3 Singing Tips – Pt. 2

Understanding Breathing as a Singer

Welcome to part two of 3 Singing Tips blogs! In my last blog, I talked about the importance of having good alignment posture as a singer. Feel free to take a look here before reading on about this blog topic, breathing. We will talk about the general aspects of breathing as a singer.

What Is Breathing?

Breathing is where you take air into your lungs with your nose and mouth and then let it release that air out of your nose and mouth. This is what you do automatically, every day and it keeps you alive! Inhalation is where you breathe in and then exhalation is where you breathe out your air.

Now, breathing as a singer is the same thing, but it is more controlled, a singer will need to determine how much air they’ll need in order to sing their song phrase by phrase.

Below is a human skeleton anatomy image of the rib cage, spine and the neck bones that allows the voice to work the way that it’s designed to do! When you breathe, the air will go into your lungs and then the inhalation and exhalation muscles of your lungs will expand into your ribcage.

Photo by Nino Liverani on Unsplash

How Do You Breathe As A Singer?

To breathe as a singer, first, make sure that you are in that nice alignment posture, inhale like we talked about before. (Feet, knees, hips, shoulders, chest neck and head) are all balanced and ready for a singing position.

Here are the 4 specific steps of breathing as a singer.

1. Inhalation – Breathe in air with both your nose and mouth and let the air travel into your lungs.
   
2. Suspension – Hold or strengthen this air into your lungs, allow the breathing muscles to support and allow that air for you to sing your phrase.
   
3. Phonation – Produce or make your sound and directing your air to flow into your larynx into your vocal folds and vibrate the notes you are singing. (At the same you are also making the exhalation or releasing your air!)
   
4. Release or Recovery – When the phrase of the song is complete, you will want to release the exhalation muscles and reset your body into the initial singing position, preparing for breath in the next phrase.

Keep in mind, these are just the very basics of breathing as a singer in so many words. There are so many resources on breathing as a singer with even more technical details.

Breathing to sing is more visual and kinesthetic, so here’s a video on how you will breathe as a singer.

Note: We will talk about the anatomy of the respiratory system such as the larynx, diaphragm, intercostal muscles and trachea and more in another blog later on.

What’s the difference between normal breathing and breathing to sing?

There are some differences between breathing to sing versus breathing to live:

Breathing to sing is a quicker breath, a deeper breath, you use the nose and mouth to inhale and exhale and it’s a quick release or recovery. It is more consistent as you are singing a song or piece. It is also a slower release of air or recovery.

Breathing to live is automatic, it is slower intake of air, a somewhat faster release of air and waiting or recovering before the next intake of air takes more time.

Here you can find Oxford Singing Lessons article with more details on the differences here.

Why is Breathing As A Singer Important?

Simply put, you need air in order to produce sounds and the breathing mechanism is just that. Breathing to sing allows the production of your sound to be fuller, richer and more connected to your musical expression. Proper breathing is important to protect your vocal folds with the correct amount of air and air pressure. Again, there are a lot of technical aspects to managing air into the vocal folds, but today, I wanted share the very basics of breathing as a singer.

Next time, I will be talking about tone, so stay tuned for part 3! Want to be connected to the next blog? Please subscribe on our website and share this article with your friends and family. Let me know if you have any questions on breathing as a singer by replying!

And remember to just…

Photo by Fabian Møller on Unsplash