How do you support your singing through breathing? I asked this question to one of my teenage students, Arianna. She is into musical theater, and she is interested in learning how to produce strong tones that can carry to the back of big theater halls. Her role models include Kristin Chenoweth, Sara Ramirez, and Bernadette Peters, to name a few. All those singers possess a powerful voice.
Arianna hesitated for a while, then pointed to her stomach, and said, “Push up here while I breathe...?”
What she said is correct. However, for my job, I need to show my students a more accurate, bigger picture. I am reasonably intelligent, but I had to struggle in order to verbally articulate the mechanism of how breath support works.
One of the reasons why it is so difficult is that the result of successful breath support must be felt inside the body. Since we use breath to produce sound, our instrument is close to reed or brass instruments such as flute, sax or trumpet. Without air/breath, there will be no sound.
Try holding your breath and say, "I want you," to a person in front of you. I know you are smart enough not to try this to a stranger at a Starbucks. If you are lucky, she won't understand you. If she is a master of lip-reading, she might quickly get up with a terrified look or call the cops (or you just became a champion of speed-dating. Everybody will want to know your secret strategy.).
Joking aside, no air, no sound, right? Now imagine that you have a balloon in your upper chest. Deeper you inhale, bigger the balloon gets. It stretches down the diaphragm (a membrane that extends across the ribcage); the rib cage expands to the sides; the chest moves up and out. Don't forget the breath pushes out your back as well. Breathing is 360° action.
Now imagine your voice as a ping pong ball.
Place it gently on top of the balloon, i.e. breath. Like a ping pong ball, the voice should feel light, and resonate directly with the movement of the breath. The voice is using the breath as a cushion/protection and at the same time, the source of energy to make whatever kind of tone it wants to produce.
Many people can go so far as to breathe deeply and feel the effect of the breath (I call this the “balloon effect”) in every space of the upper body. But the word "support" means sustaining effort to keep the ball in the right place and keep the movement renewed during singing. The balloon in your body has a hole at the top; the air constantly flows out upward, keeping the ping pong ball afloat. So it is important to keep the balloon constantly inflated and supple. So sustained support is not stationary: you have to keep it moving.
Working on improving breath support is no easy task. But understanding how it works will give you a sense of control. Arianna was able to explain a bit more in detail during our session, and we did a couple of our usual exercises to confirm her theory. She proved it by singing louder with a more stable, fuller tonality.
I will show you a couple of exercises I often use:
<1stbreath support exercise>
Inflate your chest. Open your mouth widely, then draw air into your upper body. Feel the 360°expansion inside your upper torso. Exhale. Repeat three times.
Next, breathe as you did before. Raise your arms to the sides like a swan as you inhale. As you exhale, lower your arms WITHOUT losing the upward extension. Keep the stretch by engaging the core muscles. Inhale as you raise your arms. Adjust the level of inflation, but never entirely lose the sense of buoyancy. Repeat this process as many times as your needs see fit.
<2nd breath support exercise - "Pop" exercise>
Good support makes you feel like you are a child playing with a big round balloon. Or walking on a cloud of breath. You frolic on the vast, thick blanket of breath. You feel at ease and energized at the same time. How wonderful it is to feel that way! Wouldn’t you agree it is definitely worth to learn this magic?