Control and coordination of the way your breathing supports the creation of sound is the single most important aspect of producing high quality notes in tune.  But there is a skill prior to breathing that is the beginning and end of everything in singing.

The first and most critical foundation of breathing and singing is posture.  By posture, I don’t mean the ‘sit up straight’ or ‘stand at attention’ type of posture.  In fact, these types of posture throw the body out of balance and are counterproductive in singing.  They can actually diminish your ability to sing with strong tone!

Since breathing is the foundation of singing and posture is the foundation of breathing, posture is ultimately the foundation of singing.  But if we’re not trying to sit up straight or stand at attention, what type of posture do we want?

Certainly slouching and caving in the chest is not the answer.  You want the upper body to be comfortably upright.  The secret to upper body posture when breathing and singing is relaxation.  Your goal is to remove tension from every part of your body above your abdomen.  This postural goal can seem counterintuitive because we often think of ‘gearing up’ for a song or a phrase or a word and we often do it with tension in some parts of the upper body.

There is an important role for tension but it is located below the rib cage in your core abdominal groups and in your thigh and butt muscles (more on this later).  The upper body should feel like you are a puppet on marionette strings.  You are so relaxed and comfortable that those invisible strings can pull you wherever they want without resistance.

It is absolutely critical when preparing your body for singing that you consciously include a survey of your posture.  You want to be rooted in your core muscle groups and feeling the source of breathing and singing from this area.  We want the shoulders and upper chest to feel relaxed and unperturbed by vocalizing or breathing!  In addition, the face needs to be consciously loosened and relaxed.  We are often dramatically unaware of how much tension we carry in our faces.  Consciously relaxing the muscles around the jaw, on the forehead, and in the cheeks can do wonders for preparing and practicing toward the development of a beautiful and powerful singing voice.  And most importantly, the neck and the inner throat and tongue must be completely tension free.

Two secret spots are key to cultivating the upper body relaxed posture.  One is the point where the tongue connects to the throat (the part you can’t see if you open your mouth and look in the mirror).  Consciously relaxing this point is a secret catalyst for creating a truly relaxed posture in the upper body and for regaining it quickly in the middle of song (it can even help relax the shoulders!).  The second spot is the muscles under the chin.  If this is loose and not tensing downward (check with a finger while singing), it is a strong indication that the larynx (inside the throat) is staying lower rather than leaping up and choking off the sound.

Great singing can happen from standing, sitting, or lying on the ground.  Sometimes we can feel it easier to be grounded in our singing muscles from a standing position while sitting can make it seem easier to remain loose and relaxed in the upper body.  Lying down can help particularly for specifically encouraging your face and neck to relax.  Regardless, because the effort in singing is rooted neither near the head nor the feet but rather sourced from your ‘center of gravity’, so to speak, strong tone and skillfully nuanced singing can occur from a number of even awkward positions (imagine some of the positions in which an opera singer might sing their dying song).  It is not important whether you sit or stand or lie down—the secret is relaxed posture.

But it is more than just relaxing.  We noted earlier that the place for tension is in the core muscle groups.  The distinguishing characteristic of singing posture is that you want to actively cultivate a disconnect between the relaxation of your upper body and the tension in your core muscle groups.  This can be much easier said than done.  But awareness and conscious focus on this postural aspect of singing can help tremendously.

The reason this disconnected state of upper body and core muscle groups can be challenging lies in the fact that we rarely do anything in life where the lower core muscles are working while the upper body is completely passive and receptive (rather than having its work supported by the core muscle groups).  If we lift a box, there is tension in the upper body being supported by the lower body core muscle group as well as the legs (ideally—if we’re being physically healthy about approaching the lifting of a box).  If I do a bench press exercise, I need my core muscle groups to healthfully approach the arms extending the weight upward.

Perhaps the most colorful explanation comes from Lucciano Pavarotti who, when asked by an interviewer to explain the secret of singing with such beautiful tone and controlled power, playfully responded (paraphrasing):  “Well, I don’t mean to be crude but you have to use the muscles you use when you go to the bathroom!”  (The funnier part of this exchange was probably the way the interviewer tried to quickly move on from this off the cuff remark J).  I love this comment not only because it is funny but because it is particularly instructive.  We are remarkable creatures who use our core muscles for all sorts of important and critical functions including singing (one key muscle is not used while we sing and so, we don’t go to the bathroom while singing, remarkable creatures that we are…).

