Sing as you Like!

When we sing, we need to exhale to set the vocal folds into vibration. Otherwise, there’s no sound.

But how should we breathe? Should we take in a ton of air? Should we push from our abs? Let’s find out!

How Breathing Works

First, let’s understand how breathing works.

Inhale

When you inhale (breathe in), your diaphragm (located slightly above your last rib in the front) contracts, pushes all the organs below it out of the way, causing your abdominal area to expand in all directions.

At the same time, your external rib muscles (external intercostals) contract, which pull your ribs up and to the sides, especially the lower ribs.

With both of these motions, the area in your chest cavity expands. The lungs, which are attached to the walls of the chest cavity via pleural membranes, also expand.

When this happens, the pressure of the gas inside your lungs decreases. This causes air from outside (which has a lower pressure) to come in through your nose and/or mouth (whichever is open).

Exhale

When you exhale, the diaphragm and external intercostal muscles relax back to their original state, causing the chest cavity to become smaller.

This causes the pressure of the gas inside your lungs to increase compared to the air outside it. The gas then escapes through your nose and/or mouth, completing the exhale.

Other muscles can accelerate the exhale, such as all the muscles in the abdominal and lower back area, as well as the internal rib muscles (internal intercostals).

When you contract your abs or tighten your lower back, your organs get pushed up against the diaphragm, which causes the chest cavity to get smaller.

When the internal intercostal muscles contract, the ribs collapse inwards, also causing the chest cavity to become smaller.

All of these muscles activate when you sneeze or cough, in which case they all suddenly and forcefully contract to expel air out the lungs.

How to Breathe For Singing

When we breathe in, we need to ensure that we are in alignment and are not tensing up the ribs or abdominal area. This ensures that our ribs and abdominal area can fully expand.

To be in alignment, stand or sit in a posture where your ribs are not collapsed and all the muscles around your abdominal area are relaxed. To check this, place one hand on your bottom side ribs and the other hand on your abdominal muscles. If they are expanding, that’s good enough.

When we breathe out, we want to use the muscles of the torso to resist the collapse of the ribs and abdominals. This prevents the use of excessive breath pressure and/or running out of air. This resistance is also known as support.

With singing, we want as little breath pressure as possible for the task for several reasons:

1. Expelling air all at once will cause our vocal folds to come together more tightly to hold the air back, causing more strain
2. Other muscles in the neck area might also bear down to try and hold the air back, causing further strain
3. Increased breath pressure will cause us to run out of breath faster, especially if the vocal folds are loose
4. Blasting air might act as a crutch to reach higher notes, when the vocal folds are perfectly capable of achieving the higher notes purely by stretching

We also do not want to inhale too much air:

1. Having too much air will increase breath pressure when exhaling
2. If you inhale too much air and can’t get rid of it when you exhale, you might become light-headed
3. Your shoulders may also become involved, which might cause tension in the neck area and larynx

It should be noted that we will need more breath pressure when singing louder and less breath pressure when singing softer. This can be controlled using the abdominal muscles and internal intercostal muscles, contracting them slightly for additional volume and keeping them expanded for softer or more moderate volumes.

Nose or Mouth Breathing?

Ideally, given the health implications of mouth breathing, it would be best to breathe from the nose if there is enough time. The nose warms, humidifies and filters the air coming through it, while the mouth does not. This is why your throat might feel dry when you’re constantly breathing through your mouth.

When one needs to snatch a breath, one should breathe in with the nose while keeping the mouth open in a neutral or “oo”-like shape, creating a combined nose-mouth breath.

The reason for keeping the mouth in a neutral or “oo”-like shape as opposed to gasping for air in an “ah”-like shape is as follows.

When there is a constriction along your vocal tract, a greater volume of air will need to rush past that constriction at the same speed as the rest of the air. Because the greater speed of the air reduces its pressure, the air also gets cold.

When your mouth is open for an “ah”, your vocal tract is most constricted at the pharynx area (right above your larynx). Not only do you have a more closed throat that might make singing difficult, but you also have cold air rushing past your pharynx and straight into your vocal folds. This may cause them to dry out and feel uncomfortable when singing.

In contrast, when your mouth is in a neutral shape or “oo” like shape, the constrictions are kept further in the front of your mouth while your pharynx stays open. You might feel cool air near your lips when you breathe this way, but your vocal folds and pharynx will not be as negatively affected by the rush of cold air.

In addition, when your tongue is high up as in an “oo” (as compared to an “ah” where your tongue is low), your tongue is close to its ideal position (high and to the front). A higher tongue creates a semi-occluded vocal tract and lowers the first formant, which all help the vocal folds come together more efficiently.

Singing from the Diaphragm?

As singing occurs on an exhale, the phrase “sing from the diaphragm” does not make much sense. The diaphragm is an inhale muscle, and it is passive during exhalation or singing. You can try to keep it expanded as long as possible, but it is not the main actor.

It also does not make much sense to try and “buff up” the diaphragm by lying down and breathing with heavy books on your belly. Your diaphragm has been working your entire life without you even realizing it. It’s not likely to get much stronger.

An unhealthy obsession with singing from the diaphragm also causes people to try to breathe only into the belly at the expense of the ribs. Some might end up contracting or holding their ribs down in order to ensure that only the belly expands. This gives you less air and makes it harder to control the air coming out as you now can only control the air using your abs and not the ribs.

In addition, some people like those who dance or wear tight clothes cannot fully rely on the abdominals to breathe. If you’re dancing, the abdominal muscles will be fully engaged, meaning you won’t be able to inhale into them fully. In such a situation, you will need to use your rib muscles to breathe. If you’re wearing tight clothes that restrict the expansion of your ribs and abs, you might even need to engage the shoulders to make your body big enough to get the air required to sing.

The idea of singing from the diaphragm also causes us to lose sight of what actually makes singing sound the way it does: the vocal folds themselves (sound source) and the shaping of the vocal tract (the resonators/filter).

In future posts, we will elaborate more on how to manipulate your sound source and resonators, which are the two things that actually have any direct impact on your sound.