by Dena Murray, denamurray.com
Every singer, teacher, professional and expert will tell you that use of the diaphragm is extremely important in order to gain control when singing—for endurance, strength, less pressure on the cords, and for more power.
“Control the flow of air with the diaphragm.” That’s what everyone says to do, but you might interpret it to mean that you’re somehow supposed to hold your diaphragm out and still. This results in you holding your breath while you’re trying to sing. Not good.
The diaphragm is a partition of muscle and tendons that bisects your body just below the lungs, between the chest cavity and the abdominal cavity. It sits right where your rib cage stops—a little higher than you might think. The job of the diaphragm is to drop down, making more room for the lungs, and to provide support for the flow of air. The rib cage should also expand on inhalation, adding to the enlargement of the lung capacity. When you inhale, the diaphragm displaces the stomach, causing your belly to pop out a little.
Your diaphragm and rib cage should be drawing in your air like a vacuum; don’t suck and pull it in with your abdominal muscles. That’s the real meaning of the instruction to “control the flow of air with the diaphragm.” The abdominal (belly) muscles should not be doing the work of inhaling. The belly should also not be pushing the air up to get the sound out.
The actual flow of air is controlled by the vocal cords. A column of compressed air is created in the lungs and trachea by the actions of the diaphragm and rib cage. The vocal cords act like a valve that controls the release of this compressed air.
A singer is not supposed to hold his/her breath, not even for a split second, because it puts too much pressure under the vocal cords. The excess pressure causes too much air to pass through the cords all at once as you start to sing. Your air may run out before you get to the end of a phrase, making you feel like you didn’t start with enough. That makes you think you need to take in even more air than before. When you do, the same thing happens; paradoxically, it’s because you’re taking in too much air and trying to hold it in.
You don’t need to “fill up the tank.” Using your stomach to suck in as much air as you can will only make you feel like you can’t breathe, and force your cords to release a lot of it as soon as you start singing, because the cords just can’t handle that much pressure while they’re trying to create a pitch. It also makes the belly tense inwards too soon, as you try to control the flow of air with the stomach muscles by holding your breath.
The higher you go, the less air you actually need, because it isn’t the amount of air that creates pitch. It’s the vocal cords, and they only need a small but steady column of compressed air. The higher the pitch, the more the cords stretch from front to back, making the opening between them smaller and smaller. Each pitch has its own size of stretch and opening. Taking in too much air at once might force the cords to open too wide when it is released, causing your pitches to fall flat. Even if you are lucky enough to hit the pitch, those higher tones will feel and sound distorted.
If you can’t hit the notes you want, trying to blast them out with pressure is a recipe for pitch problems and damage to the vocal cords. The way to get there is to learn how to practice vocal exercises, and sing songs with the support mechanism doing its proper job.
