Vocal breathing exercises
Why vocal breating exercises are important The reason for exercising your breath support is to improve your sound and to sing higher/deeper and longer notes.Breath control, which is another term for breath support is a set of muscles that are used to control how you release your breath. It is very often done wrong, which makes you sound bad, get throat pain and also unable to reach high and low notes. There are two exercises that can improve your singing and breath control.
Vocal breathing exercise #1 Hold a hand on the lower part of your belly and breathe in deeply. Then sing at a comfortable pitch and move the lower part of your belly slowly inwards. Move the higher part of your belly outwards. It's really only neccesary to focus on breath support on high notes and low notes, but play areound with it in a comfortable range first. 
Vocal breathing exercise #2 Place your hands on the lower part of your ribs. Then breathe in while pushing the lower ribs outwards. When you sing try to push the lower ribs out even more! 
How to use these exercises Singers need much better breath control in the high and low part of the voice than in the middle. If you have problems with a song, you should try one or both of these exercises on the troublesome parts. I use both! It's also smart to experiment with the volume. A lot of singers (especcially male) have too low volume on high notes and end up in falsetto or to much volume and end up shouting. It's not "wrong" to shout or use falsetto, but in most songs it's not what people want. Do what you think sounds good! The "right" way isn't always the best way! If you end up in falsetto, try shouting the part a couple of times (with a lot of breath control). If you sound too shouty, sing it in falsetto a couple of times, then sing it as you want it to be. Don't start out singing too high/deep notes If high or deep notes feel painful or you're unable to reach them, you are not ready for them yet. It may take a lot of practice, but work on singing the song a little bit higher or deeper, and you will gradually train yourself to be able to do it. And as I said above: Use enough volume, but not too much. And experiment! It's a good idea to use these exercises as a part of your voice warm ups and vocal exercises. The only ways to learn is by repeting and experimenting! Return from vocal breathing exercises to Vocal exercises. |