So singing and the relaxed and muscled posture that supports it is very much a working activity.  Many aspiring singers regularly underestimate how much work is needed in the core muscle group to make the difference between a memorable singing voice and a forgettable vocal attempt.  Stay focused on your relaxed posture and the core muscle groups and you, too, will enthrall audiences with the quality of your singing voice!

Now that your instrument is ‘set up’ properly, the work created by the core muscles goes into the breathing, which is then fueled through the vocal cords and received by the upper body resonating space of the neck and throat.  To read more about breathing check out The Secrets of Singing: Understanding your Instrument

Related topic: Secrets to Breathing

For individual coaching on the techniques in this article and the development of your singing voice, contact Janak for voice lessons.

Copyright © 2011 Janak Ramachandran. All Rights Reserved

Nothing occurs in singing without breathing.  And yet, breathing is often underdeveloped among those cultivating a singing voice.  Many students of singing tend to see breathing development as a tiresome and superfluous activity (“I already know how to breathe—I want to learn how to sing (better)!”).  But, far from being an exercise in redundancy, I consider breathing so critical to singing that, if I only had five or ten minutes to warm up before a gig, I would spend the entire time on breathing exercises (and checking and setting up the postural feeling in my body—click here for my Secrets of Posture).

The way we breathe as singers is the single most important skill to develop as a singer.  If you want to be and stay in tune, the muscle memory you develop around the breathing is the mechanical basis of doing so.  If you want to improve your tone, the way you control airflow is the key to achieving that goal.  If you want to sing for hours in any style without hurting your voice, how you breathe will determine your success.

Of course, singing through exercises and songs always includes efforts around breathing and so, all of singing is an exercise in breathing.  But it can be particularly helpful to isolate the way we coordinate breathing without vocalizing.  Ultimately, our primary goal is to make the way we breathe in singing such a second nature part of ourselves that we always use “the singing breath” throughout every day of our lives.  Not only will this goal lead to greater ease and freedom in the singing voice (resulting in maximized tone, accurate pitch, and singing longevity), it can and will dramatically improve your general feelings of health and well-being (a bonus ancillary benefit that can literally allow you to feel more energized and ‘alive’ in all aspects of your daily life).

So what type of breathing do I mean?  Well, the basis of the singing breath is the aerobic breath.  The breath your body naturally engages if you go running down the street after someone or something (for a period of time) is the same breath that we want to use in singing.  But it is being used for a very different activity than running or any other aerobic exercise so there are some key distinctions to keep in mind.  As you try the following breathing ideas, inhale through the nose, mouth, or both and exhale with a loose open jaw through the mouth.  (In singing, we can generally inhale comfortably through the nose if given enough time between phrases though, as restrictions are placed on the amount of time available to breathe, we will need to rely on the mouth more and more.)

The First Secret:  Don’t Fill Up
The first fundamental secret of breathing is that we never want to fill to the very “brim” when we inhale.  This guideline stems from the fact that, from a posture perspective, we want to cultivate a ‘disconnect’ between the work of our core muscles (e.g. abdomen around to the lower back) in controlling breath and airflow and the relaxation of our upper body (chest, shoulders, neck, and head).  There is a little bit of extra air that can be inhaled that is not critical to singing but does sacrifice looseness and relaxation in the upper body.  When we breathe, we want to breathe in such a way that the belly distends without perturbing the chest and the shoulders.  Try taking a few deep breaths in front of a mirror so that you can monitor breathing deep without movement in the shoulders or a feeling of tension rising into the chest.

The Second Secret:  Engage Your Horseshoe
When the belly distends, the diaphragm muscle has been engaged.  The job of the diaphragm muscle is to push the organs down and out of the way such that the lungs have more room to fill up with air; so we literally want to feel the belly ‘push out’.  The second key secret of breathing is that, not only do we want the belly to distend, but we want to feel the ring of muscle that extends around to the sides of our waist (the intercostals) and to our lower back (a ‘horseshoe’ of muscle, if you will) engage and expand.  Most importantly, we want to feel these muscles, in conjunction with our thigh and butt muscles, remain expanded and engaged as we control airflow during singing.  Normally, as the lungs expand and contract (in the course of regular breathing), this ring of muscle expands and contracts.  But, when singing, we want the ring of muscle to stay in an expanded state while the lungs are contracting through the exhalation of air.

To feel what I mean by this statement, try a breathing exercise where, after taking a “singing breath”, the exhalation is released slowly over a period of ten seconds.  As the air is exhaled, keep the ‘horseshoe’ of muscle on your side and around your lower back pushing outward.  Toward the end of the exhalation, you may feel yourself also ‘bearing down’ in an effort to keep the air flowing in a relatively constant way.

