#singing lesson

[opera-ghosts]

A singing lesson with Giacomo Lauri-Volpi

The great tenor Giacomo Lauri-Volpi talks about the art of singing. This lesson was recorded in 1933 at the National Phonotheque.

[artemlegere-art]

The Singing Lesson

Artist: Jean Raoux  (French, 1677–1734)

Date: c. 1716 - 1734

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: The Royal Collection

[kate-cosette-vocals]

How to Breathe from Your Diaphragm (Foolproof Trick!) | Singing Tip

One of the first things you’ll hear when you start researching how to sing is going to be breathing from your diaphragm. But what does that mean? And why do you have to breathe this way to sing well? Don’t worry; by the time you’re finished reading this page, you’ll know exactly what all these singing gurus are talking about and why they care so much about breathing this way.

I made a video about this exact trick, but for those of you who like to read rather than watch, this blog is on the exact same things I talk about in the video.

So let’s get started!

Why breathe from your diaphragm?

Why do we need to change the way we breathe?

Well, in all essence, your breath is the #1 most important factor in singing. Why? Because breathing out air is literally singing. You cannot sing without breathing out, and your exhale, shaped in special ways (singing vowels), is what allows people to sing in a way that’s very pleasing to the ear.

So, your breath is mightily important.

When we breathe in and out like normal, for simply breathing to survive or speaking, we aren’t taking in enough air to sing. We take in enough to survive, and to speak, but not enough to sing. When we speak, our words aren’t held like a belted note in a song or elongated, for example, like in the first few words in the Star Spangled Banner. It would take you about two seconds to speak “Oh, say can you see,” but it takes between five and ten seconds to sing it. We hold the words longer when we sing. That’s one reason why we need more air than we normally take in.

The other reason is so that you have support. When singers or singing teachers talk about a “supported” voice, they’re talking about the breath. They’re referring to having enough air to, well, literally support the notes you sing. Think of it like dragging a bunch of items along the ground. If you put a tissue beneath them, it’ll rip and the items will go everywhere and scatter. But if you put a nice thick blanket beneath them, it’s strong enough to keep them where they’re supposed to be for a long time. Think of normal breathing from your lungs as support like the tissue, and breathing from your diaphragm as support like the thick blanket. If you don’t have enough air when you sing, your exhale doesn’t have a lot to work with, and when you try to sing, there’s not enough air to both sustain the notes you sing, or allow them to come out clearly. When there’s not enough air, it doesn’t pass through your vocal cords in the right way to form the sounds you want. That can make you go off pitch or throw off the tone of your voice, and tone is the really crystal clear sound you want to make.

Bottom line is, if you want to learn to sing well, breathing from your diaphragm is the way to start. The best part is that it isn’t hard and doesn’t take too much practice to become second nature. But no singer gets by without learning to breathe from their diaphragm, and when you learn to do it too, you’ll see why.

How do you breathe from your diaphragm?

You already know how!

You just don't know you know.

First, I’ll quickly explain what the heck the diaphragm is.

Your diaphragm is a muscle in your torso, beneath your ribs. Imagine it as being horizontal. You can feel it right now. When you inhale, notice that something below your ribs moves down. That’s your diaphragm. It moves down to give you room for your lungs to expand with air. As you breathe out, your diaphragm moves back up, helping push the air back out of your body. And this repeats, your whole life.

When people say to “breathe from your diaphragm,” that makes it sound like you’re breathing from a completely different place. The term “breathing from your diaphragm” is huge and a very common thing to hear in singing, but I find it very misleading. What we’re doing is really just breathing lower than normal. So, continue breathing from your diaphragm. Just, well, do it more.

When you breathe normally, your diaphragm only moves down a few inches—just a couple. It’s a very small movement. But that’s okay; we don’t need a ton of air to simply breathe or to speak. But when we sing, we need a lot more air to work with. What we’re going to do is allow the diaphragm to move further down than it usually does, so that we can allow our lungs to fill with a lot more air. You’ll quickly notice just how much air fits into your lungs and how little of that space you utilize in daily life.

Remember when I said you already know how to breathe lower than normal?

You do!

Everyone naturally breathes from their diaphragm (deeper and lower) while laying down on their backs.

