Achieving the best Breath Support system ever for your singing!
Hi Singers, Joel here. I want to speak to you about breath support. When I was a young singer the word “support” was something I could not get my mind or body around! There are many ways to discuss support so let’s try and keep it simple. What we’re trying to achieve in support is to manage the flow or pressure of air from our lungs through our vocal folds…not too much and not too little is very important! Far too often we see singers use what I call their “valves” to manage or hold back air pressure that is built up in your lungs after you take a deep straw breath. We can think of our lips, tongue, jaw, larynx as valves that open or close. Let’s say you’ve mastered keeping your jaw down and relaxed, low laryngeal position, high and lifted soft palate in other words, everything is open and relaxed as it should be for great singing. What do you think is going to hold back the pressure of air in your lungs if you don’t tighten one of your valves? Hopefully your well built support system! Try this. Take a hard backed book and put one end against a wall and the other end in your lower abs-below your belly button. Breath in deeply. Your body should move backward from the wall. Exhale on “S” and don’t let your body fall into the book! This is the most important skill to master for good singing and good vocal long-term health. Contact us today to get started on your lessons!
Shush! Silent breaths
One of the most common issues we see in our studio when working with singers of all types is hearing loud, gasping, or aspirate inhalation sounds. When we listen to our students inhale in preparation to sing, we don't want to actually hear their breath coming in. If we do “hear” them inhaling then we know that the singer is not raising their soft palate and creating an open throat. If you hear that aspirate sound of your breath coming in, you need to learn to raise your soft palate. For more information on raising the soft palate, please see our blog post from 11/9/21.
Another issue you will experience when you are breathing loudly, is a very dry mouth and throat. With each breath you take, you will feel your voice getting drier and drier to the point that it will begin to cut out or crack. So, what can you do? Try taking in your breath making as little sound as possible. You will hear the breath going past your teeth and your lips but you should not hear a raspy gasping type of sound. If you are already working on raising your soft palate, taking a silent breath is another way to achieve the raised palate because when your breath comes in silently, you have raised your soft palate and gotten it out of the way. Because we have to breathe often as singers, if you take in a silent breath each time you breathe, you will be practicing raising the soft palate which will give you a lot of chances to practice this important skill and have success in achieving that full, beautiful, open sound we all want!
Raising your soft palate is REALLY IMPORTANT!
As singers, we all want to have the most open and beautiful sound we can produce. One of the most important skills to work on is raising your soft palate. You may be asking, where and what is my soft palate? Let’s start first with the hard palate. The hard palate is the area that includes the roof of your mouth right behind your upper teeth. The soft palate is the area that is behind your hard palate going to the back of your throat. If you put your tongue on the roof of your mouth and slide it back as far as your can you will feel where that hard palpate becomes soft. When we yawn, we naturally raise the soft palate. I was told by a voice teacher to practice singing while keeping my throat in a yawn position. That visual, although correct, was a bit too abstract for me. What really helped was to take a flash light and shine it into my mouth while looking in a mirror and actually see my soft palate. You know that little piece of tissue that hangs down in your throat that looks like a punching bag? That is called your uvula and it is in the middle of the soft palate. In order to raise your soft palate you have to pull the little punching bag or uvula up as high as you can.
Once I actually saw my uvula and understood where and what my soft palate was, I was able to practice raising it up. Then, once I felt the sensation of a high soft palate, I practiced singing while maintaining that feeling of openness in the back of my throat. The results were amazing! I found singing in general to be so much easier and I had an immediate improvement in the high part of my vocal range. I think that the results can be amazing for you too. Give it try and see for yourself an almost immediate improvement!
What is sub-glottic pressure?
What is sub-glottic pressure?
The opening between your vocal cords is called the glottis. When we close our vocal cords to create phonation we are closing the glottis so that the vocal cords can vibrate and create sound. What causes the vocal cords to come together and close the glottis? It is the breath that comes up from our lungs controlled by the diaphragm that draws the vocal cords together. So the term “sub-glottic pressure” is divided this way:
“sub” refers to the breath pressure that is beneath the vocal cords, “glottis” is referring to the opening between the cords and “pressure” is the air coming through the glottis to make sound. We have to create the correct amount of sub-glottic pressure to successfully sing in our different ranges. Sub-glottic pressure is at it’s greatest when we sing high because the vocal cords stretch very thin and vibrate very quickly so more breath pressure is needed. In our middle range less breath pressure is needed to create sound because the vocal cords are stretched less. Most people speak in their middle range because it requires less effort. When we sing in our low range, the vocal cords are the least stretched and because the cords are vibrating more slowly, the singer needs to move more breath rather then rely on the sub-glottic pressure to hold back air. Singing in our high range requires the most breath support to properly create sub-glottic pressure which is why so many singers strain their voices when they sing high.