The Third Secret:  The Reserve Tank of Air
The muscle action of ‘bearing down’ is the third secret of breathing.  To identify what I mean by ‘bearing down’, it is important to note that the regular act of breathing, even if breathing in a deeper “singing breath”, does not generally include the muscle action of ‘bearing down’.  Normally, when we release a breath, our body (in particular, our brain) encourages us to breathe in again at an ‘equilibrium point’, as it were, before all of the air in our lungs has been exhaled from the body.  We rarely wait for the body to use all of its breath except in occasional instances such as talking excitedly and incessantly until we literally run out of air and gasp in air before perhaps repeating the process of talking excitedly and incessantly over and over, hopefully avoiding the possibility of passing out. It is the act of ‘bearing down’ that allows us to keep talking past that point of equilibrium.  More critically for singing, the existence of this ‘reserve tank of air’ is invaluable for singers as we hold notes a little bit longer or sing into the ends of long phrases with strong tone and good support.

To get ourselves in touch with the act of ‘bearing down’, try breathing outward as if you are blowing out candles on a birthday cake.  As you progress further and further into the exhalation, you will feel the muscles in the lower part of your waist push down and out with greater and greater intensity.  This increasing intensity of muscle action is exactly what we want to feel the further we sing into a phrase with the ‘fuel’ of a single breath.  The only distinction from the ‘birthday candles’ exercise is that the process of bearing down while singing is a much more gradual process.  In singing, we don’t release air in one big ‘whoosh’ (like when blowing out birthday candles) but rather in a slow and ideally even flow.

The Fourth Secret:  The Singer’s Sigh
The desire to control this even flow of air leads us to the fourth secret of singing, the ‘slow sigh’.  Normally, when we breathe, a group of muscles in our core relaxes as we exhale.  In order to hold our breath (prevent exhalation), we must maintain the diaphragm and other muscles in a state of contraction.  If we hold our breath and then quickly release, we can experience the phenomenon of sighing, a cathartic ‘whooshing’ release of air.  When singing, we very much want to retain this feeling of sighing while controlling a slow relaxation of the diaphragm and other attendant muscles, thereby releasing air at a slow, even pace.  As an exercise to get in touch with this feeling, make an initial, ‘whooshing’ sigh followed by a slowing down of the exhalation that lasts five seconds the first time, then ten seconds, and then fifteen seconds.  Each time, practice retaining the mechanical feeling of sighing at the slower and slower paces.

The Fifth Secret:  Darth Vader is Probably a Great Singer
You are now ready for ‘Darth Vader’ breathing.  Yes, Darth Vader is the fifth secret to your singing breath (or rather, the way he breathed is the secret).  In the Star Wars trilogies, Darth Vader breathed in a very memorable and particularly audible way.  To create this effect, a portion of the breath is consciously channeled into the nasal passages so that a significant part of the air is released through the nose as well as the mouth.  The Darth Vader breath has an ominous quality that is created through a lifting of the soft palate (the back of the roof of the mouth that naturally lifts when we yawn).  Our breathing need not have this affected style as we channel air into the nasal passages (a more nasal version could be likened to the ‘refreshed’ audible sigh we might affect to signify satisfaction after gulping a favorite drink).  Exhaling in this way with neither a nasal nor a yawning affect (though these techniques have a key place in The Secrets of Style) is what is classically often referred to as breathing (or singing) ‘into the mask’.  The idea is to feel as though the breathing (and later the singing) is being pinned against the back of the face, a mechanism that allows for better tone and projection.

As part of a breathing exercise, try creating this effect while slowing down the exhalations above and while gradually bearing down into the end of the exhalation, eventually slowing down until you are still executing the mechanical quality of the exhalation without being able to hear it audibly any longer.  The breath will exhale so slowly that the only way to measure it will be to feel warmth on the palm of your hand (as if you are very slowly fogging a window).

This most closely approximates what we want singing to feel like around the mechanics of breathing.  If you hold a note long and steady and place your palm in front of your mouth, what you should feel is a gentle warming of the palm of your hand.  Remember that breathing is half the game in singing.  While knowing and singing the lyrics can draw our focus, how we breathe is the fundamental secret to singing those lyrics putting our best voice forward

For individual coaching on the techniques in this article and the development of your singing voice, contact Janak for voice lessons.

