Tag: breathing

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Breath Support – How #4

First, watch this: Angelo Loforese at 92. Wearing his pants that high really help to show you what he’s doing.

As you have probably guessed from Breath #2, I’m a believer in abdominal breathing. There is some expansion of the rib cage and lower back when you inhale, but there just aren’t the muscles there to get the air out again and support a singing tone.

First, to recap:

Posture:
• The ribs are lifted and loose, and the shoulders are relaxed. If you’re wearing your deltoids as earrings, all is not as it should be!
• Lots of room between the ribs and the pelvis.
• Nothing is locked. We’re talking Opera – you must be able to move!

Inhalation:
The diaphragm flattens out, expanding the lungs to bring in the air, and pushing out everything beneath the ribcage. 

And now, Exhalation:
The abdominal muscles are the major muscles of exhalation. Yes, the intercostals can squeeze the ribcage, but not much. When you pull in the abdominals, the lower abdomen acts like a piston, pushing up on the diaphragm and expelling the breath.

Try this: Take a loose, low breath as I have described, using the diaphragm to fill the lungs and push out the abdominal muscles. Then, from about your belt buckle, make like you’re blowing out a candle. Not too hard, but you can get the air to move pretty quickly, while keeping your throat, jaw, tongue, etc., loose. It may take a few tries to keep it all loose, but this is important!

This action should use all of the abdominal muscles, all the way to the pelvis. Although she was not overly shy, Miss Repp would say, “I breathe so low, I can’t tell you.”

Control:
Now, just using the abdominals would cause the lungs to empty pretty quickly, and without a lot of control. This control is imposed by using the diaphragm as well as the abdominals to control the airflow. It must not be a tightening of the throat, or hoping the vocal cords can control it.

Now, try this: Take another nice, low breath, then tighten your abdominals and your diaphragm at the same time, so that no air escapes. Keep your neck loose and don’t try to stop the air with your vocal cords. I’ve fixed many damaged voices, and don’t want to cause any!

Do it again, but first put your fingers just below your sternum. When you tighten the abdominal muscles and diaphragm, that part just below the sternum, called the epigastrium, will push out. There are no muscles right there, and so nothing to resist the push of the abdominals. (This is where you push for the Heimlich Maneuver)

So, using the ‘dynamic tension’ between these two sets of muscles (with a nod to Charles Atlas), you can control the airflow to a very fine degree.

Here’s an exercise: Take a nice low breath. Engage the abdominals and diaphragm, then make a long, light, smooth “ssss” while trying to keep everything from the neck up loose and easy. If you do this without engaging the abdominals and diaphragm, you will probably hear your heartbeat in the hiss. This will really show you the control you have, and the control you may need to work toward.

In conclusion:
• Keep the posture up, open and loose
• Use the diaphragm to expand everything between the ribs and the pelvis unopposed for inhalation
• Use the abdominals to get the air to flow through the voice, controlled by the diaphragm

Using the diaphragm and abdominal muscles to control the breathing in this way will allow the rest of the vocal apparatus to relax and do its work – creating beautiful, expressive singing.

In a future posting, I will talk about when there are problems in the way. Not just bad habits, but injured abdominals, asthma, pregnancy, etc.

But next time, I think I’ll talk about repertoire.

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Breath Support – How #3

Let’s start with generalities, and then get more specific.  Again, this is an experiential approach – what the singer should feel – but informed by the technical knowledge of what is actually going on.

  • Air flow makes the sound, not air pressure.
  • If the breathing apparatus isn’t controlling the flow, the singing apparatus has to, causing tension in the tongue, jaw, throat, etc.
  • Faster air makes for higher notes.
  • More air flowing makes for louder notes.

Let me dilate on these a bit:

“Air flow makes the sound, not air pressure.”

This is true not only of the air flow sustaining the pitch, but air flow starting the note.

Air flowing through the vocal folds keeps them flapping in the breeze, causing the vibrations that come to us as a singing tone.  If there is a feeling of pressure in the throat, that feeling generally comes from tension.  Of course there is a pressure differential across the vocal folds, or there would be no air flow!  However, if you feel that pressure, you are either extremely sensitive, or tight.

Starting the tone should involve air flow as well.  This goes back to the Bernoulli Effect, where air that’s moving has a lower pressure than stationary air.  Essentially, if the vocal folds are close but not touching, and the singer causes the air to flow between them, the moving air will suck the folds together to start the sound.  Otherwise, the vocal folds are closed, pressure builds up, and the air punches through, causing a glottal plosive or glottal slap, which is as violent a process as the name sounds.  This will harm the voice in no time, and it is about the only thing I won’t let anyone get away with.

