Proper Breath Support

[olinguito]

Please share your thoughts on the correct feeling of proper breath support and what kind of tension should be avoided.

 

I am hoping for advice so as to use only the necessary amount of muscle when singing.

Currently, all I am doing is trying to remember the feeling of exhaling fully in a relaxed state but I have heard you must not let your rib cage collapse.

Is drawing in the stomach the answer to avoid collapsing the rib cage?

I am very unsure about it all and would be grateful to any replies.

[ronws]

I can nye do it, Captain. I don't have the power!

[Khassera]

Take a straw or blow air through pursed lips. Do this while steadily increasing and decreasing air pressure, or the amount of air you expel (or effort you exert).

Do this until you feel wat muscles are doing the job. Don't tense to exhale, exhale to tense enough. Always exhale first, the correct musculature will tense enough. The more air you need the more the muscles will tense, and it isn't necessaily the muscles that help exhale, rather the muacles that will keep you from bending over while your lungs empty.

So while there's really nothing to help you besides the thoroughly discussed physical and psychologial sensations in a dozen support-related threads (that is, feel the ribcage lift and expand, sternum high, bear down, breathe in and from your ballz, feel your obliques expand, breathe in outwards - exhale outwards) you need to find a way to feel what muscles work o help you EXHALE. And the only way to do that is to do breath exercises.

So don't think "drawing in the stomach" because you will draw in the stomach to exhale when you should be exhaling to draw in the stomach. Don't think "tensing glutes" when in fact your glutes will tense upon forceful exhalation. Get what I'm saying?

Breathe through a straw. Do staccato breaths through a straw while drawing ar through your nose. Do this until you feel what muscles are getting fatigued, and you will know what you need to feel when breathing out and supporting correctly.

[m.i.r.]

I can nye do it, Captain. I don't have the power!

Ha ha what?? You dont want to start a 20 page s#$t storm over whats right and wrong that no one agrees on ha ha.....

What khassera posted is pretty general that the high majority will agree on including myself. The straw exercise is one of my all time favorites.

Though the breathing is good, I believe the staw exercise is the most powerful and beneficial if you sing through it. I still do that if I get out of whack and need a quick reset. Not only do you feel the muscles of breathing, it helps adjust your folds as well.

If my throat is stiff and I have to sing that day. Sing through a straw in water, works wonders. Literally feels like doing yoga for the throat.

[ronws]

Ha ha what?? You dont want to start a 20 page s#$t storm over whats right and wrong that no one agrees on ha ha.....

What khassera posted is pretty general that the high majority will agree on including myself. The straw exercise is one of my all time favorites.

Though the breathing is good, I believe the staw exercise is the most powerful and beneficial if you sing through it. I still do that if I get out of whack and need a quick reset. Not only do you feel the muscles of breathing, it helps adjust your folds as well.

If my throat is stiff and I have to sing that day. Sing through a straw in water, works wonders. Literally feels like doing yoga for the throat.

Pretty much, yeah.

 

Breathing in should be relaxed. The exhale will be controlled by a balance between back pressure from the adducted folds and and the sense of motion, only if necessary, in the abs. Noble chest is a side effect of proper breath management, not the cause of it. So, concentrating on keeping the chest expanded, in my opinion, is acCENTing on the wrong syllABle, so to speak.

[m.i.r.]

Noble chest is a side effect of proper breath management, not the cause of it.

Careful ron.....talk like that you are flirting with beginning the storm ha ha....as you noticed I only agreed with the straw technique, and said most would agree this was a very good general basis for the feeling.

I then slowly backed away, ever so quitely ha ha ha