What is the method of singing with abdominal breathing?

If you want to learn how to sing, the first thing is to learn how to breathe. Correct breathing is the basic skill of singing. In fact, not only singers need it, but also people who often need to perform on stage need to learn to breathe correctly, which can help people use the breath correctly. Today I will introduce abdominal breathing to you. Here are the correct methods of abdominal breathing.

How to sing with abdominal breathing:

Breathing when singing is quite different from breathing when speaking in daily life. In daily life, people communicate their thoughts and feelings through speaking. Because the distance is generally closer, the volume required is smaller, the breath is shallower, and great strength is not required, nor does it need to be transmitted very far. Moreover, if the voice is used continuously for a long time while speaking, the voice will easily become tired and hoarse. This kind of breathing for speaking will appear inadequate if used for singing. Singing is to express emotions and to sing for others to hear. When singing, one is often facing a large audience, and the singing voice must reach every corner. Therefore, the voice must have a certain volume, a certain degree of change in intensity, the ability to sing for a long time, and the ability to control the breath, whether long or short, strong or weak, high or low, according to the needs of the song. To achieve all these is not a simple task. Therefore, breathing when singing, as an artistic means, has its own unique set of rules and methods. It is a technical issue that is acquired through training.

Breathing movement includes two processes: inhalation and exhalation.

1. Inhale

Inhale vertically downward through your mouth and nose, and breathe the air into the bottom of your lungs. Be careful not to lift your shoulders. When inhaling, expand the area near your lower ribs. In the abdomen, gradually expand the diaphragm, causing the abdomen to expand forward and to the left and right sides. Contract your lower abdomen forcefully, and do not expand it. The back should be upright and the spine is almost motionless, but its sides can move and must expand downward and to the left and right. At this time, the air is pushed to the sides and back and stored there. Hold it and then slowly exhale.

2. Exhale

When singing, you should still remain in the inhaling state. This is very important. It is like inflating a bicycle. You cannot relax all at once. There is also the problem of maintaining your breathing. To maintain your breath, you must always keep inhaling during the singing process, control your breath and exhale slowly. You must save air and exhale evenly. This is the so-called breath confrontation. During the process of exhaling and inhaling, you should pay attention to the feeling of stiff breathing. The whole body expression should be actively relaxed. The tense parts are the diaphragm and ribs. The ribs are like a full balloon. The sound should sit on it and pull it down. The balloon should not float up. In other words, you should hold the breath and not let it rise. This involves the problem of the breath fulcrum.

3. Have breath support when singing

The support point means that the sound must have a foothold, and this foothold is the diaphragm and the lower ribs on both sides. When coughing or laughing, you can directly feel its supporting effect. People who have not received breathing training often have red faces and thick necks, bulging veins, stiff singing voices, and are unable to reach high notes or lower low notes when singing. All of these are related to the failure to maintain the breath support point. On the contrary, if you have mastered the breathing method and have a sense of the supporting point, then when you sing flash singing, you will feel that the sound seems to fall on the controlled breath, that is, the sound is supported by the breathing. This kind of sound is not only pleasant and loud, but also can make various changes in strength freely.

4. Different phrases require different breaths

When performing chest and abdominal breathing, the strength of the breathing and the method of exhalation should vary according to the different requirements of the song (or musical phrase) being sung. Here are some different breathing exercises.

1) Breathe in and out slowly

This is a method often used in training and singing. That is, the chest is naturally raised, and the air is slowly inhaled into the lower part of the lung through the mouth and nose. The diaphragm descends, the muscles on both sides of the ribs expand outward (that is, the waist circumference expands), and the lower abdomen is slightly retracted inward. This type of inhalation requires natural relaxation, and it should be done smoothly and gently, just like the feeling of smelling the fragrance of flowers. The feeling of smelling the flowers makes you inhale deeply, just like doing deep breathing exercises, but don't use too much force when inhaling. Just gently hold the chest and upper abdomen, and then exhale slowly. When exhaling, pay attention to maintaining the inhalation state and control your ribs and diaphragm, that is, control your breath, so that it can be exhaled slowly and steadily, evenly, continuously and coherently. There is a feeling that can help you experience the state of the lower ribs and diaphragm when exhaling: that is, after slowly inhaling, slowly blow away the dust on the table. Here you need to blow out a long breath, that is, you are doing long-tone exhalation exercises. It is often said: "Long sounds are like blowing dust, short sounds are like blowing wax", which is a feeling of exhaling.

2) Rapid inhalation and exhalation

Rapid inhalation means inhaling the air quickly and deeply into the lower part of the lung through the mouth and nose in a very short period of time, holding the breath, and then exhaling according to the requirements of slow exhalation. It is often used in singing practice, because there is a long pause between sentences and words in a song, and the "stealing breath" method is often used to inhale without being noticed. This is the effect of quick inhalation and slow exhalation. In order to develop the ability to control breathing, you can use some exercises and certain phrases in songs to do exercises with lyrics, which is more effective. Caruso once said that whether a singer can embark on the road to success depends first on whether he has established a solid foundation in the manipulation and use of his respiratory organs.