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.