Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is
in the singing. We get a lot of requests and a lot of
questions about singing and I just want to go through a bunch of requests that
we have. Now before we get started here and I'm gonna repeat myself a few times
when I answer these questions, I remember vividly going through trying to figure
out when a vocal coach says just do this or another vocal coach says do that and
they don't really demonstrate it themselves and they don't really prove
it out themselves so you're kind of left going well gosh you know you told me how
to do it or you read it in a textbook or you read it online somewhere but
you're not physically demonstrating this for me. Can you please demonstrate what
it is that you're talking about and man I just spent I don't know a couple of
decades of going to some of the world's greatest vocal coaches and most of them
could not demonstrate what they teach so that drove me nuts and in fact it's what
drove me to doing my singing course called How to Sing Better Than Anyone
Else it that I could be very explicit and very simple and not get bogged down
with big technical terms and big fancy ways of trying to make me look good
and pretend that I have all this great knowledge of the voice or pretend or
really have great knowledge of the voice whatever that means but and then not
really be able to explain it to you clearly, succinctly and simply okay. So as
I go through some of these questions, I'm gonna you know try to do my best to do
just that so you really apprehend this. Now please also understand that when you
ask a question it is multifaceted. There is a lot to this so it's not just one
answer here, one answer there and not one-size-fits-all or there could be
multiple answers or there could also be a combination of you know you start at
this point and then you do this and then you do this and you do this. So to give
you a quick five-minute tutorial or a 5-minute answer is really, I want to use
the word irresponsible. No one is gonna be able to just get it from one quick
tip or a quick answer but at least it'll clarify a lot
of things for you to really help have you see the vision of how you can see
yourself doing whatever question is that you're answering and I'll do my best to
answer those questions okay. So with that said I'm gonna put this at the head of a
lot of these little or a lot not little but but big questions that I have
coming in to really again clarify and just make simple for you to understand
how to do some of the things you guys want to know okay. So with that said
let's get started.
Okay the question is how do I breathe when singing. Well
that's a huge question because the way we naturally breathe is very different
than the way we breathe when we want to learn how to sing or when we want to
sing well okay and there's lots of different types of breathing. I mean
there's um ways that runners breathe. They have a very specific way that
runners breathe. There's a way that swimmers breathe when they go to take a breath
and how they pace out their breath underwater and then they take their
stroke and you know so forth. There's different breathing for yoga and so
forth. So there's lots of different ways to breathe and especially in singing
it's very different. So let me go through the math of this but before we do that I
want to emphasize that the way we normally breathe we're gonna have to
break some habits of how we normally ingest air in the lung, in the
intercostal muscles in the lung. Now I have a video out and I'll put it in the
description tag you know breathing for diaphragmatic support or it's called
diaphragmatic support how we breathe so but I want to walk us through this again.
So we have in our lungs and our.. in the cavity of our lung we have these muscle
tissue and like I said they're called intercostal muscles and it's like a
giant honeycomb that goes through the lung and they're very vulnerable, they're very
fragile so you got to be really careful with it that's why when someone has lung
cancer, that's one of the hardest surgeries to perform because it's kind
of like taking a you know those little things of glue on a straw you go and you
blow like a balloon in the straw you blow a balloon up. Well imagine even
thinner substance and a bunch those in a honeycomb
fashion throughout the lung, that's pretty much you know what your lung
looks like right. So it's very sensitive, very delicate but with that said. So most
people when they ingest air they take the head of the breath like this they go and
they ingest it from the lung okay. Now of course we have to have air in the lungs
so I don't want you to go away thinking wow Ken said you know you breathe from
your stomach and you don't breathe from the chest. Well that is and isn't
true and let me explain. We want to take our breath from the lung and have what's
called ribcage expansion and again I cover this in my diaphragmatic support. I have a
couple of tutorials out on this and we'll put that information in the
description so you can follow along. Now as I said at the very beginning of this
video that this five minute tutorial or ten minute tutorial is not going to be
the total sum of you learning how to breathe correctly because there's a
series of exercises you really should do in order to accomplish this but to get
started. So we take the lung and we're about half to three-quarters full
already in the lung. So kind of imagine walking around you know you're you know
like a proud peacock, you're kind of walking around have you know chest out
you know whatever not out like this but you're full, half to three-quarters full.
