Breathing. Why do we make it so complicated?

We do it more than 20,000 times per day. You’d think we’d know how to do it by now, right! So why is it such a controversial topic with singing aficionados?

Okay, so I’m being a bit over-simplistic. Of course, we need to consider breathing when we sing (or even speak). You take an in-breath and the quality of that directly informs the quality of the out-breath. If you’re singing or speaking, the quality of the in-breath hugely influences the quality of your sound. (Our voice is produced by the out-flow of breath vibrating the vocal folds in the larynx/voice box.) Breathing, then, is pretty fundamental to all things voice, so it’s understandable that people sometimes get into a tizzy about it.

Let’s look at the common pitfalls first:

• Most of us breath too shallow.

That means that the chest rises and falls (clavicular breathing). You probably don’t even know you’re doing, so it’s easier to notice in other people. Take a look at the presenters on live TV. Listen out for their in-breaths. More often than not, it’s a noisy, constricted gasp as they rush to say their next sentence. Once you hear it, it’s difficult to ignore! Can you hear something similar with your own breathing (especially when you have something to say)?

• When breathing in for singing, many of us think more is more.

Maybe you think the answer to better breath control is more air. Nope. You just end up leaking, producing breathy, unfocussed sound. It’s highly probable you’ll still run out of breath just as quickly as before, and with a loss of vocal tone thrown into the deal.

• Lots of us are serial tummy holders!

You can’t access a deep, singing in-breath if you’re squeezing your tummy in all the time. I know, this is a painful truth for a lot of us, but pulling in constantly never actually changes your dress size!

• Poor posture

 Actually, I hate the word 'posture'. It tends to make us feel stiff and fixed! Still, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you’re slumped, your lower ribs are squished into your abdomen, meaning you can’t access that magical deep breath that we’ve been talking about.

What do we want in the ideal in-breath?

• A ‘deep’ breath – meaning deep into the body (NOT the same as taking as much air as you can squeeze in!)
• A relaxed but ready state in the body – upright and well aligned but never fixed or rigid
• An open, non-constricted throat

How about the out-breath? (phonating, speaking or singing)

• Slow and consistent stream of air
• A relaxed but ready state in the body – upright and well aligned but never fixed or rigid
• An open, non-constricted throat

Sound simple? The good news is that it is! 

...The bad news is that we almost always overthink it, making life harder for ourselves. So, be kind to yourself while you’re recalibrating your breathing. Remember you’ve got a 20,000-a-day habit!

Exercise:

Lie on the ground, feet flat on the floor, knees bent, and your hands resting on your belly. Just relax. Just breathe naturally. Don’t even think about doing anything fancy. After a minute or two, you might notice your belly rising and falling. It tends to happen naturally when we’re at rest.  

It’s easier to find in this position lying down because we don’t have to manage our body alignment (or posture, if you insist!). The floor and gravity do it all for you. Then the trick is to see if you can access this breathing style when you’re standing or sitting. If not, check out your body setup:

• Are you holding unnecessary tension?
• Is your back and neck as beautifully aligned as when you were lying down?
• You can try using a wall as a guide (feet away from the wall, knees slightly bent) to line up through your hips, back, shoulders (possibly head, if it doesn’t cause you to crunch the back of your neck). Like the floor, it can give us a clearer guide for our alignment. Remember, we want our body to be poised not fixed.
• Can you wiggle and move easily if you wanted to?

This is the basis for our deep breathing singing breath. It’s deeper into the body without over-filling the lungs and chest.

It may even feel like you’re taking in less air, but stick with it…

How’re you doing? Can you handle a bit more?...

Essentially, we can activate our breath into 3 different parts of the body:

1. Abdomen – belly breathing
2. Side ribs and waist – intercostal breathing
3. Upper chest – clavicular breathing

If you study yoga, you might already have heard this through Pranayama practice, where they isolate different types of breathing. Try filling your lungs ‘from the belly up’, expending the ribs, and then the chest.

For singing we do something similar, but we leave out the upper chest bit. (Clavicular breathing tends to cause tension in your throat which makes singing harder.) As your coordination improves, try doing the belly and the lower ribs at the same time. This helps access the faster in-breath you might need for singing. It’s worth noting that this deeper breath will require a bit more space and time than you’re used to.

We’ve talked a lot about the quality of the in-breath. This is because the quality of the in-breath directly influences the quality of the outbreath.

Now we can breathe out!

If you’re singing, you will want to extend your out-breath. That means we need to resist the collapse…

What is the collapse?

When we breathe in, the diaphragm and muscles between your ribs (intercostals) contract. Technically speaking, this is the effort bit, though we are often not aware of it because it’s mostly subconscious. (Oh, in case you’re not sure, the diaphragm is that dome-like muscle directly under your lungs. It’s attached all the way around the bottom of your ribs.):

Then, to breathe out, we normally just relax those muscles, and this is the collapse. It’s fine when you’re breathing normally, but if you want to sustain your out-breath for singing, we need to resist the collapse!

Now, if you’ve taken care of your belly breathing on the way in, this will be a whole lot easier…

As you exhale, sing or speak, try to allow your body and lower ribs to broaden rather than collapse.

Imagine you’re actually getting bigger. (It might be easier to try this on a long ‘ss’ sound for starters, so provide a bit of resistance.)

Air is still leaving your lungs so, of course, you so you won’t actually get bigger! The intention is everything, though. It will allow you to exhale gradually and with control – exactly what we need to singing or projected speaking.

What about that belly? Where does that come into the deal?

Ok, use your fingers to feel around your own rib cage. Don’t be shy – feel up under your arms, sternum and back (if you can reach). Now move your hands down to feel your belly. If you’re like me, the belly will feel quite a bit softer than your ribs! When you breathe in, your diaphragm contracts, going down, sucking your lungs down with it, drawing air in. Everything below your diaphragm (the insides of your belly), get squished. That’s when it’s useful to have a soft belly, so there’s room for the lungs to expand down. If you’re pulling your tummy in tight, your insides have got nowhere to go as they are squashed by your diaphragm, and that’s going to limit your breath in quite a bit. (Try it. Pull your tummy in really tight and try your belly breathing. Did it feel a bit stuck?)

Now, as you sing, speak (or hisssss!) on the out-breath, you’re resisting the collapse with your side-ribs and waist, feeling as big in your body as you can. Your belly may start to move in as you use up your breath. Then to breath in again, just relax your belly and air can easily drop in without having to set up the whole thing from scratch. The belly is now doing the hardest work while everything above it remains as open and broad as possible.

Why is it better that the belly does the work?

Think about it. Where do you have more muscle power, the ribs or your belly? Whether you have a 6-pack or not, we many thick layers of muscle tissue in our abdomen – far more than our ribs. It follows, then, that dropping the effort into the belly will give us a stronger singing or speaking voice.

That’s it. Breathing explained… Well, like most things, it’s simple when you know how.

If the penny has dropped for you while reading this article, that’s a huge win. Well done! If not, don’t worry. Like many things that are natural functions, it sounds more complicated than it is. Clarity comes with knowing how it feels in your own body.

For a more in-depth exploration, look out for my brand-new course on breathing for singing.

Watch this space!