Episode 347: Singers, STOP These 3 Breathing Mistakes
Breathing technique for singing CAN be one of the most frustrating things...there are SO many things to think about - you probably have a ton of questions AND there are a ton of myths out there.
My philosophy is that SINGING IS SIMPLE and breathing technique for singing, it's no different.
In this episode, we go through 3 of the most common mistakes that singers make when you breathe and what to do instead.
Key takeaways from this episode:
- The BEST way to get started with foundational breathing technique for singing.
- The 3 most common mistakes that singers make when it comes to breathing.
- How to start to develop muscle memory in the breath as a singer.
- The fastest way to consistency in pitch and vocal tone through using your breath.
Links:
346: When I hear “breathe with the diaphragm”…insert eyeroll here.
Free Resources
How To Sing Like A Paid Professional In 1 Year Without Boring Or Pointless Vocal Warm-Ups.
Subscribe to The Star Singer Podcast on Apple Podcasts
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Foundations of Singing Higher Course
Full Transcript
Here are three breathing mistakes that you can squash right now if you want to become a better singer. Okay, number one, stop focusing on the “how.” We talked about this in last week's podcast episode. I believe it is episode, let me quick… let me check quick, 346.
When I hear breathing with the diaphragm it makes me want to throw up. Yes, that is the name of the podcast episode, uh, because it does. But if you stop focusing on the how. We talked about how the how is when people tell you or like when you've heard You know, however you've heard it, because it's a, it's like a cultural thing.
We hear like, Oh, I need to breathe with my diaphragm when it comes to singing, because that's what we've heard. So however we hear it in that episode, I go through the specifics of how breathing for singing actually works and why we don't actually breathe with the diaphragm, but that is a tip. I mean, this specific tip is very similar, but it's also different because you probably find yourself focusing on the how.
You're like, oh, am I breathing correctly? Am I doing it right? And in my experience, teaching hundreds of singers, thousands of voice lessons, and just having really huge breakthroughs, instead of focusing on the how, it's a very, very simple shift to focus on the when. Now, there are things that we can do later on after you've developed your singing foundation.
And you know, if you've been singing for years and years and years, and you still feel like you don't have a strong singing foundation, maybe you've even taken voice lessons. You've spent some time and money and energy on this and you're still not where you want to be. I really want to encourage you here that…in my experience, there's a beginning singer and there's an advanced singer.
There's like an expert singer and there's a master singer. There's no real intermediate singing because With the way that singing works It's so beautiful and so holistic that once The pieces start coming together we can only focus on one thing at a time, right? now you might say you can focus on more than that, but You know, we're all lying to ourselves when we say that so I've really only found success with focusing on one thing at a time And developing the muscle memory around that and then Bringing together another thing and now putting those two things together The foundations of singing is kind of like putting like at least four things together But the beauty of it is we're developing muscle memory along the way And it will all come together eventually and very holistically.
And when that happens, you're going to notice a huge, huge improvement. So if you haven't gotten there yet, you probably have a couple of the pieces, but you just haven't figured out how to put them together. And for a lot of singers, this puzzle piece, this focusing on the when you breathe is huge. Okay, so don't even concern yourself about the how.
We can go into that later when you're ready, but thinking about it now isn't going to help. And I know a lot of singers who are paralyzed by, oh, I need to know exactly every step and exactly how I'm going to get there. And those singers typically haven't taken any action. So honestly, that's probably not you because you're listening to this podcast, but you might be able to relate.
So just, just trust me and my years of experience and thousands of voice lessons and 20 years of singing myself. When I say, please just focus on the how, I know there's a bit more to it, but let's add those steps later. Okay? Oh, I'm sorry. I think I misspoke. Um, focus on the when, the when, the when, the when.
Okay? So when you breathe. And this is where the timing of the breath comes in. I cannot stress this enough. Okay. Timing of the breath is so important, so foundational. I'm going to show you, I'm basically giving you this exercise. It's inside of my program, the Star Singer Green Room. You can try it for 30 days, the first 30 days is just a dollar and you're going to get immediate access to this timing of the breath exercise.
I'll leave the link below, you can check it out. I promise it's going to change everything. So to summarize, stop focusing on the how, i. e. I have to breathe with the diaphragm, I have to do this physically, and start focusing on the when, the timing of the breath. All right, the second mistake. That you need to stop doing is stop saving your air.
Use all your air when you sing. Now, if you feel like your body is resisting, like if you feel like you cannot take in a breath, like you've just got done singing and you try to breathe in again and there's resistance, it almost feels like a hiccup, like you can't breathe in again. That's because you still have air left and your body thinks you're good to go.
