Singing Breathing Techniques

Believe it or not, breathing is one of the most important things to pay attention to as a singer. The air in your lungs is responsible for moving through your vocal chords and producing the vibrations that create sound - you can’t sing in outer space. That’s why it’s so crucial that you concentrate on effective breathing in order to make sure that you’re singing at an optimal level.

One way to concentrate on breathing and develop your breathing skills as they relate to singing is to work on breathing techniques. These practice exercises and techniques can really help you to optimize your singing and make sure you’re broadcasting a clear, confident sound that will make people wish they could sing as well as you. But before we start with the delusions of grandeur, let’s concentrate on how you can improve your breathing and, therefore, your singing.

Lung Capacity

One of the most important ways to improve your breathing skills as it relates to singing is to boost your lung capacity. It’s been demonstrated over the years that you can expand your lung capacity simply through practice. Being able to sustain musical notes for a long time is a great way to to instantly boost your singing by improved breathing. So let’s think about lung capacity for a moment.

Improving your lung capacity can be as simple as practicing holding your breath. (Note: whenever you’re practicing with your lungs, you do want to challenge yourself, but not make yourself pass out. Slowly build up more lung capacity so that you’ll be safe.)

For this exercise, take a deep breath and hold it briefly. Exhale - but exhale slowly, as if you’re blowing through a thin straw. After doing this once or twice, do the same exercise, only produce a musical note as a hum as you’re exhaling the air. This will help you get used to producing notes for long periods of exhalation.

This exercise also helps you to keep your pitch constant. Sometimes in music the singer will be asked to sustain a note for beats and measures at a time - if you can’t do this at a moment’s notice you may find that your breath fades when it really doesn’t have to.

Singing on Short Breath

Another interesting exercise is to...well, exercise. But don’t just exercise - sing as you move. If you have a treadmill at home, this is ideal - it will help avoid the oddness of singing in front of strangers on the sidewalk. Without a treadmill, you can walk or jog in place at home as well.

Exercise moderately. Many health advisers say you should be able to talk as you exercise. If you practice singing as you exercise, you’ll get used to having to use more air when your capacity is running a little lower than usual. Keep things moderate - you don’t want to over-exert yourself.

As you get used to singing while exercising, you’ll find that singing at rest will become that much more easy.