WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUTBREATH CONTROLBreathing is not something you need to think about in your normal daily life. How does singing make it any different when singing is just extended speech on pitch? Im sure you have heard teachers or people demanding you to “sing from your diaphram”, touching your stomach thinking that by doing that you can control the movement of your diaphram. What does that ever mean?!

If it confuses you then you have the permission now to DRAG TO TRASH CAN, DELETE IT! No one ever told a baby to use his or her diaphram to cry, all they needed to do was a little smack on their butt to get a natural reaction from them, to cry. Now that we are older we learn how to control these emotions and learn how to mimic our emotions from experience. With that experience it becomes a big tool in getting a certain reaction we want on demand when we need our body to react a certain way to give us a vocal reaction that we want to eventually get within our control.

What we can control here is the RATIONING OF AIRFLOW. Observe how much air we actually use when we talk. It isn’t a lot. Many a times when we have “breathing problems” it is most probably the lack of cord closure, lower abdominal support and body awareness.

You are probably thinking what is cord closure? Like when a little kid drop his ice-cream on the floor and looks up at you with big guilty eyes as the dog trys to lick up whatever it can get which only makes it messier and says “ Uh-oh”. Go ahead, imagine that senario and let your body react to it vocally! What you just felt was your cords closing on demand on the vowels “u” and “o”. Try it again and remember that feeling. With this muscle movement acting as a gate opening and closing on your demand, you can learn how to manage your rationing of airflow better.

To activate the lower abdominal support, sit at the edge of the chair and place your feet firmly on the ground aligned with your hips and lean slightly back. Almost like you are diong a crunch. Do you feel that? That is your abdominal muscles contracting trying to keep you up. Now with that say “Uh-oh”. Notice that difference when you said it the first time? How was it different from the first time? This support should give you a natural boost in volume and taking away strain from the throat naturally.

From what I gathered as I watch my musician friends pack up their instruments, they take care of their eqquipments very well. Wiping down the insides and polishing when it needs to be, cleaning it when it’s dirty. By doing that they take time to disassemble their instrument carefully and look at every little piece that makes the instrument sound the way it does. For vocalist our body is our instrument and being aware of our body is extremely important. We obviously can’t dissemble our body but we can get to know our instrument through different vocal warm ups and exercises. That is where we start to know which muscles to use and which to relax. Which areas to work on and refine our control over our muscles cancelling out unnecessary tension in our throat muscles.

Here are 5 easy activity you can do to achieve better breath control:

1. Having GOOD POSTURE. Your VOICE is a wind instrument that needs breath to produce sound. Aligning your body is the first step to MAXIMIZE lung capacity and releases unnecessart tension.

2. GASP. DON’T THINK, REACT! Think about the last time you saw something so shocking that your reaction was with a huge GASP. If you don’t scare easy then mimic or act it out with a GASP. This reaction should automatically fill your lungs to the maximum capacity naturally in all the right ways.

3. SAVE IT. Your rib cage is compromised of bone and cartilage. The external intercostals force air out during exhalation. Singers try to resist the contraction of the internal intercostals to avoid running out of air.

TRY & EXPERIENCE BREATH CONTROL

Aim of this exercise: HOW LONG CAN YOU RATION THE AIR

i. Place your hands below the bust, over your rib cage. ii. GASP like you did earlier to gain maximum air capacity and feel the expansion of the lungsiii. With the mentality of keeping your rib cage expanded, let out the air with a slow and controlled hissing sound like a snake would.

4. BLOW OUT YOUR CANDLES. Extend your hand in front of you like a STOP motion. Then take a deep breath and let out 5 short bursts of air to blow out the 5 fingers acting as candles.

Aim of this exercise: TO RATION 1 BREATH FOR 5 SHORT BURSTS OF AIR.]

5. OBSERVE YOUR BREATH.

Aim of this exercise: ENCOURAGE PROPER ABDOMINAL ACTION IN SINGING OBSERVE YOUR BODY’S NATURAL MOVEMENT AND DON’T TRY TO DO ANYTHING SPECIAL TO INFLUENCE YOUR BREATHING.

i. Lay on the floor and place a book thick enough to align your body under your head. ii. Focus on your natural breathing process. Notice when you inhale, your abdominals muscles below your rib cage expands/ rise and when you exhale they contract inwards.

iii. Observe the openess of your ribs around your waistline and MEMORIZE this experience.