Breath support exercises for singing: my favorite ones

This is maybe the most tricky one, and I hear it the most often. What most people mean by that is lowering your diaphragm as much as possible when you inhale, as opposed to gathering tension in the shoulder area, as many do, especially beginners.

When you breath this way, that a more healthy, more tension-free way, you get the feeling that the singing comes from a lower area, and you feel engagement in the diaphragm area. What you should do while singing with the diaphragm is divided, and we’ll get to that shortly.

If you need some background regarding the diaphragm and it’s function - in my article How the voice works I include a few great videos about the diaphragm.

Let’s make one thing quite clear: You don’t breathe into the belly. The air goes into the lungs, not into the belly. But when you let the diaphragm lower on the inhale, like in the previous point, the belly will probably come out, hence what people might call “belly breath”.

When they say “sing from the belly” that usually means engaging the abdominal muscles in a certain way (again, multiple approaches and I will talk about these in a moment) when we sing. 

When a teacher tells you to lean - lean on your support, lean on the diaphragm, lean with your ribs/lungs, or any lean that is related to the rib area or lower, here is what I figured they mean:

Continue the feeling of the lungs/rib/diaphragm expanding as you sing.

Some will advise you to expand while you inhale and then let the lungs and diaphragm come back in and up. But when they say “lean” - they want you to resist those coming back. The intensity may differ, but if you really put some energy into continuing the expansion it actually does feel like leaning after the fact!

As you inhale and the diaphragm lowers - see if you can feel the upper belly (the part that is on the diaphragm level) and the part of your back ribs on the same hight go outwards. That’s the front and back expansion. 

“Staying out” is continuing that feeling when you sing, so a bit like leaning, but not necessarily in an intense way. A little bit like when you say a very long S. The longer you make it the less air you use at any given point, and the slower your ribs will collapse back in, so that will feel as if they are staying out.

Again, that has to do with your inhale. If you have little to no resistance in the shoulder area, as you should, the inhale should make your ribs expand to the sides. You can put two hands on your ribs on the sides and look in the mirror to check if you can make this happen.

What’s better, the sideways expansion or the front and back? Well, why do I have to choose, why not both? Expand in all directions. That feeling is very effective to ensure your lungs fill with air to their fullest.

So, what happens after you breathe in a nice low breath “into the diaphragm/belly”? Some would say the belly muscles should not be working at all while you breathe and sing. So you “breathe into your belly” (not) and you leave everything there completely relaxed. If you are worried that it will make you look fat - just consider: singing well will make you look sexy, so don’t worry about it!

Plus, it probably won’t, it’s mostly in your mind.

I truly hope with all my heart that no teacher, who uses the word “squeeze”, means that you should contract the upper abdominal muscles, the ones around your diaphragm. I will simply say this straight: I don’t agree. This is the only support instruction I would take issue with.

But what I think most mean by that is to pull the lower abdominal muscles inwards. When to do that - before during or after the inhale - that’s different depending who you ask. But this gives a bit more stability and more power to your breath. Lower abs come in - upper abs come out. Will help you get the “leaning feeling as well.

If you’re not sure what the pelvic floor is, these are muscles at the bottom of your pelvis. So literally where your genitals are. Let’s get over the embarrassment and teach how to use them, because that is a great way to stabilize your posture and get a better feeling of control in general, of your breath in particular:

The pelvic floor muscles are the ones you use to prevent yourself from going to the toilet when there is no available toilet around. You can practice engaging those by slightly squeezing them. Just do it here and there, try to gain control of how long you can hold them, and also make sure you fully release them when you are not engaging them. Then you can incorporate that into your singing. 

The most intense way to support, in my opinion, is engaging both the pelvic floor and the lower abs. Upper abs then expand and you really feel like you can hold onto something.

The pelvic floor and lower abs are safe candidates to activate, as they are far enough away from your throat to not risk putting pressure there. But they will give you the stability and the strength you need. Try it! You can try Gathering/engaging the pelvic floor first then while holding that pull the lower abs in. then Take your inhale.