Breath Support Exercises For Voice

Introduction

As you may have seen by the countless videos on Youtube, the breath is something that is constantly spoken about. Not to understate the importance of the breath for singing but unfortunately I think this topic is spoken about much too casually with phrases such as "breathe from the diaphragm" being not only confusing but also all too common!

In my experience, the first vocal lesson you do with a voice teacher usually tends to focus on getting your breath to be focused deep into the belly and less from the chest. After you successfully achieve this style of breath many teachers would say 'excellent you have achieved support'. Unfortunately for myself and many others, even though I could do this deep belly breath without raising the chest it didn't actually improve my singing voice at all! The final key that many vocal coaches are missing is that this breath is only ONE (albeit integral) part of singing with true vocal support. What I aim to do in this blog is to show you how to not only get a more correct & deep diaphragmatic breath, but to also show you how to sing and utilise the breath in such a way that this true vocal support can actually be achieved.

Performing the Breath Correctly

Don't mistake what I just said about breath & support to mean that the breath is not important. The first step to achieving vocal support is by correctly performing the breath. The idea I am trying to get across to you is that singing with support is not JUST about the breath, but that it is only ONE part of achieving a well supported voice. If you do not take the breath correctly you will experience tension in the throat immediately when trying to sing something more technically difficult.  You will know you are singing with a supported voice and correct breath when your voice is suddenly more resonant and free with significantly reduced strain on your throat. 

Check out this video to see what the lungs and diaphragm are physically doing. This will help you understand how the breath should be coordinating correctly. 

In order to learn the how to breathe correctly for singing refer to this diagram. 

Step 1. 

Seperate and place your hands directly underneath your lower ribs where the soft fleshy part of the sides of your stomach begins. Open your mouth tall and breathe through the mouth doing your best to fill nothing but your lower stomach. 

Step 2.

Ensure that you can feel the breath expand your stomach while also focusing the breath AROUND the sides of your stomach as if there was a tyre wrapped around your belly and you were trying to expand it outwards.

Step 3.

Ensure that your spines posture is straight and not overly curved inwards. If your spine is not straight the breath will be much more shallow. I would recommend you to experiment with getting the breath to fill with your back straight and curved so that you able to realise how important the posture is in terms of taking this breath (and singing in general).

Step 4.

Place one hand on your back and one hand on the side of your stomach. What I would like you to do is breathe very deeply and attempt to get the stomach expanding in a 360 degree motion. If performed correctly you will first feel the front of the stomach expand, then the sides of your stomach then finally your back will be noticeably expanded. Back expansion is the hardest area to expand in my experience but it is definitely able to be achieved on command when taking the breath for singing. This final step will take the longest to achieve, but if you are able to get your lower stomach and the sides of the stomach to expand without having to raise the chest you are 80% there. The back expansion may take a bit of repetitive practice (overs day and weeks) but you will feel a noticeable difference in the overall quality of the breath if this final step is achieved.

Conclusion

Supporting the breath is no easy task, so don't beat yourself up if you can't get it in one day. Just give it another shot each day until it clicks (I promise you'll never forget it once you've achieved it). I would just like to add that I understand why so many vocal coaches teach this in the first lesson. The breath which supports the voice is the entire foundation of vocal technique. I hope this article and video can clear up some confusion on what most vocal coaches are trying to have you achieve when they share breathing and support techniques.