Tag: posture

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Breath Support – How #1

Breath gives us life.  The German word atmen, or breath, is closely related to the Sanskrit atman, or soul (originally, breath.  They noticed that when someone dies, the breath leaves the body, hence, soul.).  We get the English word atmosphere from this root.

Without breath, there is no life or soul.  Without good breathing, there can be no good singing.

How

The ‘how’ can be easily conceptualized, but can be difficult to put into practice.  There are just a few parts to it, but they can be counterintuitive.  They are posture, inhalation, exhalation.  Easy, eh?

I’m going to discuss all this at the experiential level.  If you want to get into the exact musculature and skeletal structure, I couldn’t do better than Vennard.

Today I’ll talk about Posture

If your posture is like a question mark, there could be room for improvement.  You should have a lot of room between your ribs and your pelvis for the expansion that good breathing needs.

The ribcage should be up and open, like when you stand with your arms outspread. My massage therapist says, “Lead with your heart.”   It is a lifted, but loose and energetic, posture.  It must not be locked or tense.

The relationship between the head, neck, and ribcage is important.  Probably the most important part of it is that it should all stay loose and energetic.  If the head has to be locked in one position to sing, there is room for improvement!  I know, I know, some folks believe in the chin to the chest approach, and others like the shoulders raised, and yet others seem to only be able to sing if the head is slightly to the left or right.  To me, all of these seem to come from tension, and do not help a good singing tone.

I once performed with a baritone whose chin had to be pulled to his right shoulder when he sang.  If he was crossing from stage left to stage right, he sang upstage!  Not only did this get in the way of his performance, but he made an ugly noise.

So, what about the head and neck?  The head should generally be looking straight ahead, not up or down, but (dare I say it?) loose and energetic.  Watching singers I’ve admired, like Luciano Pavarotti or Theo Adam, the head is mobile and they are always moving side to side, at least a little.  We’ll talk more about this, but you should be able to move your head fully from side to side while singing throughout your range.

Once this relationship between the various parts is in place, the rest of the body can do almost anything.  When I sang Rodolfo, I used to play a game with myself and see just how far I could slump in my chair in Momus and still hit the high B at the end of the Quando m’en vo ensemble.  We’ve all seen operatic performances where the singers got into all kinds of positions with no problems singing, which is always better than those singers who always have to stand just so, and put on a veneer of acting.

So, the foundation of good singing is breathing, and the foundation of good breathing is the postural relationship between the rib and pelvis, and the head, neck, and ribs.  Next time, we’ll tackle filling the tank.