If you’ve already started the program, i.e. watched the spoken and sung tutorials, read the book and started practicing with the Vocal Exercise tracks, this article might be helpful if you’re running out of breath when singing, or the note is “wobbling” a lot, i.e. not supported by the breath (if you’re not a member, but are interested in the program, the initial introduction to the program and certain breathing exercises are free).

There are 4 main reasons for breathing problems when singing:

You’re technique isn’t completely in place yet.

You’re thinking too hard, i.e. the brain isn’t working in tune with the body.

The thinking too hard is making you try too hard and overbreathe; and

You’re still connected to your old way of breathing only from the chest, and are finding it hard to get out of the habit.

So, in one way or other, the breath feels “stuck”. And that can always be traced back to the solar plexus.

If you’re over thinking, you might well be in the frustrating early stages, when you’re “unthinking” bad habits, and gradually putting better ones in their place. The problem with learning to sing, especially at first when we’re “putting it all together”, is that we’re intellectually trying to understand something intrinsically emotional. The feeling of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. However, show the body how to do something new, i.e. change the path of it how it used to do something to a new way that works better, and the subconscious will learn the path and take you there automatically over time. In other words, using the emotion memory of the body. There are no quick fixes in singing, and the key is to really observe what you’re doing initially, for example practice when you’re cleaning your teeth, where there’s a mirror handy and see if you’re connecting with your diaphragm as you breathe in! Sing as much as you can, wherever and whenever, and get used to the feeling of it, of how it feels when you get it right.

Over time, the path will become clearer and clearer. And the more you practice and work at it, the quicker you’ll progress. Basic rule of thumb: If it feels right and sounds right then you’re probably doing it right. Also, be forgiving with your self, especially in the early stages. Don’t expect to be belting out a song perfectly after a week. The voice is a muscle and needs to be developed like any other to truly get the best out of it. And the whole body needs to be involved in the process, working as one. So you’re programming the body when practicing, then over time learning to get out the way and let the body do it for you. This then gives you confidence when you sing a song, and also leaves you free to truly feel the emotion, trust your instinct and tell its story.

In practical terms, this means that when the breath feels “blocked”, the first thing we do is get out of the head and into the body:

Sing a few lines of a song that you know well and that feels comfortable, i.e. in the middle of your range. Find the places in the song to breathe. Then practice the breathing up to and including the low “aah”. Now close your eyes, sing the song again, and whenever you need to take a breath, consciously connect with your diaphragm. Remember to breathe sideways, and not up. Relax the diaphragm as you breathe in.

Now take a part of a song that has a high note that needs emotion and power behind it. Find the places in the song to breathe. Now practice the “Huh!” exercise. The amount of power you can get from this exercise (and my experience is that this can be very hard to get at first, so persevere!) is the amount of true power you can achieve when singing a powerful note. It has to come from the diaphragm, and you have to let it go as soon as you make it. The diaphragm is making the sound, not the throat. When you can make an “Huh!” that rings out, you’re truly connecting with the diaphragm. Now sing the same passage of the song again, and connect with the power of the diaphragm.

Some problems are sorted quickly and easily. With others it takes time. So the “Huh!” sound is also a way for you to know if everything working together. And what it comes down to, as far a breathing is concerned, is getting the “getting every thing in place and then letting it go” (rather than the holding on to it) feeling.

You might find that you the note is still falling short, and not sounding supported by the breath. You can hear this when it’s either weak, i.e. thin, or wavers slightly as you sing. Or it’s hard to get any power on the dramatic passages of a song. This means that the diaphragm isn’t yet strong enough. This doesn’t mean that you need to develop a six-pack, but that certain muscles need to work together more efficiently (link to manual). Professional singers learn this by performing many, many gigs, but you can help the process along in a very simple way. The muscles around the diaphragm are working together in the most profound way at the end of a breath. So take a deep breath in, breathing out with the diaphragm on either a very quiet sung, even note, or else a “ssss” or “zzzz” sound. Make the out breath as long as you possibly can, until you absolutely have to take another breath. It’s that last little bit of air in the lungs when all the muscles are really working together, and thus developing strength.

Back to the solar plexus once more, the root of the diaphragm’s power. The solar plexus and the arc of the diaphragm (link. The arc is in yellow) are in the Chakra of the solar plexus area, the emotions (link to Chakra site?). When singing, the solar plexus is the root, the doorway to the emotions. If you feel you’re not connecting with the meaning of the song, for example, the performance feels flat, quite often it’s because we’ve been thinking in technically. Thus the necessity to develop the voice away from a song, by singing exercises etc, so the body gradually learns “how to sing” automatically and develop true technique. When we sing a song, we concentrate on the song, and the meaning of the song. So that when we take a breath in, we naturally connect with the solar plexus, the doorway to the emotion of the song, and the root of the power of the breath.

