It’s All About the Inhale

Breathing, breath support, breath control, the diaphragm - we hear a lot of words bandied about when it comes to singing and our breath. We know that breathing is important for singing, but the dirty little secret is that many of us don’t know exactly why - or what proper breathing for singing really entails. I have several other blog posts written about this very idea, but today I want to focus on the one part that I think is the make-or-break moment when it comes to our breath support: the inhale.

It really, truly, is allllll about the inhale, guys.

Let’s do a quick refresher of what proper singing breathing is. Diaphragmatic breathing (sometimes referred to as belly breathing, or abdominal breathing) is the kind of breathing we want to be doing if we want to sing like a boss. Put your hand on your upper abdomen, right under your sternum. Your diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that sits right here - and it is the most efficient muscle that aids in our breathing. When we’re breathing using our diaphragm , it contracts and moves downward, resulting in your belly expanding out (think of a balloon sitting in your belly that you’re inflating as you take in air). This creates extra room in your chest cavity, which allows your lungs to fully expand - you haven’t lived until you’ve gotten a REAL GOOD diaphragmatic breath, I tell ya! Insert some witty pun about breath literally giving you life, yada yada. Anyway! As you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and returns upward again to its high position. (Fun fact: this is how we breathe when we are at rest, sleeping - check it out next time your partner/roommate/family member/dog falls asleep next to you on the couch while binging Netflix!). So… did you catch it, hidden in there? The crucial part of all of that?

You have to make sure that when you’re taking your breaths for singing, that you’re getting the RIGHT kind of inhale.

Meaning: you have to make sure that your belly is inflating on your inhale, NOT the chest (you may feel some expansion in the chest cavity, as explained in our earlier paragraph, but we don’t want it lifting as we inhale), and NOT the shoulders lifting. To be really blunt: if your shoulders are lifting, you didn’t get the right kind of inhale that is going to assist you as you sing. Period, end of sentence!

I realize I am making some bold claims here, people, but it’s simply the most cut-and-dry way I have of telling y’all what you probably need to fix about your breathing. So why is the inhale so damn important, you ask? I know, we’re all trying to “suck it in” and have a trim waistline, and here I come stamping in and telling y’all to INFLATE your bellies?! I know, I get it. But, trust: a strong voice is wayyyy cooler than a perfect silhouette - down with the patriarchy and its beauty standards! Let’s all have MAMMOTH VOICES, yes?! Okay, I digress, back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

The reason this inhale is so damn important is because it is setting up your entire instrument to either be working from a place of ease, proper breath support + airflow - or, well, not.

The reason this inhale is so damn important is, in my opinion, less about how much air you are getting in, and so much more about the way you are setting up all of the other pieces of your instrument.

Try something for me. Sit or stand in front of a mirror. Put one hand back on your upper abdomen for me, and the other on your chest. Let’s try a couple different inhales. Take an inhale first to your chest, allowing the chest to lift, the shoulders to raise, all the things I told you not to do(!), go crazy with it - and then stop. Take note of what you see and feel. Is your neck a little bit tight? Does your throat feel a little compressed? Does your breath feel a little shallow, concentrated in the chest? Do this inhale again, and this time, pick a comfortable note, whatever comes out, and sing an “AH” vowel. How did it feel? How did your neck and throat look? Were they elongated, relaxed, free? Or was there a little tightness, compression there? How did your voice sound? Did it feel as if the air + sound were freely flowing out of you, or did you notice if you had to “push” the sound out a bit?

Now, let’s do our diaphragmatic breath. Tag that diaphragm in! Take an inhale, making sure that you are thinking of filling up that belly. The hand that is resting on your abdomen should move away from you as your belly expands and the lungs fill with air, while the hand on your chest should stay still. Now, what do you notice? Specifically: how do your neck and throat look now? Elongated, relaxed, free? Are you sensing a theme here?! Now, inhale like this again and sing your same note on an “AH” again. Now, how did THAT feel?! You should have noticed a fuller sound, a freer neck/throat, and a more effortless sense as you sang your note.

If you picked up on the pattern above, you’ll notice that the crucial part of this breath was the domino effect it had on your physical body: specifically, the neck and throat muscles. Simply put, this way of inhaling sets you up for success in a couple really crucial ways that will make all the difference in how accurate your pitch is, how full your tone is, and how easily (or not) your sound comes out.

1) Your breathing apparatus (this is a very clinical-sounding way to describe all the players that help with your breath support for singing, i.e., the lungs, diaphragm, ribcage, abdominal muscles, and back muscles - they are all doing their part here!) is set up to work the way its designed-to! Yes!

2) The neck and throat muscles aren’t starting out the gate tense, tight, or compressed - giving your voice more of a fighting chance to place itself properly, free of interference from these muscles.

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One of the first things I always look to clean-up when someone is having vocal issues is their breath support, and specifically, their inhales. Many people think they are breathing properly, but are in fact lifting the chest on their inhales and then pushing the belly out as they start the sound. This is a very important distinction: the belly must inflate on the INHALE and stay inflated as you start your sound - as you exhale/sing through your phrase, the belly will slowly (we will talk more about this in another post) come back in and up. Simply getting really honest and clear about this moment - the moment of the inhale - and keeping our bodies honest about how we’re really breathing, can clean-up a lot of other issues we might otherwise be chasing around and around.

Proper breathing won’t fix ALL vocal issues, but if you’re not a) setting up your instrument physically from the jump, and b) not making your breath work for you, then you’re going to be playing whack-a-mole with a domino effect of tension and pushing/squeezing throughout the rest of your body and sound. I know that breathing isn’t the most exciting - or, let’s face it, sexy - part of singing, but I promise you you will see a huge difference right off the bat if you clean this part of your technique up. Then we can move onto the harder stuff, as it were. ;)

So, moral of the story, remember: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE INHALE.

Inflate that belly, own it, and go forth!