Now your your spine again really can't shouldn't be hurt.. lurched over a
hunched over like this. It really needs to be straight up and your neck needs to
be straight. So so think of really big posture because it's very important
so posture for singing so we get our posture together so it can sustain and
support this concept of ribcage expansion okay. Now I want you to try and
experiment and it's the experiment that's in the diaphragmatic support
video that I have so I need you to watch that and lay on the ground and just
ingest some air in the belly and feel that that breath coming in and out of the
belly. Now what you're gonna notice is is that when you're laying back on your
back right that your ribcage is already split open. It's already in a in
an open state alright. It's already expanded and not contracted like when
you exhale. So it's expanded and that when you're able to relax and put your
head on the ground and you can feel this breath coming in
and out of the abdomen that is a good start to really understanding how the
actual breath itself works. Now where a lot of people get frustrated is they
don't understand the strength required in that breath in order to be able to
sustain good quality singing and have that be the engine that drives your car
to give you the strength um to be able to sing clearly and powerfully
and create longevity and we're gonna have a whole tutorial on longevity
because we got asked a lot of questions about things like that so but anyway so
you take this breath and just just sit lay there for a little while and control
that breath on the ground and watch yourself. Watch the video that I have and
then I want you to do a couple simple triad exercises laying on the ground
you're gonna do a sit-up and you're gonna do a simple scale on an ah vowel or
an easy vowel and you're just gonna go, you're gonna take in the breath, the
belly's gonna come out and you're gonna go (sings)
and as you come up that scale, that will be the top of the sit up. Now stay in the
breath. So as you come back down off the scale, you're gonna continue with the
breath pulling in inside the tummy. Kinda like you're going number two, going to
the bathroom. Yes it's a gross way to to give you that analogy but that is
exactly what it sort of feels like. So now what I said at the beginning of this,
there's lots of different ways to take the breath and lots of different ways to
use the breath. So sometimes you want to take a quick hit you know (sings)
and you want to have you know different phrase stabs and stuff. So you
can't always say well gosh Ken how do I go, you know you take your breath and
your tummy's going you know like this let me back up right and you're going well.
Okay so now I've seen a couple of other vocal coaches on the internet that
actually demonstrate that and one of them is a very well known actually there's two
of them very well known vocal coaches and it's kind of interesting because
when they sing they're not demonstrating any strength in that sound at all,
they're just going through the motions and kind of and they are doing what it
looks correct but they're actually not demonstrating any strength in the sound.
