Breathing – Mille Studios

It’s already strange enough as singers to have “breathing exercises” as everyone knows how to breath right??

Well if that isn’t crazy enough that vocal instructors reteach you how to breath… now we break it down even further to isolate what is happening when we inhale specifically when singing. I promise we are not over thinking this and if you practice your breathing along with your other vocal warm ups, you will see a dramatic improvement in holding that big note or adding some endurance and control to those delicate notes.

Therefore, let’s dive right in to an inhalation 🫁 exercise. This is vital to practice. As we say at Mille Studios, train your body, train your voice. Once you know and understand what your body is doing, you will prevent injury and vocal strain.

Let’s 1st feel How to Open Your Back Muscles:

Try this to quickly open your back for an easy inhalation:

1. Find a sturdy chair and sit with your elbows resting on your knees. In this position, you sit and lean forward, with your elbows on your bent knees and your back straight. You don’t have to bend over far only far enough to allow your back to relax.

2. With your elbows on your knees, take a breath and imagine that you can put the air into your back- as if your lungs are all along your back and you want to fill them with air. You may notice that the muscles in your back feel like they’re lifting and opening for the air to come in the body.

3. Take a few more breaths and notice the sensations of your back opening.

4. When you think you feel your back releasing and opening as you inhale, try opening your back more quickly. Open the same muscles along your back without worrying about inhalation. When you open the muscles, the air comes into your body and you don’t have to worry about inhalation – the inhalation happens because you’re opening the muscles.

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3 Tips For All Singers of All Levels

Take care of your instrument which happens to be your voice as this blog is all about singing. You can’t go out and buy another set of vocal chords, so be sure to treasure them. This means, water water water 💦 It is so simple but we often skip it or do not realize how much we require. What to avoid before singing? Make sure to never stuff yourself, especially before a performance. Some foods and beverages to avoid prior to singing are mucous producing foods such as dairy, stimulants such as caffeine and spicy foods, soft drinks, refined sugars, chocolate, iced drinks and alcohol. Pro Tip! How to sing or perform when getting over a cold with excess mucous? Hydration in the form of steam (head over a bowl of boiling water, with a towel over your head), is seen by many singers as the very best way to get the folds hydrated, and to shift thick mucus which might clog them up. This saved me in 2018 when I was getting over a cold but had to perform Phantom of the Opera at River Rock Casino.
Practice, practice, practice and be patient. Practicing scales, improving your tongue-soft palate coordination, repeating tongue and lip trills and simply humming are a few fabulous little warm-up exercises to get your vocal cords loose and ready for singing. To improve your range start your vocal warm ups with humming. Don’t push too hard or strain your voice. Humming is almost like a massage and if done consistently as part of your routine you will be able to increase your lower and higher range.
Breathing – Never skip breathing exercises. No matter what level you are, every singer will agree that breath control is the most important foundational component to singing well, with ease and it will protect your voice so you can sing for a lifetime. This is what gives power to all your registers. Breathing exercises are an excellent start for those looking to improve their ability to sing and while it is tempting to just skip all the warm ups and learn a song by singing it over and over – you will not improve as much as you would like and often times it will cause injury. Breathing is what will make your tone, pitch and strength to your voice.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to building this blog with suggestions from you. I will be taking each one of these tips and going into more detail with specific exercises for breathing technique. Lastly, there are many approaches to singing and vocal coaches will have their methodology. Rather than debating which way is right or wrong, I believe one of the most important parts of finding success goes beyond talent but being consistent. Think of your vocal training just like fitness training.