hey chris liepe here with how to sing with better breath support how to know if you are using
proper breath support we're going to take some cues from one of my
favorite singers the queen of soul aretha franklin
for five years
you treated
this video offers you three tips to dial in your support but if you want to go deeper with
really making sure that you're using proper breath support how it's supposed to feel and how that
translates into singing click the link below and join my free voice course where i take another
student through learning the mechanics and feel sensations of using proper breath support tip and
exercise one we're going to borrow from the hook of chain of fools to help dial
some things in in our voices if we sing those first three notes over chain chain chain chain
that sequence that journey up there if you are not using breath support properly you're going to
feel the sense more so when you're at the top of your chest voice but really anywhere you're going
to feel this sense of this folding over on itself neck position and i'm kind of doing it now perhaps
you've experienced this before let me pull the support out and try to do that chain chain chain
hear how quivery and whimpery sort of it sounds it's placed very differently than what i did the
first time so this first test or exercise is going to help us place our voice in a way that relies it
must rely on support for it to sound anywhere close to good and for it to feel good change
and in order to help us gauge where our breath support is in terms of quality
when we get to that change
we're going to add a little psi at the end it doesn't mean we have to sing it
like that all the time but we're going to feel what happens when we
let out our excess breath as we go up subtly in our range
i'm gonna finish the word you heard a little crack there j like that don't worry that it
sounds a bit weird and that it's not part of what you hear her doing what we're doing
is we are feeling the buildup of support by pulling it out at the very last minute change
so if i slow that down it would be like this change
my voice is actually cracking i'm letting my voice crack
because i've removed the support if i'm doing this wrong if i'm doing it the other way change
i will be unable to crack because my neck my throat is engaged in such a way where
i'm not free enough to crack try this a couple times back and forth try doing it
obviously wrong and by the way doing things really obviously wrong in a very limited way
and then feeling out the right way based on watching someone else is a huge way to
figure out what's right from a sensation based perspective and sound if i go change
i just sort of whimper out there's no way that that i can
accentuate this letdown the difference is i've got excess breath i'm singing a way above
my breath or on top of my breath as you've probably heard some people say
with that little chirp i'm illustrating that i've got plenty there i've got lots of support i've
got way more than i even need and that excess is reflected in that psi so go back and forth
and try both next we're going to go back down and we're going to use the hook chain of food
this time we're going to use a little bit different of a letdown and this is
literally a letdown we're descending in our line and as we get lower chain
we're going to almost compress or trap the sound a little bit over that ooh vowel
i'm going to exaggerate it like i'm trapping the sound like i'm lifting
something heavy at the very end so we're gonna be open at the top chain of four
and then we're gonna do that what we're doing is we're not allowing ourselves to break this
time we're allowing ourselves and in the sort of high like sort of thing we're allowing ourselves
to ground in the breath that we have left
you hear soul singers do this all the time and it's beautiful when they do it artistically but
we're exaggerating it here for a minute so we can feel out the state of our support chain of fools
even do that a couple times if i've got that left at the end i have enough support to go
in and out of different dynamics to support other different placements in terms of vowels and
notes and resonances i have enough air under my belt in order to do these things if i
if i descend chain of fools
and at the end of that line again i feel my throat come into it chain of fools
and these lines are great for experimenting back and forth because they close chain
fools
you've probably felt that kind of thing where you're just trying to get through
okay so what if you can't do the i'm singing above my breath on top of my breath
and you can only feel the tension first make sure that you're singing in a comfortable range
don't try to push or expand your range while you're doing this be super comfortable okay
second try to isolate just one sound and don't make it about the note fools fools or j
so we're going up and sighing letting our voice crack into our head voice chain
and then we're going down and we're grounding fools fools because likely what's happening if
you can't break out of the i'm tense and i'm barely getting through the line is that you're
focusing too much on just hitting the notes if we can remove the notes for a minute and focus on
the sensation of feeling on top of our breaths we know that we are engaging our support correctly
what should it feel like when you are engaging your support correctly well
first of all your neck should sort of feel invisible you won't feel like of course
you've clearly got things going on in your voice box but there's no awareness of of tension around
your neck you don't feel like the energy is coming from your neck it kind of disappears
second you should feel a downward sensation uh i talk way more about this in my free course
fools when you're lifting something heavy when you're pushing something
out the other end there's this sense that you have this very low center of energy
and by practicing this subtle compressed voice right before we we ground out of it we discover
okay downward very low support free neck a feeling that i've got excess or way more than i need to
finish the line breath this is what it means to sing with good proper breath support okay
one last tip sing the line you're treating me cool except this time instead of sighing
out of it at the very end with cruel we're gonna hold our breath but we're not going to
let go of the push of that downward focused support once we hit cruel you're treating me cool
so it should feel like you're you're you're holding back all of your air right cool
but once you get to that point you can start to play with placing with your mind it starts
with your mind placing the energy of the held in breath so if i go you're treating me cruel
and then hold the breath if i upon holding sense that i've got a lot going on here
i can in that moment while i'm holding that breath direct my energy down
and and develop a more focused consciousness of my lower abdominal muscles or my poop muscles
that's the way you want to look at it hold all the air in and if you're doing that go
and you'll find as you direct the energy down
you can maintain that same amount of intensity with your poop muscles and you can
completely disengage your note or your your held note your held breath like this
you can't see but i'm i'm flexing and i'm i'm focusing down
and i've got this sensation of trying to push something out the other end but it started with
holding something back here and releasing whatever tension i had in my neck focusing the energy
down towards poop muscle level support don't worry about whether your stomach is
in or out just worry about feeling out that downward sensation once you are able to
and let it go now i've got that very tensed poop muscle level down here
you'll feel where it needs to be localized and it always helps to attach it to music as
you're doing it which is why i say do this line you treated me cruel
so cruel now i'm talking i released
everything here release the engagement here and kept the push going
if you've ever gone to the bathroom you know this you might do that a little bit
but you can push here without engaging here try this i know it's a little weird but it absolutely
works try these three tips over and over again put these lines in comfortable areas of your range
work with the side work with the uh the grounding and work with the stopping the node
and dialing in the sensation of pushing something out the other end
if you want more help with your support again click that link below and join my free
voice course and here's another video that talks more about support we'll see you for more