So you've seen me say the call register or the belting register right. It's like I'm
calling out someone's stealing my car or my bike or someone just stole my cell
phone off of the table.. picnic table or something and you go.. just try it with
your tummy you go hey hey. Now don't come from the chest just from the stomach. Hey
hey hey hey hey and you do that a few times and you understand that
strength. Now I can't get into all this and like I said this is just a small
tutorial and there's a lot to this. I have a singing course it's called How to Sing
Better Than anyone Else and I cover through all the steps on how to get good
good abdominal strength and good abdominal strength for breathing
specifically for singing. Now why I keep emphasizing the difference of singing
breath and other breaths is let's use the example of yoga okay. Now when
someone is in a yoga position, they're in a relaxed state and they take
their breath you know usually through the nose sorry and by the way you should
ingest through the nose as much as you can because it warms the breath and adds
a moisture to the breath so that
doesn't dry the chords out because if you ever noticed like if you have a
head cold and you're laying there all night and you're by the time you wake up
in the morning your throat is so dry and your chords are just completely dried out
because you didn't warm the breath by ingesting oxygen through the villainess
port the nasal cavity down into the lung where it warms the
breath and it adds moisture okay so that's also another important element. Now again
there's another part to this. Here I'm going off on these little tangents. You
can't always ingest from the nose, you can always. You know you're running around
on the stage well how are you gonna be able to breathe through the nose if it's
well you can't you just do it when you can as best as you can
and as often as you can okay. Let's get back to this breath now. So gilga position
so taking in the breath in a yoga position. You take in the breath with a
exhale is the relaxation response right. So you take in the breath like
this and you do do diaphragmatic breathing, you breathe in through the
belly here you have this belly full of air and then you release and you
relax. Well in singing it's the opposite when you exhale that's when
you're using your air to be able to to perform. It's the engine that drives
your car for singing, without it you know your left engineless without a car
right or car without an engine. So your breath your exhale is actually your ha
you know you're sort of (sings) right so every time you take that breath and you pull in in the
sound. Now you're gonna get a lot of vocal coaches saying oh that's wrong don't
listen to that guy, he's crazy you want to be in a relaxed state at all times.
You know you should never have any stress in the body in fact boy if you
stress out the abdomen like that it's gonna put stress throughout the rest of
the body. Okay guys first of all grandpa's been doing this a very long
time. I've taken from some of the world's greatest vocal coaches and I have put
this to the test like you can't even imagine and yes that one video I have
out where I spent around a million dollars on my voice in my lifetime is
absolutely the truth. So as we as these people make these comments and they
can't demonstrate it but they can talk smack and trash and you know hate it
hate stuff. I want you to understand Lionel Messi he's one of the greatest
soccer players in the world on Barcelona he's an attacking center midfielder. The
reason I'm gonna use him as another example and I've used him in the past is
when Lionel Messi is going to goal and he's gonna score okay do you think that
his body is completely absent from stress. No way, the guy's body is stressed
out beyond belief but he's conditioned his body to manage away that stress and
literally pace himself with a balance so that he's able the goal to go to goal
with an incredible amount of force and thrust and you know all the different
things that whatever and then the second he stops and this is another important
component to breathing, the minute he stops he can go into a relaxation
response where his heart rate may have been up around 150 hundred and
sixty beats a minute boom he can bring his heart rate down back down to 70 80
beats a minute as a resting heart rate when he's waiting for a ball or you know
kind of just jogging along on the field. Well so it is with singing and with any
other sport in that yes you..resistance I'd rather use that term than
stress. There's an incredible amount of resistance in the stomach that is
required but here's the key to this and this is why it's important that this
again is just a short tutorial, you're not gonna get everything from one little
you know video here but the concept is there and you'll understand this. You
have to really visualize and I'm not being so esoteric oh
swami, snake-oil, visualize. No you have to really truly visualize
compartmentalizing your body. Here's what I mean by that. So when you think about
the lung you don't think about the lung as lung, stomach, chest, neck and throat as
one unit. You think about your upper torso
starting at the diaphragm and I'm gonna discuss this in a second where you have
a relaxation response in the chest and the neck and the throat. Now we're gonna
talk more and you're gonna see my video on open throat technique and I've been
preaching this for thirty years and it's finally coming to light. The open throat
technique. Guys I think I kind of almost coined that phrase. I know it's an old
belcanto term but that and glottal
compression and a lot of these different things, tongue to the base of the jaw
I've been talking about this a long time and now other people are finally coming
along and you know regurgitating and representing a lot of the stuff I've
already said for quite some time. Yet they still don't get the.. all the
concepts and how they work together in concert with each other but that's
another sidetrack. Let me just get back onto this. So anyway so you have to
separate your body and your upper torso has to be in a relaxed state that's why
you have to have.. build muscle memory for your lungs to be in a 1/2 to 3/4 full
state and you have to manage your stomach and try to imagine that your
stomach is doing all the work and you're able to shake off this stress and from
the resistance that's happening in your stomach. That is the key. That gang is the
key on how to not mount stress throughout the body. It's not that you
avoid strength in the stomach altogether, that's utterly ridiculous.
