Singing For Dummies. Pamelia S. Phillips

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СКАЧАТЬ to suck air through congested nostrils. Instead, allow air to come in through your nose and your mouth when you breathe. Getting accustomed to air coming in through both your nose and your mouth takes some time, but it’s a worthwhile technique.

      BREATHING JARGON

      If you’ve had some singing lessons, you may be confused by all the phrases and terms singers use to describe breathing. Your voice teacher or choir director may have said, “Support that note” or “Sing on breath!” If those commands make sense to you, congratulations! I always thought they were confusing, because the word support can mean so many things.

       Support probably became a popular term for breathing for singing because of the Italian word appoggio, which means “to support” or “to lean your body into the breath.” Support means using your body to control the breath and sound so your throat stays free and open.

       Appoggio also implies that singers flex their body or ribs open as they sing and leave the body open during exhalation. (This is similar to the outie method mentioned in the “Exhaling to sing” section in this chapter.) This may sound confusing, but it will make more sense as your understanding of your own breathing habits improves with practice.

       Singing on breath is what you’re supposed to do all the time. If someone says, “Sing on the breath,” they’re telling you to connect the breath to the tone or start the sound by connecting air. You can grunt and make a sound, but that’s not applying air or singing on the breath. You can also blow too much air and make a breathy sound, which isn’t what it means to sing on the breath. The process in between those two is what you’re looking for.

      In the future, ask the person to be more specific if you’re confused by the phrase they use. But it’s okay if you don’t know every singing cliché. How can you know them all yet? The singing world uses so many.

      Opening your body

      Taking in air quickly and quietly is one of the goals for singing. To get the air in quickly, you want to open your body — your back, ribs, sides, and abs. You can open all these areas at the same time, but explore each area separately before trying to activate them all together.

      Moving back for inhalation

      If you think of your back or spine connected to your ribs, it makes sense that opening your back helps your breathing. You want to quickly open your back so air falls into your lungs. Remember that the lungs are connected to the ribs, so moving the ribs and the back moves the lungs.

Try this suggestion 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.

      You can also squat down and place your hands on your back to feel the movement of the muscles. If you have a practice buddy, ask them to put their hands on your back as you try expanding your back. Or you can ask them to try the same exercise so you can feel how their back moves. Feeling the movement of someone else’s body may help you know what’s happening to yours.

      If sitting in the chair isn’t comfortable, try lying on your back with your knees bent to feel the opening of your back. Lie on the floor and feel the opening of your back along the floor as you inhale. Notice the movement of the upper part of your back and the lower part of your back, all the way down to your hips.

      Flexing the ribs

      The rib cage has 12 pairs of ribs. (Yes, men and women have the same number of ribs.) You can view the skeleton in Chapter 3 to see that the first seven pairs of ribs are connected to the sternum, and the next three ribs are connected to rib No. 7, to make the curved shape in the front of the rib cage. The last two ribs aren’t attached in the front of the rib cage; these ribs are called floating ribs.

You don’t have to remember the number of ribs, but you want to remember that the top of your rib cage has more movement from front to back in your body and that the lower ribs open more laterally, or out to the side of your body. Knowing how your ribs move, you can visualize the side-to-side opening near the bottom of your ribs to get the most air into your body quickly. And if you’re a dancer, you want to know how to quickly open the upper ribs and your back when you’re dancing across the stage.

      You may be asked to sing and dance at the same time. Because dancers have to keep their body moving while singing, they can’t always let their abdominal muscles release. But dancers can allow the ribs to open when breathing. If a dancer allows their ribs to open upon inhalation and slowly lets them close upon exhalation, they don’t have to worry so much about letting the abdominal muscles be loose. When you understand the way the body was designed to breathe, take it a step further and practice working with your ribs for dancing while singing.

      Move your arms in the following exercise so that you can feel the opening of your chest and ribs:

      1 Raise your arms over your head.

      2 Take a breath and feel your ribs open.Keep your chest stable. You don’t need to raise your chest; merely let it open. Repeat several times to feel the movement of your ribs.

      3 Put your arms down and place your hands on your ribs.Place your palms against your lower ribs with your thumb facing forward and fingers pointing to your back. To feel the movement higher in your rib cage, turn your hand the same way with the thumb facing forward, or cross your arms so that your right hand is on your left ribs and your left hand is on your right ribs.

      4 With your hands on your ribs, open the ribs slowly to feel the stretch of the intercostals — the muscles between the ribs.Repeat several times.

      5 Send air to your ribs or flex open your ribs as you inhale.

      6 As you exhale, allow your ribs to gradually move back in.

      If raising your arms over your head isn’t comfortable, you can lie on your side. Putting your arms above your head is ideal, but you can get the same sense of movement in the ribs with your arm bent at the elbow or extended in front of you. Other positions you can try are standing with your arms extended straight out on each side. Position the arms just slightly behind your body so your chest is open. In this position, you may especially feel the opening of the upper ribs. СКАЧАТЬ