♬
Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 20 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over the world.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later.
But our question for this week comes from Tyler G. in Brooklyn, New York.
And Tyler says, "Dear Justin, what are some exercises that
I can practice for my breathing?"
Now that's a great question, Tyler.
And all of us as singers want to get better at our breathing.
But before we do a breathing exercise let's make sure we
know the difference between breathing and breath support.
Both of these things might be good for us to do as singers
and in the future we might do some breathing exercises as well.
But breath support is the singer's skill.
And that's what we're going to do today is a great exercise on breath support.
Remember, breath support is a little different than breathing.
When we breathe we just breathe in and out.
But as singers we need the ability to hold the air in the body.
We need the ability to dole the air out slowly and to keep support in the body
so that that air doesn't rush out and interfere with the larynx by moving too fast.
Alright, so we're going to hold the air back.
That is breath support.
And, we're going to release it slowly.
So the all-time classic, greatest exercise for breath support, is the hiss.
The sssssss sound.
It's basically an S, an extended S.
And what this does is, the tongue prevents the air from getting out fast.
And you're gonna feel when you do a hiss
that the muscles of the body engage.
Not in a squeezy way.
But they engage to sort of keep the air in the body
and hold the air in the body.
You really feel this with the hiss.
Now that is breath support.
So try a hiss for me.
Just do a long "sssss" sound. Go ahead and hiss.
Great!
And inhale and let's try that again.
And, sssss...
Really cool.
Now I hope when you do that hiss that you can feel that the
muscles here stay really open and that you're using your body,
as opposed to your throat, to hold back the air.
Now, I'd like to challenge you guys to a good old-fashioned hiss contest.
Okay, what I want you to do is you're going to go against me,
Tyler and everybody, you're going to go against me
to see who can hiss for longer.
Now I'm not saying that I'm the grand champion of hissing.
But I do think that my hissing is respectable.
And if you can hiss for as long as I can,
I'll say pretty much your breath support is in great shape.
So we're gonna do a good old-fashioned his contest.
But here are the rules of the game.
Number one, no passing out.
Okay?
Number two, no dying.
And number three, most importantly, no lawsuits.
I don't want people doing the hiss contest at home
and keeling over at their computer.
Just make sure you do this in moderation.
You don't have to beat me.
But let's see if you can extend your breath support
and your hissing to get to a high level.
I'm sure lots you are going to beat me.
But, you know, make sure you follow those rules, okay?
So I got my trusty timer here and you and I are
going to go against each other in a good old-fashioned hiss contest.
So here we go!
Let's breathe together...
[inhales]
[hissing]
Whoo! Okay...one minute.
Alright...Phew. I might need a minute.
Great job everybody. That was great.
If you can do one minute of a hiss,
that's very impressive and very good.
Make sure that you keep practicing that to make
sure that you can extend it for as long as you can.
Again, there's no reason to go all the way to a minute.
But if there's anybody out there that can do it as long
as I just did or hold it out that long then, like I say,
you've got some great breath support happening for you.
Now as I catch my breath here let's talk about why.
Okay. Why do we need this?
What's going to happen if we do these exercises and
we do a long hiss and you win a hiss contest,
what's that going to do?
First of all you're going to get longer phrases.
Alright.
You're going to be able to hold that air longer,
so you're you're going to sing longer phrases of music or longer exercises.
You're also gonna be able to hit higher notes.
The reason why this is, is if the air is being blasted at the larynx
things are going to tighten up, you're not going to be able to
get the stretch of the vocal cords that we need for higher notes.
Right along with this is you're not gonna strain as much.
When the larynx doesn't have to deal with excessive blasts of air,
it can do better things and it doesn't strain.
Also related is your vibrato.
When the larynx is free and the vocal cords are free
your vibrato is going to get more consistent and easier as a result.
So those are some reasons why practicing your hiss,
and practicing your long extended breath support exercises
are helpful for you as singers.
Now one more cool thing is that you can
practice the hiss pretty much anywhere.
A lot of vocal exercises you can't do that.
But a hiss, you can do that.
You can practice pretty much anytime, and work on
your stamina and building up that control and those muscles over time.
So thanks you guys for going up against me on this hiss contest.
Let me know if you beat me.
I think if you do, that's great.
And if not, just know that even if you could do maybe, I'd say 30 seconds,
that is very impressive and will help you as a singer.
So, if you have questions that you want to see us answer on the show,
you can send an email to: Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
[♪]
So we just encourage you not to lose the joy, don't lose the passion. [♪]
Keep working on your voice every day and doing your exercises. [♪]
Let me know if you beat me in that hiss contest. [♪]
Get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
And if you guys are in New York City you can check us out at: [♪]
www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com [♪]
And if you like these videos, you can check out: [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. We'll see you next time. [♪]
♬