One of the hardest things for human beings to do, is to let go.
We hold onto regrets, grudges, hurts, dependencies, and mostly unconsciously, we hold our breath.
Notice the next time you’re feeling wound-up or nervous, and chances are, you’ll be holding your breath or breathing shallowly and high in the chest.
As singers, we have to master the art of natural, low centred breathing. Having an Olympic swimmer’s lung capacity doesn’t necessarily maketh you a great singer either. Lung capacity isn’t as important as breath ‘control’. In other words – it’s not how big it is, it’s what you do with it that counts.
The art of good singing breathing lies in allowing the minimum air to create maximum sound. Ultimately, we should not hear or feel breath leaving our mouths as we sing apart from some consonants.
There are many myths surrounding voice production. One of the most destructive and confusing to a first time player is the idea that you’ll need a lot of breath in order to sing. Or, that the higher you sing, the more breath you will need. Or that more breath equals more volume. Actually, the truth is the exact opposite.
The more breath that we release with sound, the quieter that sound will be.
There are several thousand reasons why too much breath gets in the way of the voice (other than making you sound like Jenny Shipley…. either emphysemic, or slightly patronizing!)
Firstly, a constant flow of excess breath over the vocal cords dries them out and they want to be kept moist at all times.
Secondly, breathiness takes away projection and power. Though you some use breathiness as a deliberate tool to make the voice ‘intimate’ or ‘sexy’, it is far more effective to use a gentle twang to bring the dynamics down and sing quietly with purer tone. You’ve got more control that way too.
Thirdly, we lose the capacity to shape and extend phrases. We can run out of breath prematurely and need to inhale in inappropriate places, like mid-word, nullifying the meaning of the text.
Fourthly, breathiness tends to make what we sing emotionally two dimensional. Everything gets a similar timbre and narrows a dynamic range from soft to softer instead of zero to 100.
I’m here to say – there is a better way.
Observe your breathing without over-analyzing it. Lie on your back with knees bent so that the spine melts into the floor and a phonebook on your stomach.
Imagine your body as a hollow vessel like a big empty vase. Allow the breath to enter from the ‘bottom up’ – in through the pelvic floor like pouring water into the vase. Try not to breath above the sternum – just observe and let the breath breathe you.
Register how breathing into the shoulders creates tension but, that the natural ‘low’ breath pushes the phonebook upwards and the breath expands the sides of your ribs and presses against the floor behind you. Don’t use any musculature. Remember, you’re an empty vase with no internal organs…..hhhmmm…
Push out all the air in your lungs like you’re wringing out a sponge, then, release everything to enable a natural inhale.
The in-breath is literally sucked in because a vacuum gets created each time we exhale. Enjoy this sensation of not being involved or metering the amount of air inhaled. See what happens perfectly without your interference?
Because it’s hard to trust that your ‘body knows best’, we can feel uncomfortable fully exhaling in order to experience a stronger ‘elastic’ reflex inhale (often thinking we need more air than we do and feeling a constant need to ‘top it up’). The more we push down a spring the more it bounces back. The longer we make our phrases and extend our out-breath, the more automatic and low-centred our breathing becomes.
Two breathing exercises I find really useful are a very long, slow, even exhale on a very quiet ‘sssssss’ sound and the exact opposite, a very loud panting on ‘Sh!! Sh!!! Sh!!!†for a minute or so a time.
For the first exercise, let go of all the breath first (Big sigh!), then allow the inhale as if you’re smelling and beautifully scented flower (trust me on this one, it’s better than gulping the air in like a goldfish and then feeling overstuffed like you’re about to explode!) Then, being as quiet and calm as possible, slowly exhale as little air as you can on ‘sss’ in an even thread.
Because the idea is to last as long as you can, the body’s natural reflex is to want to inhale way sooner than required. Just keep going. Past the sensations of needing to inhale, nausea and discomfort until you hand the baton over to your support muscles in the lower back and tummy as you feel you’re running out of air. They are your secret weapon, automatically extracting the last of the breath. If you don’t get to this stage (where support muscles start to convulse in a wave motion), you’re inhaling too soon.
Don’t panic – enjoy!