So what is a singer to do? We at Jameson vocal studio believe that singers need to achieve the right kind of sub-glottic pressure to learn proper breathing technique. Your vocal cords will react to whatever range you want to sing in but if you lack adequate breath support you will not be able to achieve the beautiful sound you want. Don’t get frustrated, contact us today!!
“Develop the coveted seamless legato line using Lip Trills”
Lip trills really help to move and anchor your breath by using correct sub-glottic breath pressure. It’s a great way to create that seamless legato line which you need to develop for world-class singing. The objective is to make sure your lips keep trilling throughout the entire vocalize. If your lips stop, you can bet your breath stopped as well. Stopping breath is the same as dropping your support. So, stand with correct posture, rib cage high, good, deep, low, down and out breath and start phonation or singing by trilling your lips. In the lower range it might be a bit more difficult because you need to move more breath. Remember to keep the breath moving and those lips trilling!
Use a Straw to Breath, YES!
I want to give all of you a great tip that is helping our voice students. It has to do with breathing that builds strong inhalation muscles-a huge need for ALL singers. Get yourself a straw, not too big and definitely not a small cocktail straw. (that may cause you to work a little too hard!) Stand with good posture (find this be placing heels, hips, shoulder blades, head against a wall) and breath in through your straw as much air as possible. (remember the phrase, “down and out” when breathing in) Students always ask how long do I do this? I usually tell them to make sure the air goes as low as possible causing your abs to come out. Your objective is to pull in more and more air with each breath developing more lung capacity. Why the straw? The resistance the straw causes develops stronger inhalation muscles. Once mastered, you can have the strength needed when performing to pull in tons of air which can only help you sing better! Do this 5-10 times a day to build those inhalation muscles for great singing! Contact us today to start your voice lessons and learn how to master proper breathing!!
Breathing for COVID Survivors
At Jameson Vocal Studio, we want to help people that are struggling with breathing problems as a result of contracting COVID-19. As classically trained opera singers and teachers, we have devoted our entire adult lives to the art of singing. We are experts in the training of proper breath intake, support and breath management which is the foundation to our entire vocal technique. Through a series of lessons, we will teach you our tools which will help you learn to expand your lung capacity and learn to diaphragmatically breath. We truly want to help those affected by this terrible pandemic. Contact us today!
COVID and breathing problems
It has come to our attention that many people who have had Covid are struggling with breathing problems. We’ve also heard that many voice teachers are helping these people recover from their breathing issues. Of course first and foremost you need to see your doctor for help and advice. In addition to seeing your doctor, a voice teacher that knows and talks a lot about proper breathing technique can be a wonderful source of help for you. Most people don’t know how to properly inflate their lungs or how to increase their capacity for air. If you are a person that would like help and advice on increasing your lung capacity and strengthen your breathing muscles, please contact us for help today!
Breath support: Engaging your abs
When speaking of breath support, there are 2 concepts you must understand. The first proper inhalation and the second is managing the breath you have inhaled. The best way to experience proper inhalation is to take a straw and breath through it taking in as much breath as you feel you can and then forcing in one more breath. Once you have experienced that level of inhalation you have to learn how to manage the volume of breath you have taken in by understanding how to use your abdominal muscles to support your voice meaning. The question becomes, what should your abdominal muscles be doing to actually support your voice? The answer is the must engage or flex.
As an example, try engaging your bicep muscle by picking up something heavy for a second and see what that muscle is doing? It engages by rises up and stands out right? Well, our abs do the same thing. Let’s imagine that you are going to take in a big breath and blow out a huge birthday cake full of candles. Try it and see what your abs do? Did you feel them come out? If you did, that is is correct! We engage our abs the same way when we support our voices. So after you take in your breath with your straw, practice singing a line or a phrase of music and keep those abs engaged or coming out as you do. When you sing, you never want to pull your abdominal muscles in to start phonation. This concept will definitely take some time to master but it is really important to the overall health of your voice and your ability to sing long sustained notes and passages.