Breathing for Singers

Breathing and the voice are inextricably intertwined. A complete inhalation which is aligned with the needs of the voice will always produce a full, free, healthy and efficient sound. Singing becomes an easy pleasure as a consequence of a great breath.

“Let’s begin to breathe. Let’s stand up! And the breath sounds lovely.” Conny, Choral Conductor

What, precisely, does this singer’s breath look like? Which patterns of breathing cause the opposite of what we are attempting?

This day is dedicated to understanding a detailed, efficient singer’s breath. We use simple body and vocal exercises from Eugen Rabine’s Functional Voice Pedagogy (an efficient method of vocal development). In addition to learning new patterns of breathing, we will have the opportunity to reflect on previously learned patterns of breathing, including common terms like “support,“ “low breath,“ “chest breath,“ “flank breathing,“ “stomach breath,“ “stomach press.“ We will discuss the usefulness of these concepts in our singing.

Using simple songs we will begin to integrate our new perceptions of breathing into our everyday singing.