And your body thinks you don't need to breathe yet because you don't. That's a sign that you didn't use all of your air. You didn't get all your air out. And when you don't get all your air out, your body literally will not allow you to take a nice full breath. There's going to be resistance there. So you need to let all your air out at the end of the phrase.
Ideally, when you stop singing, all of your air will be out, but for most singers, you don't have that skill yet. And so you just need to kind of manage your breath a little bit and just blow it out, make sure it's all out. This can also manifest itself at the beginning of the phrase. When you start singing, a lot of singers are like, Oh, I'm supposed to sing in four measure phrases, or I'm supposed to let, you know, be able to hold my breath for a long time if I'm a really great singer.
No, that's where a bunch of problems come from. So be sure to let your air out, like sing really loud right when you start. start. Let that air out. Don't worry about saving your air. I'd rather have you run out of air than save your air because saving your air is going to create all kinds of problems.
It's going to create tension. It's going to create pitch problems and it's not going to allow you to develop the muscle memory of, of this net of this breath flow that we're trying to do here. Okay, so do not save your air in any way. Use all of it, and like we talked about before, Once you learn how to use all of the air that you have already, then we can think about getting more air.
It's just like a car, right? If your gas tank is already full, you don't need to put more gas in it. In fact, it's just gonna overflow, it's gonna cause problems, it might set a fire, I don't really, you know, gasoline, you know, like, just imagine. Um, like. Yes, use all of your air. Very important. Cannot stress that enough.
And then number three, Stop breathing with your mouth, okay?
Like that's what it sounds like, but notice when you can't see me It also sounds like I'm having an asthmatic attack, an asthma attack. Well, that's because it's an asthmatic breath. Okay. I'm actually taking an asthmatic breath, the type of breath someone might take when they feel like they're having an asthma attack.
That's not a deep breath. That's not a full breath. That's not the breath that we want for singing. Now you might think, Oh, I was told to get a big breath. Like my mouth hole is big. Like, that's how I can take in more breath. Like, I definitely want to do that. But. When you breathe with your mouth, it's going to change the shape of your trachea, your air pipe, right?
And that's going to lead to inconsistent sound. Because if you think about how instruments work, imagine changing the shape of a trumpet. While you're playing, like imagine that you could bend a trumpet. So while this trumpet is playing, you're taking the brass and you're bending it. What do you think is going to happen to the sound?
It's going to change. It's going to be inconsistent. The challenge with us as a singer is that our body is constantly moving. There's organs inside of our breath, our body. There's organ, you know, there's our, our, our breath volume changes. It varies, um, the way that we're holding our body. So our instrument literally changes shape as we are singing in general.
And the less we can do this, the more consistent sound we're going to have. So when you. Change the shape of your trachea, your air tube. It's going to impact your sound. And most people, when you take an asthmatic breath in, what happens is the trachea closes. And then in order to sing, you have to open it up again.
And the shape of the opening is going to also change the sound. So what you need to do instead. Oh, another thing is this also creates anxiety. Um, anxiety, inconsistency, pitch problems, basically all the reasons why you wouldn't want to do this. So the solution is the silent breath. You're going to breathe through your nose with an open mouth.
Like, you want this breath to be like, you just woke up, and Your husband is making you waffles, or whatever amazing breakfast you want to eat. And you can smell the coffee, and it's just like that sort of breath. That's the kind of breath in. You want with your nose. Now while you're breathing in with your nose, you're gonna want an open mouth, okay?
This allows some air in, but that's not the reason why we're opening the mouth. We're really opening the mouth to help form the vowel shape. Because the shape of the trachea, the shape of the intention, the shape of the actual mouth is going to impact the tone. So the silent breath, now a lot of singers resist the silent breath because they're like Tiffany I can't get in as much air as I usually can, which it might feel that way But that's not true because the air that you think you're taking in with an asthmatic breath isn't really usable anyway so Remember when I said like get comfortable with this and then we'll add on more later This is the foundation.
Breathing in through the nose with an open mouth. Allowing it to come into the stomach. The stomach has to stay relaxed as well, okay? This is another thing I coach on in the green room. I'll give you the exact exercise so that you can push play and just do it. I'll leave that link for the first 30 days for 1 in there.
These are all very foundational. Very, very important things. I've seen huge changes be made with just these tiny shifts, okay? They're so simple to do. All you have to do is give them a try. DM me on Instagram at TiffanyVanBoxtel. That spelling is in the description. Let me know how this goes for you. And I'll also leave the 1 link for the special offer to hop in the green room and grab these foundational exercises.
They're going to be so powerful for you. All right. Tune in for, uh, go ahead and subscribe. Feel free to leave a positive review, um, five stars. This podcast is work to produce, um, even though I love doing it, I love sharing this with you. If you have a moment to review, to give it a five star rating, I would really appreciate it.
