Anatomy of Breathing, Part 2: Releasing the Breath

 

Where vocal technique is concerned, there are two distinct categories of breath activity: 

• Releasing the breath
• Breath management

This post will address the anatomy and movement involved in releasing the breath.

It is crucial that you understand and master the process of releasing the breath fully before working on breath management. If you're in the habit of using your abdominal muscles to move your air up and out, learning to release the breath fully will lead to much freer, less effortful and more resonant singing. But this presents a major paradigm shift for many singers, and it can take some time and practice to get comfortable with it. Don't address breath management skills until you actually have some breath to manage, or you may end up  singing with more effort and resistance than before!

 

Take a full, deep breath.

Pause for a moment.

Then let it all go, like an unvoiced sigh of profound relief.

It should all fly out pretty swiftly.

Don't do anything to either hold back or speed up the release of your breath – make sure you're not pushing air out with your abs, squeezing it out with your ribs, or deliberately doing anything to slow it down. 

First, practice this without any concern for alignment, allowing your chest to collapse.

Then, when you feel that you are able to release your breath fully without either pushing it out or holding it back, try releasing your breath while maintaining good upper body alignment, with your sternum high, your spine stable and your shoulders relaxed back and down.

 

When you release your breath fully while maintaining good upper body alignment and without doing anything to push it out, there are two main things contributing to the swift release of air.

 

Pulmonary Elasticity

Like rubber balloons, the lungs are made of highly elastic material. They resist inhalation, and once you've inhaled and stretched them out, they strive to return to their original state. Blandine Calais-Germain calls the lungs themselves "the primary force of expiration". The natural elasticity of the lungs is enough to generate plenty of airflow if you don't do anything to inhibit it.

 

Releasing the Diaphragm

The diaphragm contracts and descends on inhalation. After inhaling fully, if you simply release the diaphragm and allow it to spring back up into a relaxed state, this movement will contribute to the release of your breath similar to the flight of an arrow when the bow string has been released. If instead you inhibit and slow down the ascent of the diaphragm, the effect will be similar to slowly releasing the tension on your bowstring – rather than exploding with lethal force, your arrow will fall to the ground at your feet. 

 

Releasing your breath brings your vocal folds together and sets them vibrating due to a law of physics known as Bernoulli's principle. Have a look at this terrific segment on the Bernoulli effect from Dr. Carlson's Science Theater. 

 

 

Hopefully you can imagine how skillfully releasing the breath to create this effect can yield tremendous results with minimal sense of effort!

This process is truly effective only when your airflow meets minimal resistance from your vocal folds as well as anything near them that could inhibit their vibration – tension in or around the larynx, tightness in the tongue or jaw, or poor alignment of the cervical spine. So for the breath to play its rightful role in your singing technique, you must resolve anything that creates undue resistance to the flow of air.

Releasing the breath is so simple that it's more like keeping yourself from interfering with your own body than an actual technique. It's a non-doing. The inhalation is the active part; then it's up to you to maintain good upper-body alignment while allowing the natural elasticity of your lungs to expel the air and permit the diaphragm to spring back up into a relaxed position. 

However, this is easier said than done. Anything that creates undue resistance in your voice will trigger a temptation to push with the breath. Nervousness, habits of self-censorship, and faulty technique can lead to holding back your breath. 

Both pushing the breath out and holding it back will keep you from releasing your airflow in a way that is adequate to generate the Bernoulli effect in the most advantageous way for singing.

Therefore, to learn to fully release your breath, it is also important to become aware of anything you may be doing to manipulate your breath and to inhibit it. 

You can't release and push at the same time. You may have to learn how to stop pushing before you're able to have any concept of what the results will be when you do become capable of releasing your breath fully. 

But trust the principles of physics and take the time to cultivate this skill. You'll be amazed by how much less effort you need to sing and how much more payoff you'll get from your breath. 

Comments

[Chiara Brown]

Thank you Claudia -- this was just what I needed to hear, right when I needed to hear it.