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    Breath Control: What You Need To Know About

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    Pamela Song
    This document provides information on breath control for singing. It explains that breathing for singing is different than normal breathing and requires more control. The key aspects of breath control discussed are rationing airflow, cord closure in the throat, and engaging the lower abdominal muscles. It emphasizes that our body is our instrument as singers and we need to understand how it works through vocal exercises. Finally, it proposes 5 easy activities to practice breath control, such as having good posture, taking big gasps of air, rationing a single breath over multiple bursts of sound, and observing natural abdominal breathing movements.

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    Breath Control: What You Need To Know About

    Uploaded by

    Pamela Song
    72 views3 pages
    This document provides information on breath control for singing. It explains that breathing for singing is different than normal breathing and requires more control. The key aspects of breath control discussed are rationing airflow, cord closure in the throat, and engaging the lower abdominal muscles. It emphasizes that our body is our instrument as singers and we need to understand how it works through vocal exercises. Finally, it proposes 5 easy activities to practice breath control, such as having good posture, taking big gasps of air, rationing a single breath over multiple bursts of sound, and observing natural abdominal breathing movements.

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    Breath Control

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    This document provides information on breath control for singing. It explains that breathing for singing is different than normal breathing and requires more control. The key aspects of breath control discussed are rationing airflow, cord closure in the throat, and engaging the lower abdominal muscles. It emphasizes that our body is our instrument as singers and we need to understand how it works through vocal exercises. Finally, it proposes 5 easy activities to practice breath control, such as having good posture, taking big gasps of air, rationing a single breath over multiple bursts of sound, and observing natural abdominal breathing movements.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    72 views3 pages

    Breath Control: What You Need To Know About

    Uploaded by

    Pamela Song
    This document provides information on breath control for singing. It explains that breathing for singing is different than normal breathing and requires more control. The key aspects of breath control discussed are rationing airflow, cord closure in the throat, and engaging the lower abdominal muscles. It emphasizes that our body is our instrument as singers and we need to understand how it works through vocal exercises. Finally, it proposes 5 easy activities to practice breath control, such as having good posture, taking big gasps of air, rationing a single breath over multiple bursts of sound, and observing natural abdominal breathing movements.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    The key takeaways are that breathing for singing is about rationing airflow rather than using the diaphragm, and that we can control our breathing through cord closure and abdominal support.

    The 5 easy activities are: 1) Having good posture 2) Gasping 3) Save It 4) Blow out candles 5) Observe your breath

    The aim of the 'Save It' exercise is to ration one breath for as long as possible by keeping the rib cage expanded as the air is let out with a slow, controlled hissing sound.

    WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT

    BREATH
    CONTROL

    Breathing 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 isnt 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 its 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 cant 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. DONT THINK, REACT! Think about the last time you saw something so shocking
    that your reaction was with a huge GASP. If you dont 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
    lungs
    iii. 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 BODYS NATURAL MOVEMENT AND DONT 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.

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