The Breath Of Life

When we sing for any audience, breath is life - literally of course, but also the life of the sound depends on HOW we breathe.

Leading breath of the song: breathe in the pitch, breathe in the vowel.

Take Full Body Breaths wherever possible. This means breathing from the feet up, relaxing the diaphragm, springing open the ribcage (from back to front) and releasing all accumulated tension in the body to reset to a poised posture and attitude.

NEVER 'snatch' a breath. Personal Breaths are taken mid-note, mid-phrase and involve a PROPER breath. It takes no more time. It gives you 100% air instead of 50% and it releases tension instead of adding it.

NEVER 'push' your stomach out as you breathe in. That engages muscles not suitable for singing. The tummy FALLS naturally when you spring the ribcage and relax the diaphragm.

The 'pregnant pause' in the middle of a song is too often an excuse for the singers to HOLD their breath till the end of the pause, then breathe relatively quickly (and noisily) to start the new phrase. BREATH IS LIFE. Any time you are NOT breathing either in or out, you are technically DEAD. And this is where the philosophy of breath and energy gets involved...

When we sing, we are breathing out in an unusual way, and producing sound energy. Music also evokes an emotional response when performed well - let's call that emotional energy. So our instrument is putting out huge amounts of physical, sound and emotional energy. Is that why we're so drained by the end of the song? The fact is, we SHOULDN'T be drained, we should have MORE energy (be more pumped) at the end than at the beginning.

As a Showmanship tool, we talk about bringing in the emotional message of each phrase on the breath that precedes it. I like to talk about inhalation being our only opportunity to TAKE IN ENERGY while we perform. Breath is life, so each breath we take during a song should come with a rush of energy, which we immediately transfer into the sound and emotional energy delivered in the phrase. So take in that emotional energy (with a spring-relax breath) before every phrase and you will feel your performance energy build and build.

So back to the LONG BREATH (nee pregnant pause).... it can take a long time, but should be a slow, steady inhale of breath and energy, setting up the next phrase.

Breath also affects our unity. 75% of all synch problems are caused by confused breath plans, and at the higher levels, by lack of unit approach to breath style.

Lastly, without a relaxed body we cannot achieve vocal freedom. We cannot have a relaxed body if we breathe in a way which creates any tension. Remember that when you breathe, it should be a RELEASE, not a GRAB.

Growth Mindset

Just read a great article on how different mindsets affect achievement. The Growth Mindset is one where intelligence and 'talent' are recognized as requiring a lot of effort and hard work to bring to fruition. A Fixed Mindset believes that ability is innate and if you don't have a talent for something, there's no point in trying, resulting in the avoidance of that skillset, or making the individual feel disillusioned by lack of success, rather than spurred on to greater effort as happens with a Growth Mindset.

You can read the article at Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids&print=true

When I read it, I immediately recognized that this theory applies to singers as well. So many, many times I've been told by people that they're not good singers, or that it's all right for me, because I'm talented so singing is easy for me... What a bunch of crap! It's when people truly believe that they will never sound good that improvement is impossible. Every time I make a learning tape or learn a song, I am aware of deficiencies in my performance and strive to correct them. When you watch me singing, I'm feeling each note and tuning it, caressing it, lifting it... a lot of practice has made it 'easy', so don't belittle the achievement by telling me it's just talent!

Just recently several people have, quite separately, told me they hate to listen to their voice (on recordings) because they hear all the deficiencies and failings in it. This indicates to me a Fixed Mindset - you don't want to hear your deficiencies as you believe you can't correct them. It's also a major problem with vocal freedom and truly giving yourself to the music as your vocal self-image is something you hate. It sounds a bit naff to say 'learn to love your own voice' but your singing confidence and ability will definitely improve if you can get over that aversion.

Dale Syverson has a vocal lesson every week. Luciano Pavarotti had a voice teacher and lessons all his adult life. You think they're not talented? Effort is rewarded in this artform. 'Talent' is really just good technique, and the only gift some people have is starting out with better natural technique, or fewer problems!

So tape yourself singing a song you love. Listen to it, to the sound of your voice. To start with, don't get hung up on technical faults you hear, but listen to the vocal character - what makes it sound like you. Listen to it and listen to it (you may want to do more than one song!) for weeks and months and slowly you'll get used to that voice. If a technical flaw is bugging you, work on fixing it, record a corrected version of the song, and enjoy hearing the improvement! As you continue this process, you'll not only lose the 'hate' for your voice, but will start to feel proud of your voice, proud of each correction you make. You'll start to feel great satisfaction, knowing what you are achieving, and this will only spur you on to greater improvement. Practicing in front of a mirror is a great way to eliminate bad vocal habits by the way: you can see posture problems and see when your mouth isn't the right shape or moves on a target vowel. It's another thing people hate doing, because they don't like to look at themselves - yet not looking isn't going to solve the problem!

So don't hide away from your voice - that's defeatist and Fixed Mindset and will never allow you to grow beyond your current abilities.