Copyright © 2011 Janak Ramachandran. All Rights Reserved

The supporting first piece is the bellows or workhorse of the instrument and consists of the lower body muscle actions that control the ebb and flow of air and the role of breath in singing. The singing is created then by the second piece of the instrument, the vocal folds or cords, which connect together in thicker and thinner configurations to create a range of lower and higher notes respectively. The resultant sound then reverberates throughout a resonating chamber, the third piece, itself divided into approximately three pieces, comprising the throat, the nasal cavity, and the upper skull. Basically, our singing instrument is an acoustic instrument that combines elements of wind instruments (breath and airflow) and those of string instruments (thinning and thickening of the vocal cords) with a uniquely shaped acoustic resonator (the human head).

The three pieces of this uniquely shaped acoustic resonator deliver three qualitatively distinct resonances. The lower resonant space is housed in the throat and is the type of resonance with which we are most familiar. It has a distinctly guttural quality and is the space where we spend most of our time speaking to each other throughout our lives. The higher resonant space is located in the upper skull behind the forehead and the eyes and exhibits a definitively squeaky quality. Many people use this resonant space when they become particularly excited during speaking or find it in an occasional high pitched yawning sound. The middling resonant space is found behind the nose and cheeks area and produces a whining quality of sound that many people create during moments of earnest or heated communication (though without the tension of certain sounds associated with yelling).

This middling resonant space and the transitions into and out of the lower and higher resonant spaces are generally considered the most difficult area to create quality sounds in the singing voice. One slang term that has developed for it is the ‘mix voice’ as it is often interpreted as a sound that seems to mix the qualities of throat resonance with upper skull resonance. The higher upper skull resonance is commonly referred to as ‘head voice’ while the lower throat resonance is often denominated ‘chest voice’ (since the chest feels a greater vibration in this resonant space than in the others).

The transition from throat resonance chest voice to nasal resonance mix voice is considered the first ‘bridge’ while the transition from nasal resonance mix voice to upper skull resonance head voice is labeled the second ‘bridge’. In actuality, there can be a third bridge that crosses into a ‘super squeak’ head voice and further bridges that lead to sounds commonly referred to as whistle tones (imagine Mariah Carey’s voice on the song ‘Emotions’). Though genetics will play some role in exactly how high (or how low) an individual voice can develop, everyone has an ability to learn the creation of quality sounds through two and perhaps three bridges (which means you can have a quality singing voice that can handle numerous genres in a wide range even if you don’t qualify for a Mariah Carey cover band).

To understand exactly how a bridge feels, we can reference the feeling of a ‘crack’ or ‘flip’ in the voice. We all have the ability to notice an example of a bridge space by swooping higher in our voice from a regular part of our speaking voice until it ‘cracks’ or ‘flips’. This crack or flip is the action of the vocal cords disconnecting and the ensuing falsetto sound is being created by the bouncing of air off of the outside of the vocal cords (the ventricular folds, sometimes referred to as the ‘false’ vocal cords). Sometimes people will interchangeably make reference to falsetto as head voice and vice versa but, technically, head voice is a connected vocal cord sound while falsetto is not. One way of describing falsetto is as a ‘wind’ only creation of sound that is not engaging the ‘string’ aspect (vocal cords) of the instrument. In order to continue higher in the voice with a connected vocal cord sound, we need to learn the coordination of crossing through bridges with ease and freedom in the instrument.

This bridge point is the area of our vocal range where our instrument is wanting to shift from resonating sounds in the throat through bridges that lead to a nasal resonant space and upper skull resonant space. If we don’t develop this ability to cross bridges with ease and freedom and we try to avoid the falsetto flip of the voice while moving into these higher tones, we can find ourselves exerting a tension in the neck that yields a yelling quality in the voice. In this case, notes that would naturally want to resonate sounds in the nasal and skull cavity are being required through muscle tension to resonate these higher tones in the throat.

Though, occasionally, some vocal guides may encourage the regular use of this tense approach, the quality of the sound is limited compared to an approach that stresses the importance of ease and freedom in the neck and shoulders. And, more importantly, this style of singing can more easily lead to vocal harm and a shortened singing career.

A final note on bridges involves the differences for male and female voices. Because of hormonal differences that impact the development of the voice with the onset of puberty, male first bridges occur approximately half an octave below female first bridges. And the female first bridge area is the same area where men cross through a second bridge. So when women enter their mix voice nasal resonance, men are passing out of their mix voice nasal resonance into their head voice or upper skull resonance.

Now that we’ve explored an overview introduction to the singing instrument, our next step is to examine the component skills of singing.

For individual coaching on the techniques in this article and the development of your singing voice, contact Janak for voice lessons.

Copyright © 2010 Janak Ramachandran. All Rights Reserved.