BREATHING!

BREATHING! There has been a huge amount of emphasis put on breathing, as regards singing. Why? It's obvious that you MUST breathe in order to sing. It takes life to sing. It takes breathing to keep alive, having carbon-oxygen "machines" for bodies. Why might breathing be an issue? If a person has little or no effective lung capacity, singing will be difficult as far as doing long phrases or sustaining notes. If a person is hyper-adducting the vocal folds (smashing them together too tightly, in effort to not crack), that person will have to increase air pressure to even make a sound. Otherwise the vocal folds would pinch together so tightly that NO air can pass through. Your air, at a molecular level, is analogous to a violin bow. You vocal folds (vocal cords) are analogous to violin strings. The air molecules set the vocal folds into vibration. Air is important, there is no disputing that face; but, it is not ALL important. Some people over-breathe. They fill up completely and then, of necessity, do something unnatural to hold back the air pressure. This can cause unwanted tension in the body or can cause the person to hyper-adduct using the vocal folds as a valve, so to speak. Some people under-breathe and that results in being short of air or having to take many short breaths. Most of the time, you do not want to split a phrase. You almost NEVER want to split a word and grab a breath or you will sound like a rank amateur. Exceptions? If you choke on saliva in the middle of a word, you have to do what you have to do. I have breathing exercises I recommend that are good for two issues: 1) breath control and 2) lung capacity. If your air comes out jerky, your tone quality will be jerky. If you can't get through a phrase, you might consider improving your lung capacity. I cover these things in lessons.