It's that you're able like Lionel Messi going to goal, you're able to manage away
that stress into a relaxation response. Now let's get to the diaphragm. So the
diaphragm it looks like a crescent moon it's directly underneath the rib cage, it's
like this under here and when you take a diaphragmatic breath, let me kind
of do..well let me do.. let me show you how it works. When I take the breath I go
and it goes and it looks like this. So it expands and contracts and when
it goes like this, that concave I wish I could kind of make
it look like this right, that concave part of the diaphragm if your lungs are
if you have them again built muscle memory in the lung to stay full, it
builds a vacuum inside the lung so that you have a snap response of air when you
want to go hey hey hey. You have all this incredible amount of strength. Now why is
that important, well it's important because if you try to do it from the
lung what did I say at the very beginning of this that the lung is very
fragile and very sensitive. It's not that it it can't be made strong or stronger
but it hasn't carries nowhere near the strength capacity of your transverse
abdominus muscle that runs through your stomach on into the back and sciatica
down your back and all the different muscle structures that you have in the
stomach that are can..that handle far more of a load and
way have a much greater stamina or built in stamina within the stomach itself
rather than huffing and puffing from the lung. That's why most of you out there
when you go to sing a song you only last two songs, three songs, four songs and you
start to build and mount all that tension in the throat, the throat closes
down, you pitch and cramp in the throat, you start squeezing you know and choking
off the vowels that you're singing or whatever which creates this vicious
cycle of this you know this response of just like choking down or clamping down
on your vocal folds. Now that's also why I want to talk about on another video
the ah vowel because once you've established this amazing stream of air from the
stomach. Once you hit the glottis which are your vocal folds with this air, you can't
hit hey hey hey, you have to build in again muscle memory for good open throat
technique to keep the throat open so the throat doesn't cramp down and clench
clench down and building muscle mass up into the throat where you feel like
you're choking on your vowels okay. So like I said this is just a very quick
overview on how all this stuff works but it's really helpful to understand the
mechanism. So again we have posture, we have our lungs filled half to
three-quarters full, we have a relaxation response between the chest neck and
throat that we really have to concentrate on. We take in the breath
from the belly and then we bring in that breath with all the strength that we
have and between each breath again very different when I said about the doing
sit-ups thing and doing the triad when you're singing and doing sit-ups, is most
people when they do sit-ups they do crunches and they go hmm right and then
they have a really tense abdomen, well again that would be true for the other
vocal coaches out there that say you're building up tension you know and then
it's gonna translate through the body. Actually no that's not true.
What you do is after each sit-up when you go back down on the ground and lay
down you completely relax the body get your hands in there. Grind into your
stomach if you have to to relax your abdominal muscles in order to be able to
create that relaxation response so that you can come back up for another sit-up
and not overuse this muscle structure. If you don't do that it's like a guy doing
barbells and here's his barbells as he's doing you know sets of ten. Let's say I'm aat
number ten and that my resting part is here while I'm holding onto all that
weight and I'm not really relaxing and resting the muscle then I don't really
rejuvenate that muscle and never you know resuscitates or rejuvenates to the
point where I can come back fresh and do it again. Okay if you like what you heard
please like and subscribe to my channel and check out my singing course I've got
a singing forum that has around 10,000 people in there. We're all talking about
this stuff, how to help you get better at your singing and you know
check out a lot of the free video tutorials I mean start there because you
can see all the different things that I have there are really great free
resources to get you where you need to be and then if you want to take that
next step ,please feel free to check out my singing course. Okay until next time
gang God bless you peace out.
Hey guys if you like what you heard please
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Okay thanks guys peace out.
you