Vocalist.org archive


From:  Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...>
Date:  Thu Mar 6, 2003  10:38 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Breathing

The simple answer:

Allow the breath to happen, don't make it happen.

Methodology: At the ends of phrases, RELEASE - from the face on downwards,
allow the relaxation of muscles that will result in a vacuum being created
in your lungs, which will automatically be filled with an inhalation that
you don't have to DO - it will simply happen because "nature abhors a
vacuum". For this to work, you also need to maintain good singing posture.

A few other tips:

Don't breathe too early. Your breath should not be "all in" before you
need to start phonating. Instead, the breath should be "all in"
(regardless of how long and deep a breath it is) at the exact moment when
you need to begin phonating. What you don't want to do is inhale - hold
the breath - then phonate. This will create tensions that make it harder
to start the sound correctly, and will also waste breath.

Don't try to "hold on" to the ends of phrases by tightening muscles,
clenching jaw, etc. Allow the sound to spin away easily by allowing the
release at the ends of the phrase that will set up the body to allow the
inhalation at the start of the next phrase. The sound SHOULD taper off and
fade at the end of a held note. You don't need to muscle the same
intensity and volume all through the sustained note - indeed, this is bad
musicianship. If you find you don't have enough breath to sustain a final
note in a phrase as long as you should/want to, you need to strategise
your breathing going into that phrase - NOT to try and desperately,
through muscular effort, hold the note longer than your breath will easily
allow.

Every breath doesn't have to be deep and filling. You don't need to feel
the breath down to your larynx every time you breath. Most of the time,
you need only to take a tiny bit of breath, just enough to get you through
the next bit of music until you can allow breath in again. Don't feel that
you have to breathe down to your toes every time. Of course, when there IS
time for a long, deep breath (i.e., a long rest or a measure in which you
don't sing), take advantage of it. But every other breath is merely a
"topping up" of what's still in your lungs. If you avoid that desperate
attempt to spin every phrase out full strength (described above), you will
always have a little breath left in the lungs, even if it's not enough to
get you through the next phrase without "topping up".

Use the consonants: Consonants are wonderful friends for helping RELEASE
the muscles, and allow the breath in. Use ending consonants to "propel"
the jaw free, which will cause that release. Also use beginning consonants
to create little emphases that can obscure the fact that you've allowed a
breath in during the split-second before the consonant. German and
English are particularly good languages for this, because good diction
usually requires little glottal stops and other consonant breaks at
various points in the text, even when the musical line the composer wrote
wouldn't indicate those breaks.

Finally, take Todd Duncan's advice: Breathe anywhere you need to as long
as it doesn't offend the listener. This often means breathing at a point
in the musical line where you wouldn't first expect to breathe. Really USE
the language to help you here - if you need a breath somewhere, figure out
where the text naturally allows for a tiny pause (tiny meaning
microsecond) - for emphasis. It can help, in long "trouble" phrases NOT
to speed up to try to fit all the notes in on one breath, but to SLOW
DOWN, combined with finding the natural breaking points in the phrase.
Even long runs in baroque music (Handel, Bach) that seem to have no
natural breaking points really do: think about how a stringed instrument
would play the phrase: the bowing of the phrase would involve frequent
breaks and restatements (lifting and replacing of the bow): figure out the
"arithmetic" of long runs, i.e., what are the component (repeating)
patterns in the run? The beginning of each component is where one would
lift and replace the bow - and that is the place where you should release
and allow a tiny amount of breath to "come in", then immediately continue
the run. And be consistent with this - if you re-bow after the first
repeating pattern, re-bow after every subsequent instance of the repeating
pattern; if you re-bow after the first two, re-bow again after the next
two, and do a little vocal accent to draw attention to the fact that
you're re-bowing: in short, don't try to mush everything together into one
long, endless, monochromatic run, but instead give the run some shape and
interest through "bowing" and accenting. This will have the great side
benefit of also allowing breaths in.

All the other aspects of good technique - good onset, good focus of the
sound, not spreading the mouth, etc. - will of course make your use of the
breaths you do take (allow in) more efficient, and will enable you to sing
longer with fewer inhalations.

Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
________________________________
O music, that openest the abysses of the soul!
Thou dost destroy the normal balance of the mind.
- Romain Rolland, JEAN-CHRISTOPHE




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