Try the “Putting It All Together: Singing A Song” techniques of Chapter (find out chapter No.) Get connected once again with the meaning of the song, and telling the story of the song. Once again, you can hear when you’re doing it right. Take the focus from “out there”: the audience, or audient. Let them come to you through the focus of your attention. Being here and now. Make the sound and let it go. Then re-center yourself and take another, relaxed breath. Feel the connection of your voice and the back of your throat to your diaphragm, keeping the head balanced on the spine. Connect with the feeling in your diaphragm in the same way. That’s where your center is. The “Huh!” shows you the extent of your vocal power. It’s the bubble that surrounds you. Through practice, you find your center. You know how far your bubble extends. You’ve practiced regularly and have a sense of your instrument. You’ve learnt to approve of your voice. It’s all still a bit hit and miss but that’s OK, it’s getting there (see the Article: Learning To Like Your Voice). Try to feel focused and centered. Find a spot directly in front of you (one that doesn’t make you raise your head), and communicate with the audience through this space (and remember, often the smaller the audience, the harder the gig. You don’t have to look at the audience. Be in your own space and let them come to you). Try not to put attention all over the place. Draw them to you by being as completely present as you can, and forgiving yourself immediately if you wander off for a few seconds or even a line or two and sometimes a verse!

So to re-cap: Try to always start a practice session with a full breathing exercise, until you feel it’s all working together and making sense. This is all the breath exercises, i.e. Chapters 3 – 9 (also on the first track of the Vocal Exercises, which takes you through the whole process from start to finish). This has been useful to students who can only practice in the car, I’ve found. They can practice on the way to work etc. Not ideal, but better than nothing. If this is you, then try to also do the breathing exercise standing up, to get the feeling of everything working together. Centering the breath, starting at the beginning. If you start over breathing or singing, or you feel your breath getting stuck, take a minute or so, go back to the string and take a couple of breaths from the solar plexus, i.e. get out of your head again.

Yet again, there’s no rule of thumb how long it will take to master your breathing. Some people do it automatically. My experience with students is that it’s usually a gradual process, and incremental. The key is to try and enjoy your voice as much as you can. Hence the feeling of “smiling” as you breathe in, relaxing and “opening” the diaphragm. Centered, relaxed, then using your power. You only need a small sip of breath, and often only have time for a small sip of breath within a song. It’s what you do with the breath that counts. It’s the muscles around the diaphragm that are doing the work so that the diaphragm can remain relaxed (link to chapter. To manual), and connect you to the emotional truth of the song.

If you have that “stream of consciousness” voice burbling on and judging everything you do, put it in a box and tell it you’ll deal with it later ( Stage Fright ).

Ok, so it’s one thing to understand the mechanics of singing, and quite another thing to put everything together creating a clear, even tone. If you’re not sure if you’ve found it yet or are still at a loss, let’s do a quick checklist to help you find that pure note.

First of all, every time you take a breath in, tell your body to use the diaphragm. Remember, the breath starts in the center of the solar plexus, moving outwards, i.e. sideways. To help the diaphragm relax, try to get the feeling of “smiling” with the diaphragm as you breathe in.

This helps avoid constricted breath, strained vocal cords and a tense body. An image that can be helpful when practicing a clear note is that of a ping-pong ball kept absolutely still on a jet of water. As we breathe in, the diaphragm relaxes, then works to produce an even, controlled breath, keeping the note clear and focused at the back of the mouth.

If the note is sounding strained, you’re probably doing one of the following:

Tensing or sticking out the neck.

Sticking out, and/or tensing the jaw. Remember, the tongue is doing the work for you, not the jaw.

Placing the tongue too far forward, or else bunching it up in the mouth – remember that when the note is propelled into the mouth, it then becomes an “acoustic cave”, so the shape in the mouth needs to be very focused.

Pressing down on the larynx at the back of the mouth. You should be able to feel if you’re doing this, but you’ll also hear it in the voice. It’ll either sound too breathy, strangled or strangely “froggy”. It helps to remember the image of the tongue going straight back, “two big muscles” (really one, but it helps to think of them as two) under the tongue creating the “round shape” at the back of the mouth, everything focused and in balance.

One little trick that can be helpful to find the pure note is to first of all push the tongue down at the back of the mouth, thus pushing down on the larynx. Then gradually raise the tongue incrementally at the back of the throat, making a “ghuh” sound. When you reach the center of your voice, i.e. the tongue is raised enough that the pressure if off the larynx, you should hear it in your voice and also feel it at the back of the mouth (make a sound bite?).

