3rd Jan 2024
🎤 🎶 Vocal Tip of the Month! 🎶🎤
Betty Botter’s Breathing Better
Little breath work challenge for you lovelies: - Stand in front of a mirror. - Hand on the diaphragm, which is just where the ribcage ends and above the belly (the diaphragm also meets the back but just for this put your hand on the front, above your belly). - Can you relax all your abdominal muscles. Breathe and observe. - That’s right, for correct breath support you actually don’t want to squeeze with any pressure in the abs. - As you breathe, watching yourself in the mirror, are you reaching upwards for the breath with your shoulders or chest or is your diaphragm and belly moving out and in, without any stress or tension? - If it’s ‘upwards’ that’s actually a shallow breath, try to allow the diaphragm and belly to be the one moving. - You can also try this lying down where it’s even harder to accidentally reach ‘upwards’ instead of ‘outwards’
When you are finding this comfortable here is your challenge: the thing…
Say/sing: ‘Betty Botter bought some butter but she said the butter’s bitter, if I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter’, then hum on any note you like. - Breathe In for 4 beats (through the mouth, as silently as possible) - Sing the phrase on any note you like for 12 beats - Breathe in for 2 beats (straight away!) - Sing the phrase on any note you like for 12 beats - Breathe in for 1 beat (straight away!) - Sing the phrase on any note you like for 12 beats
With breath work for singing, we work mainly with our out breath and need to be able to take air in a short space of time, quickly, but not in a shallow way and be able to make our out breath last as long as we need without emptying completely or gasping for air.
If you’re struggling to make the out breath last, try applying just a tiny bit of effort into the lower back muscles, to sort of put a break on the diaphragm and hopefully slow the out breath down.
(Also speed the beats up if you need to! You can tap something, click, clap or use a metronome).
Remember you never need to fill the breath tank to 100% - usually around 75% I’d say, and you never want to empty it fully either, maybe leaving between 10 and 25% left.
Remember you never need to fill the breath tank to 100% - usually around 75% I’d say, and you never want to empty it fully either, maybe leaving between 10 and 25% left.
Have fun with it! More tips next month.
You are full of creative music-magic, and don’t you forget it,
Charlie X
Natural Notes Post
Encouraging Freedom In Music
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