Breathing low and breathing out loud together
Okay, so we've talked about humming, and we've talked about the dry air working against us. Today I want to get into the actual mechanics of breathing, because this is the part people skip past, and it's the part that fixes about half the problems I hear in this room every week.
Here's the thing though. Most of us breathe high and shallow all day long and never notice, because talking doesn't ask much of you. Singing asks a lot more. If you're breathing from your upper chest, you're going to run out of air in the middle of a phrase, you're going to sound thin, and you're going to tense up your neck trying to compensate. None of that is a character flaw. It's just the wrong equipment for the job.
What low breathing actually means
I'm not talking about some mystical yoga thing. I mean this literally. When you breathe in, your ribs should expand out to the sides and your belly should soften and move forward a little. Your shoulders should not go up. If your shoulders are climbing toward your ears every time you inhale, that's high breathing, and it's going to run out on you fast.
Try this at home, no choir required. Lie down on the floor, or your bed if the floor's too much of a production. Put one hand on your belly. Breathe in through your nose slowly. Watch your hand rise. That's it. That's the whole trick. Gravity does most of the teaching for you when you're lying down, because your body can't cheat into the shoulders as easily.
Once that feels familiar lying down, try it standing up, same hand on the belly. It's harder standing. Everybody's is. Don't worry about that.
Now the loud part
Here's where it gets a little goofy, and I want you to lean into the goofy on purpose.
Take a full low breath the way we just practiced, and then let it out on a loud, audible sigh. Not a polite little exhale. An actual "haaah" you can hear across the room. Do it again. Do it a third time. If you feel a little silly, good, that means you're doing it right, because most adults have spent years training themselves to breathe quietly and politely and that's exactly the habit we're trying to loosen up.
I do this with the whole choir sometimes before we tackle a hard entrance, everybody breathing out loud together on the same count. I had an alto section a while back that could not land a tricky entrance no matter how many times we ran it. Finally I just had them breathe out loud together first, one big shared exhale, and something about doing it out loud, together, on the same downbeat, got everybody's air moving the same way at the same time. Somebody laughed when we first tried it. Then we sang the entrance and it just worked. First time all rehearsal. I felt pretty good about that one, not gonna lie.
The loud breath does two things. It forces the low breathing we just practiced, because you can't fake a big loud sigh with a shallow chest breath, your body won't let you. And it gets everyone's air lined up together, which matters more in a group than most people expect. A room full of people all breathing in at slightly different moments creates a mushy entrance. A room full of people breathing out loud together, same time, same length, walks in together clean.
A quick caution
One thing to watch for: don't force the low breath so hard that you're straining your lower back or clenching your stomach like you're bracing for a punch. It should feel like your middle is expanding, not like you're doing a plank. If you feel dizzy doing several big breaths in a row, slow down and breathe normally for a minute. That's just your body telling you you're moving more air than usual, nothing dramatic, just listen to it.
Where this connects to the one rule
You'll remember I've been harping on singing so you can hear the person next to you rather than straining to hear yourself. Breath support is most of why that's possible at all. When you're breathing high and shallow, you tend to push air out with tension to compensate, and pushing air with tension is exactly what makes a voice loud and unblended, the very thing I keep telling you to avoid. Low breath, relaxed throat, and suddenly you've got the air to actually blend instead of shove.
I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am: most vocal strain in a beginning choir traces back to breathing, not to some mysterious lack of talent. Fix the breath and half the other problems start solving themselves.
Before next time
Try the floor exercise a few times this week, hand on your belly, low breath, loud sigh out. Even two minutes before bed counts. See if you notice it creeping into how you breathe when you sing along to something in the car.