Breathing Practices for Singing

“Breathe, breathe in the air. Don’t be afraid to care.” - Pink Floyd

Wherever you are right now, take a deep breath. Feel the breath expand into every area of your body, especially anywhere you feel tense. Now release those tense places.

It’s so simple and feels good, doesn’t it? Why is breathing so important in relation to the voice? Think of the voice as an instrument and the breath as a pick, plectrum, or your fingers on the strings. The breath propels the voice just as the strings are vibrated by the pick or fingers. So you gotta have open and consistent breath flow to get the sound to be clear or constant.

You want to keep the breath lower in the body to decrease any sense that you’re tensing up your shoulders or neck because the muscles that control the voice can receive the tension. So breathe low into the body.

Put your hands on your ribs and inhale slowly, feeling the breath expanding into both sides of the ribs. As you exhale, attempt to keep the ribs expanded. Looking in a mirror, make sure you’re not expanding like the Big Bad Wolf into the shoulders. You’ll wanna feel that most of the action is in the lower torso and ribs and that as the air leaves your body, you still have space in the ribs.

Find your abdominal breath by inhaling, and then blowing 6 sharp breaths, like you’re blowing out a candle several feet away from you. Feel the engagement of the abdominal muscles as you do this.

Next, lie on your back on the floor with a roughly 1” or 3 cm book under your head. Start by taking breath into your ribs: inhale *very slowly* to a count of four, the idea being that you don’t want to take in so much breath that you’re getting tense. Hold that breath easily for four beats, keeping the breath stocked in the torso. As you exhale to a count of four, keep the ribs expanded as much as you can, but let the breath flow out easily.

Do this exercise for 5 minutes. I find it helpful to set a timer with the seconds beeped out so that I can zone out a bit and focus only on the breath.

Enjoy the mindful, meditative aspect of this exercise and take the time to let yourself focus only on this basic and beautiful principle of life: your breath.