Breathe through Nose or Mouth??

[OliverH]

Hey guys, so I've come to bit of a dilemma recently. My private vocal coach whom I've seen for almost ten years now always suggested to breathe through the nose. When I studied clasiccal/opera in college I was told to breathe through the mouth. Went to my private voice teacher with this topic and he said that mouth-breath is an old pedagogical school of thought, and breathe through nose is the proper way.

What I was told by college professor: Breathe through mouth because it raises the soft palate and you can prepare your mouth/throat for the onset of the coming phrase.

What I was told by my private vocal coach: Breathe through nose because through the mouth dehydrates the vocal cords at a faster rate and you with proper technique you'll have the raised soft-palate/prepared throat without needing to open my mouth.

Conflicting articles:

Nose: https://www.ceenta.com/news-blog/sing-strongly-with-nasal-breathing

Mouth: https://www.oxfordsinginglessons.co.uk/breathing-for-singers-is-different-from-normal-breathing/

Which is the proper way? I admit I do feel the mouth breath sets my vocal mechanism up for the onset of the coming note a little better than nose-breath but mouth breathing does dry out the chords and when I have a four hour gig I can't really afford to do that.

[MDEW]

Because there is conflicting information, it probably does not make much of a difference for singing. Taking a breath through the nose as in sniffing a flower will raise the soft palate. Breathing through the mouth as in a Yawn will also raise the soft palate.The soft palate and the Larynx are connected through other muscles and somewhat work together. When your larynx drops the soft palate raises and vice versa, when you raise the soft palate the larynx drops.

Breathing through the nose will warm and moisturize the air and there is more of a chance of actually taking a deeper breath than breathing through the mouth. The tendency is to take a shallow breath when breathing through the mouth.

But, while singing, to breath through the nose you have to block off the oral cavity in some way, this means that you have to change the vocal coordination is some way.

while singing there is no need to change anything. Leave the coordination alone and when you stop emitting sound just let the air drop into the lungs. The breath will come through the nose and the mouth.