Breathing for Singers

Dear Dr. Abby,

Can you like… explain breathing?

Every Music Teacher Ever from Everywhere

Every Music Teacher Ever,

LOL. I’m bringing back the “LOL” for this one (or did Gen Z already bring it back??). Every voice teacher, music teacher, and honestly… everybody has asked this question over and over again since forever. I’m glad someone finally asked this question in this format. Thank you for making finally write it out.

Ok, here we go. Breathing. Oxygen in, CO2 out. Right? Ok, let’s focus on the movement part since that’s my area of expertise.

I’ll just get this out of the way now: There is no wrong way to breathe. There is only creating many options and choices. So you might save yourself time and just stop here. But I’ll extrapolate below.

Air movement comes down to pressure management. Air wants to move toward spaces with less of it and where pressure is lower. Put another way, it will want to move away from the “full” feeling space and toward less “full” feeling space.

After you blow air out, there is more air pressure outside your lungs than inside. To “correct” this your ribs expand and the diaphragm flattens to create a vacuum so that air rushes back in. Once the pressure inside your lungs is greater than it is outside your body, the system reverses. Your diaphragm relaxes up into a dome inside your ribs, your ribs compress in and down so that air flows outside your body. Then rinse and repeat for a lifetime.

Here is a video of me being a goof-ball on Instagram to demonstrate: Air Pressure Demo

Ok, so let’s talk about rib movement. When ribs move to accommodate for or move air they expand and contract in the front, back, side, other side, and up and down. So… that’s where you should feel them moving - or at least be able to move there. If you can’t move there, you will just move more somewhere else and you will be ok.

In general the front, lower ribs move the most, so you’ll feel them move a bit more than the other parts. But all of those areas do move. There is a lot of chatter about what is supposed to happen when you breathe, especially amongst performers of all kinds. But the fact is that all circumstances are going to have you breathing differently. Singing while standing still has different requirements than singing and dancing. Playing a flute standing and sitting require mobility in different areas in different amounts. Playing the guitar requires a different body shape than playing the trombone. You can imagine that playing the guitar compresses one side of your ribs and opens up the other, which you will need to work around to breathe ok, and even more so if you sing while you play. But that’s ok! People breathe and play the guitar all the time! So unfortunately there is no way for me to sit here and tell you how to breathe correctly. There is no correct. If someone says there is… send them to me (nicely… kind of).

I have noticed in my experience working with instrumentalists, singers, dancers and more, that once an area of the body is deemed “wrong” or “bad”, the incredibly coachable performer is excellent at shutting that business down. Please just pay a little more attention to your back and your upper chest just below your collar bones. Let them move! Many people have tried very hard to “sit up straight” by puffing out their chest and pulling their shoulders back. It really cuts off the room for movement in the back side of your rib cage and your upper chest.

Try it out: Take a big breath in and puff out your chest. Now don’t let your chest go down and try to breathe out. It’s kinda wimpy, isn’t it? If this sounds familiar to you, you can re-train that habit. Call me.

Just for the people in the back, I am not saying you have to breathe and expand into your back and chest with every breath! Just that one should be able to if they need to. And one should be able to put their chests down.

HOMEWORK: I recommend taking some time to observe your body while breathing. Watch how your air expands into different areas of your ribs, back, and chest and then how those areas contract. You may even feel a sense of expansion in the base of your pelvis (that is cool and topic for another time or I’ll make this too long). My hope is that you can experiment a bit and learn what feels easy and right for you. Observe your breathing — what expands easily? what shrinks when you exhale? what feels stiff today? Each day will feel different based on stress, fatigue, energy, pain, and more. If all feels great and you’re not feeling any sticky patterns or noticing effects on your musicianship, you can turn your focus to how fabulous you are at your craft and go be your creative self.

I work with musicians every day who are having trouble with neck or jaw tension, needing to rest or breathe too early, or not making it through a full practice session like they used to, and more because of past stuff goofing up how they move air while they play or sing. There are circumstances or injuries that can make you limit your breathing patterns. It’s good to address them with a movement expert who knows what you need as a musician if you’re noticing a change in how you feel while practicing or performing (hand-raised-hopping-on-one-foot-screaming-me-me-me!!!).

Please write back and ask about how our pelvises help us to breathe. I need the motivation to write that one out.

I wish easily rib mobility and springiness in all directions for you and all your students so they may use it when the circumstances present themselves.

I appreciate your extremely spot-on question!

Dr. Abby