you're laying there all
night and you're by the time you wake up in the morning your throat is so dry and
your chords are just completely dried out because you didn't warm the breath by
ingesting oxygen through the villainess port the nasal cavity down into the lung where it warms the breath and it adds moisture okay so that's
also another important element. Now again there's another part to this. Here I'm
going off on these little tangents. You can't always ingest from the nose, you
can always. You know you're running around on the stage well how are you gonna be
able to breathe through the nose if it's well you can't you just do it when you can as best as you can and as often as you can okay. Let's get
back to this breath now. So gilga position so taking in the breath in a yoga position. You take in the breath with a exhale is the relaxation response
right. So you take in the breath like this and you do do diaphragmatic
breathing, you breathe in through the belly here you have this belly full
of air and then you release and you relax. Well in singing it's the opposite when you exhale that's when you're using your air to be able to
to perform. It's the engine that drives your car for singing, without it you know
your left engineless without a car right or car without an engine. So your
breath your exhale is actually your ha you know you're sort of (sings) right so every time you take that breath and you pull in in the sound. Now you're gonna get a lot of
vocal coaches saying oh that's wrong don't listen to that guy, he's crazy you want
to be in a relaxed state at all times. You know you should never have any
stress in the body in fact boy if you stress out the abdomen like that it's
gonna put stress throughout the rest of the body. Okay guys first of all
grandpa's been doing this a very long time. I've taken from some of the world's
greatest vocal coaches and I have put this to the test like you can't even
imagine and yes that one video I have out where I spent around a million
dollars on my voice in my lifetime is absolutely the truth. So as we as these
people make these comments and they can't demonstrate it but they can talk
smack and trash and you know hate it hate stuff. I want you to understand
Lionel Messi he's one of the greatest soccer players in the world on Barcelona
he's an attacking center midfielder. The reason I'm gonna use him as another
example and I've used him in the past is when Lionel Messi is going to goal and
he's gonna score okay do you think that his body is completely absent from
stress. No way, the guy's body is stressed out beyond belief but he's conditioned
his body to manage away that stress and literally pace himself with a balance so
that he's able the goal to go to goal with an incredible amount of force and
thrust and you know all the different things that whatever and then the second
he stops and this is another important component to breathing, the minute he
stops he can go into a relaxation response where his heart rate may have been up around 150 hundred and sixty beats a minute boom he can bring
his heart rate down back down to 70 80 beats a minute as a resting heart rate
when he's waiting for a ball or you know kind of just jogging along on the field.
Well so it is with singing and with any other sport in that yes you..resistance I'd rather use that term than stress. There's an incredible amount of
resistance in the stomach that is required but here's the key to this and
this is why it's important that this again is just a short tutorial, you're
not gonna get everything from one little you know video here but the concept is
there and you'll understand this. You have to really visualize and I'm not
being so esoteric oh swami, snake-oil, visualize. No you have
to really truly visualize compartmentalizing your body. Here's what
I mean by that. So when you think about the lung you don't think about the lung
as lung, stomach, chest, neck and throat as one unit. You think about your upper
torso starting at the diaphragm and I'm gonna
discuss this in a second where you have a relaxation response in the chest and
the neck and the throat. Now we're gonna talk more and you're gonna see my video
on open throat technique and I've been preaching this for thirty years and it's
finally coming to light. The open throat technique. Guys I think I kind of almost
coined that phrase. I know it's an old belcanto term but that and glottal compression and a lot of these different
things, tongue to the base of the jaw I've been talking about this a long time
and now other people are finally coming along and you know regurgitating and
representing a lot of the stuff I've already said for quite some time. Yet
they still don't get the.. all the concepts and how they work together in
concert with each other but that's another sidetrack. Let me just get back
onto this. So anyway so you have to separate your body and your upper torso
has to be in a relaxed state that's why you have to have.. build muscle memory for
your lungs to be in a 1/2 to 3/4 full state and you have to manage your
stomach and try to imagine that your stomach is doing all the work and you're
able to shake off this stress and from the resistance that's happening in your
stomach. That is the key. That gang is the key on how to not mount stress
throughout the body. It's not that you avoid strength in the stomach altogether,
that's utterly ridiculous. It's that you're able like Lionel Messi
going to goal, you're able to manage away that stress into a relaxation response.
