I can remember my old choir teacher, Mrs. Higginbotham, harping on the importance of breath control for singers. As a teenager, it all seemed boring and unnecessary to me. Just get me to the music…I want to sing a song and have fun. But the more I study singing, the more I am forced to admit that Mrs. Higginbotham was right. If you want to sing better, you really do need to learn to breathe better. I guess it is the same with any other skill…you must practice and drill on the fundamentals before you can get the results you want.

In order to understand the importance of breathing for a singer, you need to know a little bit about how the human vocal structure works. The sound of your voice, whether you are speaking or singing, is produced in your larynx. That is the structure made of cartilage that rises and falls in your throat when you swallow. Your vocal cords or vocal folds are found inside the larynx. When air leaves your lungs and travels up the trachea, it causes the folds to vibrate. Those vibrations, in turn, hit the cavities in your sinuses, head, neck and chest producing a resonance that we hear as sound.

It is impossible to sing without air flow, and the more control a singer has over the flow of air, the better he or she will be able to control the tone that is produced. Even though breathing is something that we do every minute of every day, it is actually a pretty complex process. Your chest, lungs, diaphragm, and ribcage are all involved every time you take a breath. When you inhale, your diaphragm moves down while your ribs move out so that your lungs have room to expand. All of this movement creates a change in pressure so that air can enter the lower part of the lungs.

When singing, it is important to use the muscles involved in breathing in a way that allows you to control the amount and speed of the air you release. A properly supported breath should cause most of its expansion in the ribs, with the lower and middle parts of the back and the upper abdominal muscles expanding to a lesser degree. Chest breathing (which causes your chest to heave up and down) is commonly done by singers who have not worked to develop proper breath control and results in a shallow tone that sounds forced or pinched.

It only makes sense that you cannot take a good deep breath and control the way it is released without maintaining good posture. A singer that is sitting or standing with the back and chest held in an upright position can bring a larger quantity of air into the lungs because there is just more room for them to expand. When singing, you should also practice keeping your head up, your chin level, and your neck loose, so that the air you are releasing will vibrate properly to produce the best tone.

It is important to practice making your inhalations as silent as possible when singing. If you take audible breaths, it means that your vocal cords are working during inhalation as well as exhalation, which will strain your voice and cause you to get tired easily. Remember to breathe through your nose during interludes or rests in a song. Air that comes through your nostrils is much moister than that which comes through your mouth. Dryness is a major enemy of your vocal cords; so the more you can preserve moisture when breathing, the more you will protect your voice. Mrs. Higginbotham was right, proper breathing really is important for singers.

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