Another way to not only find the pure note, but to also imprint the techniques into the body is to sing them. The same student who coined the “deadmouth” phrase also came up with this idea, and I think it’s really helpful. So, for example, you’d sing:

“I’m breathing with a nice relaxed diaphragm, back relaxed, knees relaxed, body relaxed under the string, looking straight ahead. My head is balanced on my spine, my voice connected to my breath. My jaw is relaxed and slightly back, and completely relaxed. The tongue is doing all the work for me, two big muscles under the tongue pulling the tongue straight back, and then creating the round shape at the back of the mouth. The tongue is arched at the back of the throat, so that it feels like I’m smiling at the back of the throat, everything balanced. I’m controlling the flow of air from the diaphragm, and I know that it only takes a small amount of air to sustain a pure, clear note. The note is sitting etc.

Another thing to remember, once again, is that the subconscious is still at work, finding ways to make life easier. Finding a path, over time, that works better than before. Once that path is clear, it’ll start going to the “right place” automatically. For example standing with better posture. You might have to work a bit to get there, but it’ll be worth the effort.

Everything needs to happen at the same time, working together as one, for it to really work. And you’ll know when it’s working because you’ll hear the difference. It’ll feel and sound right.

Ah yes, one last thing, when you find that pure note, it can really help to think of it as “floating” at the back of the mouth, nothing to do with you. Once again the Zen paradox of singing: you recognize the place easily because you’ve been there many times before, but you don’t hold on to it in any way. Create the sound, and then let it go, ready for the next note.

Vibrato (“a pulsating effect in the vocal tone produced by slight and rapid variations in pitch”), i.e. “wobbling the note” (see online tutorial Chapter 28) is, in a perfect world, produced with diaphragmatic control. One of the basic mistakes that everyone makes when first learning to sing is to create vibrato using the jaw. You can feel if you’re doing this, because your head will wobble up and down slightly as you sing. True vibrato is controlled by the larynx and diaphragm, working together, to produce an even vibrato, i.e. an even wobble! Once again, relaxation is key. It’s a gentle action, so try not to force it. I’ve had a few questions from students who have a large, deep, wobbly vibrato that they want to learn to control, so they can turn it on and off at will. In my experience, a big vibrato is often acquired early on. Either one admires a particular singer with a big vibrato, or the voice has a natural propensity to create one. A big vibrato is a taste issue, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it. But it can be like the loudmouth at the party, taking over the whole voice and robbing it of its subtlety. When your voice is centered, vibrato is something that occurs naturally. The mains reasons for big, wobbly vibratos are:

The throat is controlling the note, not the diaphragm.

The diaphragm is working nicely, but the singer is used to creating a big vibrato and the subconscious continually “goes there”. So it’s something that needs to be unlearned. It’s like taking a plate of metal and wobbling it. The wave formation is slow and even. Yet again, even though larynx and diaphragm may be working together, to create this effect most of the work is still going on in the throat. The focus is on the throat, i.e. “my voice is in my throat”, and not the whole body working together as one.

The best way to control a big vibrato is to go back to basics, re-training the emotion memory of the body. Sing long, even, quiet notes in the middle of your range. Try to create a “white” note, i.e. with no vibrato at all. Relax the back, looking straight ahead, everything balanced, knees relaxed. Then sing some vowels in the middle of your range, using long, quiet notes. Remember to use the tongue, not the jaw, and image the note connected to the diaphragm, like a ping-pong ball sitting on a jet of water, i.e. the note controlled by the diaphragm. Close your eyes and concentrate on relaxing the diaphragm on the in breath. Concentrate on the solar plexus on the out breath. Image the “string” going through the center of the body and feel the connection between the solar plexus and larynx through the string. Make the note as quiet and even as you can. Then try to quicken the vibrato, i.e. speed it up. So instead of big, floppy waves, you have quick, “further together” waves, like a hummingbird.

It can also help to use a breathy voice, concentrating on controlling the amount of breath in the note (online tutorials Chapters 30 and 31, Soft to Loud and Pure to Breathy). Concentrate on the breath, and not the vibrato, i.e. take the focus off it. Remember, the diaphragm controls the note, not the throat. You can use Track 17 of the Vocal Exercises to practice these exercises.

So the basic rule of thumb in controlling a big vibrato is to take the emphasis off the throat and to learn to use the diaphragm. The more we try and the sing from the throat, the harder it gets. The subconscious is telling us that the voice is in the throat, so everything has to come from there. If you’re “trying too hard” then that is often when the vibrato sounds unnatural and forced. The more centered your voice is, the better. You don’t need a lot of breath, a small sip will do. It’s what you do with the breath that counts, how you control it. Diaphragm relaxed (i.e. smiling) as you breathe in, creating a centered note. Using your energy internally to control the note. In fact, rule of thumb, the more centered the note is, i.e. the more you use your internal energy and relax the rest of your body, so you’re using certain parts very efficiently and the rest of the body is working to facilitate that action, then the focus should change from your throat to your whole body. Flex your hand and see how everything has to work together to make it work in one smooth action. The same thing needs to work for your voice to be balanced and whole.