Quality or Quantity

Last week I finished an hour-long voice lesson with a singer and she seemed slightly befuddled. Her brow was furrowed and she said, "well, we didn't get that much done, but it felt really productive."

I thought that was such an interesting perception of her lesson. My assessment was we had dropped deep in to the issue of breathing and body awareness and spent valuable time letting her body learn. As a beginner she has some long held breath and vocal patterns that aren't serving her singing. While I know her goals are not to become a professional singer, she is training to be a lawyer. She will be a professional voice user and be more effective in her profession when she is connected to her breath and able to use her voice efficiently.

Over the first 10 minutes of the lesson she sat and worked with a guided body scan to find a breath that was deep and free. I then asked her to stay with the breath to get a sense of how the body feels when she is breathing that way. We then vocalized in that position exploring how the tuning of the voice and placement are affected by the breath. About halfway into the lesson she stood and it took more time to re-find the breath connection from a standing position. We continued to vocalize and I asked her to identify what it felt like when the breath was free as it was when she was sitting. We used the mirror to provide a visual of the engagement of her neck when the breath was not working efficiently.

The work was slow, but it was clear she was in the zone the whole time. Her work was mindful. The voice was consistently in tune and pleasant in quality; two triumphs for someone who previously struggled to match pitch. We ended the lesson by talking about how she can find the breath that way again and identifying places in her life where she can explore it outside of singing.

My observation of people who are new to voice lessons is that most of them aren't used to actually living in their body. They have little sense of how their body feels and often little understanding or even ability to perceive the body in space, let alone understand what their breath is doing or how they are using their voice. If you are 25 years into life and have never explored that, the change doesn't happen overnight!

So often I tell students that I'd rather they spend 10 minutes practicing in a focused manner rather than singing through something 100 times in an hour. Learning simply doesn't happen when you mindlessly repeat something.

I will always take quality over quantity when working with the voice and the body!

Breathing 101: Breath Awareness

Stop what you are doing right now and lie on the floor. Well, maybe read through this first, but then lie down on the floor!

In the last Breathing 101 post we looked at some of the common problematic breath patterns. Here's the first step to understanding your pattern(s):

Breath Awareness:
 
1. Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. 

2. Rest your hands on your belly. 

3. Allow your eyes to fall closed, turning your attention inward. 

4. Breathe through your nose and notice the motion in your belly as you inhale and exhale. 

If your belly isn't rising on the inhale, can you think about softening it - try softening your jaw first and see if that helps. It can take time for the belly to soften, we hold A LOT of tension in our belly area. Try letting go of tension as you exhale, imagining your body melting into the floor.

5. Once you feel the softeness of your belly, move your hands to rest on your rib cage.

6. Notice the expansion of the ribcage on your inhale. The lower ribs are where you should feel the most expansion as that is where the bulk of your lung tissue is.

If your ribcage isn't expanding, see if you can bring attention and intention to the lower ribs and see them flaring out in your mind's eye. The ribs function like a pump handle on inhalation and exhalation. 

7. Place the hands back on the floor. Continue to breathe through your nose and notice how the belly AND ribcage expand on inhale.

Once you can sense the motion of your inhale and exhale in your belly and ribs. Turn your attention to the quality of your breath. Is it smooth and easy, or are you forcing with extra effort? Stop forcing, if you are. No one gets anywhere by muscling their way around. Are your inhale and exhale equally easy or is one held back?

After trying this on the floor you can take it with you and do it at your desk, while sitting at the piano, driving in your car, eating dinner etc. Just commit to observing without judgement and see what you find out.

Enjoy and let me know what you discover!

*special thanks to my 3 year old who was remarkably compliant when I asked her to lie on the floor and let me take some pictures!