Now let's get to the diaphragm. So the diaphragm it looks like a crescent moon
it's directly underneath the rib cage, it's like this under here and when you
take a diaphragmatic breath, let me kind of do..well let me do.. let me show
you how it works. When I take the breath I go and it goes and it looks like this. So it
expands and contracts and when it goes like this, that concave I wish I could kind of make it look like this right, that concave
part of the diaphragm if your lungs are if you have them again built muscle
memory in the lung to stay full, it builds a vacuum inside the lung so that
you have a snap response of air when you want to go hey hey hey. You have all this
incredible amount of strength. Now why is that important, well it's important
because if you try to do it from the lung what did I say at the very
beginning of this that the lung is very fragile and very sensitive. It's not that
it it can't be made strong or stronger but it hasn't carries nowhere near the
strength capacity of your transverse abdominus muscle that runs through your
stomach on into the back and sciatica down your back and all the different
muscle structures that you have in the stomach that are can..that handle far more of a load and way have a much greater stamina or built
in stamina within the stomach itself rather than huffing and puffing from the
lung. That's why most of you out there when you go to sing a song you only last
two songs, three songs, four songs and you start to build and mount all that
tension in the throat, the throat closes down, you pitch and cramp in the throat,
you start squeezing you know and choking off the vowels that you're singing or
whatever which creates this vicious cycle of this you know this response of
just like choking down or clamping down on your vocal folds. Now that's also why
I want to talk about on another video the ah vowel because once you've established this amazing stream of air from the stomach. Once you hit the glottis which
are your vocal folds with this air, you can't hit hey hey hey, you have to build in again
muscle memory for good open throat technique to keep the throat open so the
throat doesn't cramp down and clench clench down and building muscle mass up
into the throat where you feel like you're choking on your vowels okay. So
like I said this is just a very quick overview on how all this stuff works but
it's really helpful to understand the mechanism. So again we have posture, we
have our lungs filled half to three-quarters full, we have a relaxation
response between the chest neck and throat that we really have to
concentrate on. We take in the breath from the belly and then we bring in that
breath with all the strength that we have and between each breath again very
different when I said about the doing sit-ups thing and doing the triad when
you're singing and doing sit-ups, is most people when they do sit-ups they do
crunches and they go hmm right and then they have a really tense abdomen, well
again that would be true for the other vocal coaches out there that say you're
building up tension you know and then it's gonna translate through the body.
Actually no that's not true. What you do is after each sit-up when
you go back down on the ground and lay down you completely relax the body get
your hands in there. Grind into your stomach if you have to to relax your
abdominal muscles in order to be able to create that relaxation response so that
you can come back up for another sit-up and not overuse this muscle structure. If
you don't do that it's like a guy doing barbells and here's his barbells as he's
doing you know sets of ten. Let's say I'm aat number ten and that my resting part is
here while I'm holding onto all that weight and I'm not really relaxing and
resting the muscle then I don't really rejuvenate that muscle and never you
know resuscitates or rejuvenates to the point where I can come back fresh and do
it again. Okay if you like what you heard please like and subscribe to my channel
and check out my singing course I've got a singing forum that has around 10,000
people in there. We're all talking about this stuff, how to help you get better at
your singing and you know check out a lot of the free video
tutorials I mean start there because you can see all the different things that I
have there are really great free resources to get you where you need to
be and then if you want to take that next step ,please feel free to check out
my singing course. Okay until next time gang God bless you peace out. Hey guys if you like what you heard please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to my channel by
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every time I have a cool video come out. Okay thanks guys peace out. you
