How to Do Vocal Training for Breath Control

Singers at all points of experience do singing exercises.

Breath control is just one of the many elements of singing. If you don't develop a good breathing technique, you may run out of a note mid-breath, need to breathe at an inopportune moment or sing with less than optimal timbre. Singers do breath control exercises to get better at controlling their diaphragm muscles.



Medical conditions aside, the typical singer only needs to learn to better control the diaphragm movement and doesn't need to worry about strengthening it, because a lifetime of breathing has already made it strong.

Things You'll Need

• Candle
• Matches or lighter
• Stopwatch or clock (optional)

Instructions

Timing and Pacing

1. Take a deep breath for over four seconds. Pace yourself so you inhale evenly.

2. Hold your breath for four seconds.

3. Exhale evenly over four seconds.

4. Wait four seconds before repeating the process from step 1. Repeat the exercise several times from step 1.

Candle Exercise

1. Light a candle and hold it so the wick is about half a foot away from your mouth.

2. Take a deep breath.

3. Pucker your lips like you're going to blow the flame out.

4. Blow on the candle so you cause the flame to bend, but not go out.

5. Count how many seconds you can blow at the flame.

6. Repeat the exercise and try to increase the duration you can blow on the flame while bending it but not putting it out.

Volume Control

1. Take a deep breath.

2. Make the "sss" sound from the words "snake" or "Sally" at your normal speaking level.

3. Maintain the same volume and sound quality for as long as you can by exhaling at an even pace while timing the duration. If you are doing it correctly you will be emulating the "hiss" sound a snake makes.

4. Repeat the exercise and try to increase how long you can perform the exercise.

Tips & Warnings

• When inhaling, don't inhale as much air as possible. Inhale more than a normal breath, but not like you're going to hold your breath underwater. If your lungs start to hurt when inhaling, you may be inhaling too much air.

• After you've learned the timing and pacing exercise from section 1, you can try it with different breathing and holding intervals. You can use larger or smaller durations and can use different durations for each step.

• Take a short break between exercises to catch your breath.

• When practicing, you can aim to take around five minutes for an exercise. You can do multiple exercises at the same time or spread them out across the day.

• You may start to feel light-headed from the exercises. If this happens you should stop doing the exercises until you catch your breath and no longer feel light-headed. If this happens it means you could be doing the exercises for too long of a duration or you should take a longer break between exercises.

References

• Vocalist: Breathing Control Exercises
• Vocalist: Breathing 101
• Your Personal Singing Guide: Breathing Exercises
• Star Singing Lessions: Breathing Exercises