Vocals: Breathing and Breath Support

We’ve all been there.

The set list for the weekend is epic. The songs are on the high side of our vocal range, and we just cannot wait to dive in and shout them out with everything we have.  We’re just hoping our voice doesn’t give out before the end of the service because we have to hit those high notes and we just can’t wimp out or, even worse, crack.  We made it through the worship without embarrassing ourselves, but our voice has been reduced to a raspy whisper because we blew it out during “Great I Am.”

This scenario has happened to most worship leaders more than once, which raises the question:  How can I hit the notes I need to hit and increase the longevity and strength of my voice without straining and ending up hoarse by the end of the set or service?

The answer is really simple: Proper breathing and breath support.

Proper breathing and breath support is the most fundamental element of singing consistently at a high level.  So much so, that all other aspects of vocal technique rise and fall on proper breathing. You can learn how to relax your throat, achieve resonance, and have perfect vowel placement, but without proper breath to sustain it, it will all be for naught.

While the answer of using your breath properly may seem simple, coordinating all of the respective muscle groups for proper breathing will take some time to develop, especially if you’ve been singing for several years and have developed some counter-productive habits.  In this post, I’ll give you some information and techniques for proper breathing, as well as some breathing exercises that can help to develop your breathing muscles.

 TIPS FOR PROPER BREATHING TECHNIQUE

1. Inhaling is an act of relaxing and stretching, not contracting.  How many of us have taken a deep breath, only to heave our bodies feel like we’re contracting every muscle in our core? When we finally let go of the breath, it feels like we’re relaxing everything.  This is the exact opposite of how proper breathing should feel.  Contracting your muscles is what you do to exhale. If done properly, it will be a completely different set of muscles than what you’re used to using.

2. When people say to sing from your diaphragm, they don’t actually mean that you breath from your diaphragm. While the diaphragm is part of the breathing process, it is an involuntary muscle which acts as a horizontal “wall” between your lungs and your “guts” and basically just “goes along for the ride”. There are other muscles which you actually have control over that must be engaged for the diaphragm to do it’s job.  This happens beautifully when you yawn.  Yawning causes the muscles that control the diaphragm to relax and expand, causing the diaphragm to lower and allow for a proper inhale.  This is why it seems that you are able to breathe deeper when yawning, than with normal breathing.

3. When you inhale, it should feel as though air is going “down” into our belly rather than “out” in our ribs.  The lungs are enclosed by ribs on all sides except the bottom.  At the bottom of the lungs is our flexible diaphragm muscle, and the way to get the diaphragm to lower and allow the lungs to fill is to stretch and relax the abdominal muscles, as well as expand and spread the muscles of your mid and lower back.  When we do those things, our internal organs spread out, which in turn allows our diaphragm to lower.  When our diaphragm lowers, our lungs expand with air. The process of spreading the back is especially important for pregnant women whose abdominal muscles are already stretched to the max.  The trick is teaching your body to recognize and repeat the involuntary muscle movements in yawning and commit them to muscle memory.  This takes time, practice and patience, however.  Your lungs and diaphragm muscles are just like every other muscle, they need to be trained and maintained.

4. There should always be a constant feeling of tension on the sides of your rib cage,  under your arms and upper back.  This acts a “lifter” of your ribcage and creates a greater lung capacity as well as a rigid core for both inhalation and exhalation.  I tell people to feel as though they are squeezing tennis balls under their armpits, pushing the ribs out toward the arms more than the arms pushing into the ribs.  If you’re keeping the ribs lifted this way and using your abs as your energy source, the chest will/should never heave while inhaling.  While it may look or feel silly to you, inhaling by lowering the diaphragm will cause your tummy to expand, and give the appearance of a “pop belly.”  Do not fret, this is the effect you are trying to achieve!  Your organs expanding outward creates a space for your lungs to fill up for a deeper breath.  For women who are pregnant, this will be difficult because of the baby already causing your organs to squish together.  Forcing deeper breaths will be uncomfortable, so it will be best to maintain shorter breaths and at shorter intervals.

5. After stretching the abdominal and back muscles to inhale, you’ll need to exhale or create vocal tone. When doing so, contract the abdominal muscles from the bottom up.  The feeling you’re going to want to achieve is as though you’re rolling your abs inward and upward. Essentially, you’re performing a minor Heimlich Maneuver, but only using your muscles to perform the action.  This contracting puts pressure on your internal organs, which in turn puts pressure on the diaphragm and causes compression on your lungs.  This puts pressure on your lungs and causes expiration.  This compression of the lungs and expiration of air is what allows the voice to stay relaxed and free while creating vocal tone.  Once you’ve contracted your abs to the point of feeling like they will touch your spine, release and relax them quickly for the next breath.  How many times have you been singing a fast song where there is virtually no place to breathe and the spots there are to breathe are so fast, you can’t get a deep breath?  This technique will help achieve quick breaths that are deep and full, but it will take time to train the muscles to tense and release quickly since the abs are not the most agile muscles.

6. While singing, always inhale through your mouth.  Open your mouth and throat as wide as possible so that air can pass as quickly as possible into your lungs.  Do not inhale through your nose only!   This won’t allow air to refill the lungs fast enough between phrases, and you’ll run out of breath quickly.  You should feel as though you’re drinking air back into your body, or rapidly filling a balloon in your tummy.

7. While singing, never try to conserve air thinking it will allow you to sing longer phrases.  This reason sounds valid, but has the opposite effect psychologically.  The more you try to hold air in, the more tense your body becomes and the more air that gets trapped inside your lungs.  You will become very short of breath if you keep this up for too long.  If you have it, get rid of it!

BREATHING EXERCISES

SIP/HISS

Using a steady beat, sip like your sipping on a straw (inhaling) for four counts.  Then immediately hiss like a tire that’s had a hole poked in it (exhaling) for four counts, making sure not to close your throat between hisses.  Continue this non-stop for at least 30 seconds.  Because you’ll be exchanging a lot of oxygen, you may get dizzy at first, but your body will get used to it over time.  Keep in mind that you’ll naturally be able to sip a lot more air than you’ll hiss so it’s important when you hiss that you create a lot of pressure with your abs to get rid of ALL of your air in just four beats.  If you don’t, you’ll find it difficult to sip the next four beats because your lungs will still be full of air.  As your muscles get stronger, more coordinated and more agile, expand the exercise to  8-beat sips and 8-beat hisses.  You can also do this exercise with no beat and just see how long you can do each one.

THE “ELEVATOR”

Lie on your back and place a stack of books on your stomach.  Take slow, deep breaths. As you inhale, stretch out your abs to lift the books higher. As you exhale, contract your abs to make the books go lower.  As we talked about before, filling your lungs properly causes your tummy to expand, not your chest.  Be sure to raise those books with your tummy!

THE “RAG DOLL”

Lean over at the waist and let your arms loosely hang down toward the floor like a rag doll so that your upper body is completely relaxed.  Take slow, deep breaths. Feel the abs and back expanded and contracting as you inhale and exhale.  This forces your lungs and diaphragm muscles to breathe properly, and thus creates good muscle memory.

THE “U”

Lean over slightly and interlock your fingers in front of your waste so that your arms form a large “U’ in front of your body.  Take slow deep breaths while trying to pull your arms apart.  This helps strengthen the rib muscles that help lift your rib cage while singing.

THE “STRETCH”

Standing straight, stretch your arms over your head as high as they will go.  Take slow deep breaths. This raises the rib cage and allows you to feel the abdominal muscles relaxing and contracting during the breathing process.