Breathe When Singing
If you sing and you haven't had any vocal training, you could be singing yourself right into surgery. It's imperative that you use the proper breathing techniques to protect your voice from the damage of vocal chord strain, which could eventually lead to nodules.
Instructions
1. Breathe from your stomach. Your diaphragm, the muscle that controls how much air enters or exits your lungs, sits right below your ribcage. To gain the most volume of air from each breath, push your stomach out as you breathe in and pull your stomach back in as you breathe out.
2. Control how the breath exits by "holding" your stomach muscles. Breath control reduces vocal chord strain and improves tone and pitch. Control each breath as you sing.
3. Practice breath control without making a sound. This will reduce the vibrations on your vocal chords while you are learning proper voice and breath control.
4. Picture pushing the volume of air past your vocal chords slowly. Think of your lungs as a well of song available to you. It doesn't take much air to produce a note, so practice your breathing to identify this threshold and do not push any harder.
5. Mark your music with "breath" marks. Breathing tips are usually given as commas in the music. This gives you a sign when to take a breath, and gives you enough air to keep good tone.
6. Rest your voice. Practice these breathing tips for an hour or two at most. Practicing longer can lead to long term damage, such as vocal chord nodules, which may require surgery.
Tags: your stomach, vocal chord, breath control, Breathe When, Breathe When Singing, chord strain, each breath