“If the breathing apparatus isn’t controlling the flow, the singing apparatus has to, causing tension in the tongue, jaw, throat, etc.”

Something has to control the sound.  If the control is not from a well formed breath, then vocal tension will happen.

The flip side of this is that if you try to loosen a tight tongue, for instance, and don’t replace whatever control the tongue was trying to exert over the sound with well formed breath, then if you can get the tongue loose (which is unlikely) something else will take over, moving the tension to the jaw or the throat.

These last two are from Miss Repp.  I have not yet found reference, one way or the other, in Vennard, Sundberg, etc.  so they probably are not scientifically accurate. However, using these images can help loosen the voice.

“Faster air makes for higher notes.”

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Like the pig in the old insurance ad.

When you slide the voice up and down like this, loosely, you can feel how the air moves as you get higher.  Try it with a variety of vowels!

Now, the air doesn’t speed up as you get higher, the pitch gets higher as the air speeds up.  That may seem like picky word play, but the concept is very useful, especially if someone seems to approach high notes like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube.

“More air flowing makes for louder notes.”

Again, it is not the amount of muscle that someone is using, but the amount of energy in the airflow that determine the basic volume of the sound.  This is not to be confused with the resonance that gets the voice to carry over an orchestra, which must be there from ppp to fff.  That is for another discussion altogether, but the breath has to be working well first.

Well, I had hoped to get to the physicality of breath, but this post is already too long!  Next time, we’ll talk about just where and how to breathe.

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Breath Support – How #2

Inhalation

Breathing?  Nothing to it!  Just in, out, repeat, right?

Generally, yes.  However, for singing we need a bit more control.

The breathing process I will describe here is operatic, designed for voices that need to fill a theater of 4,000 seats with full orchestra, unamplified.  A lot of breath energy is needed.  At the end (probably another time), I’ll talk about differences in breathing for what good opera singers call “microphonistas,” or those who operate in the opera world relying on amplification, as well as many theater, jazz, etc., singers.

Okay – we have a lifted, loose, energetic posture, with room between the ribs and the pelvis.  When the lungs fill, everything around them is pushed out – the ribs will expand a bit, the stomach moves out and even the lower back will expand a little.  For the anatomically curious, the intercostal muscles (between the ribs –  what we munch on when we order spare ribs) help expand the rib cage, and the diaphragm muscle expands everything below the ribs.  This expands the lungs, drawing in a lot of air.  (For anatomical geeks like me, read Vennard)

The shoulders must not rise.  The only muscles that can pull up the shoulders are in the neck, which needs to stay loose.

Let’s talk diaphragm.  It’s a dome shaped muscle at the bottom of the rib cage, basically horizontal, that separates the heart and lungs above from the stomach and everything else below.  (Separates the vittles from the vitals, a college prof used to say)  It is the major muscle of inhalation – when it flattens out it opens the lungs, sucking in air.  In the process, it pushes out everything below:  abdominal muscles, sides and back.  If you put your hands on your waist, thumbs forward, fingers toward the spine, bend over 90 degrees, and inhale, you will feel the back expand.

Some people talk a lot about back breathing.  As we saw above, the back will expand when you inhale correctly.  I sometimes will use this with new students – have them go through the exercise at 90˚ to feel the back expand, then have them try for the same expansion standing up.  It is useful to get a low breath and stop a heaving chest.  However, there are no muscles of exhalation in the lower back, which we will talk about more when we get to exhalation next time.

Likewise, the sides will expand a bit, but the bulk (pun intended, in my case!) of the work is done in front.  The abdominal muscles will distend, and it is helpful to think of the expansion all the way from the ribs to the pelvis.  My last teacher, Miss Ellen Repp, used to say, “I breathe so low, I can’t tell you.”

Breathing in this manner can be very relaxing.  Think of it – if you’re breathing with the shoulders raised, every inhalation produces tension.  Not so good for the beginning of a phrase.  However, if, at the end of the phrase, your ribcage is still open but your abdominals are pulled in, if you just let go of the abdominal muscles, your belly will drop and your lungs will fill, assisted by the diaphragm flattening out.

Try this – stretch out your arms to keep your ribcage up and open (and loose!), and exhale by pushing in your abdominals, navel to backbone.  Really give them a squeeze!  Now, when your lungs are empty, drop your belly and get a good breath.  Relaxing, isn’t it? Now that we have a good breath, next time I’ll talk about the use of the breath in singing