Try it! Lay down on a couch, bed or even your floor. The number one way to tell if you’re breathing from your diaphragm instead of your lungs is to notice that your stomach moves out when you breathe, your chest doesn’t, and your shoulders stay put. When you breathe from your lungs (like normal) your chest and shoulders rise. When you sing, your chest and shoulders should not rise (though everything is connected; you will see them move, but a tiny fraction of the amount they used to). When you sing, the movement you should make when you breathe is for your stomach to expand forward with your air. This is showing you that your diaphragm has moved far down enough to get a nice, low breath.

Put your hands on your stomach, and notice that, while laying down, your stomach moves outward. Your chest and shoulders do not. And this happens naturally.

But notice when you sit or stand back up, you’re back to breathing from your lungs and your chest and shoulders rise again.

Why?

Gravity! For whatever reason (I’m no scientist here) you always breathe up and down, so, toward the sky and back toward the ground. So when you sit or stand up, you breathe with your chest and shoulders rising to the sky. When you lay down, your stomach raises to the sky. I’ve no idea why, but if you were wondering, there’s the general answer. (If you're a scientist and you know why, please leave a comment letting me know why!)

But now, the big question: how do you train yourself to breathe from your diaphragm while sitting up or standing up?

There are a million tricks people have invented to teach you to do this, but nothing I ever saw helped me. I tried everything on the internet, but still, I really struggled with being able to breathe this way sitting or standing up.

So, one night, I invented my own trick, and I can 100% guarantee to you that it’s a foolproof method to teach you how to do this yourself.

My Foolproof Method

Step 1 - Lie on your back, preferably on the floor.

Step 2 - Notice that you’re breathing from your stomach, not your chest.

Step 3 - Lift your chest and torso up about an inch off the ground, propping yourself up on your elbows to stay there. Notice that you’re still breathing from your stomach.

Step 4 - Lift yourself up another inch. Notice that you’re still breathing from your stomach.

Step 5 - Lift yourself up until you hit the point where you switch to breathing from your lungs. Notice this.

Step 6 - Try to force yourself to breathe from your stomach instead. If this is hard, go back down an inch, see how it feels again to breathe from your stomach. Then raise yourself up and make yourself breathe into your stomach instead. Do not leave this step until you can do this.

Step 7 - Keep lifting yourself up inch by inch, repeating step 6 at each new level until you reach an upright sitting position.

This was a trick I made up one night after getting frustrated with the though, “I can do this laying down, why can’t I do it sitting up?” I wondered when the switch happened, from diaphragm to lungs, and I found it about halfway up. I made myself breathe from my stomach instead, and then made it to standing and breathing from my diaphragm.

Note: this took me several weeks to be able to do this upright. It took even longer for it to become second nature, where I could do it without thinking about it. Don’t get discouraged if this takes a while; this is something very new to you! Give your muscles a chance to learn a new habit. Habits naturally take 2-3 months to become new habits, so it’s only natural this will take a while. Don’t give up!

This is the first step in getting the singing voice you want, and are capable of. Give yourself time to learn this—it’s a brand new habit that you’ve never done before. You’ll get it! Trust the process and yourself, and as always, happy singing!

[weaversweek]

#Uncool50 - end of a century

Part of the #Uncool50 project, a sort-of autobiography done through pop singles. We’re into 1998.

"Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls was the right song at the right time. Personally, I was going through a shitty breakup, and the black dog of depression hung over me for ages.

This song has hung around even longer, so long it's seeped into the cultural firmament. There’s a really weird sound, the guitar's tuned to D in various octaves, and John Rzeznik's yelps bring power and passion to the chorus.

A song everyone wants to sing, but few people can sing well.

More beans, vicar?

The twenty-first century began just after 5.45 on the evening of 21 November 1998. America's Greatest Hits plays the biggest new entry, "…baby one more time" from Britney Spears.

It’s a pop song in a new idiom. Unashamedly manufactured, with just a faint whiff of plastic. And it's instantly catchy, that beat in the opening moments, the self-duet in the chorus.

Britney has become the biggest star of the new century, thanks in a little part to that video, and in a great part to being really bloody good at singing and dancing and being a star.

(Here’s the show. And later in the show, a song that was one of my final and most painful cuts.)

"Reach" – S Club 7. The greatest four minutes of manufactured pop, the group come along with harmonies and a rising melody, lifting optimism throughout.

Musically, it's the reverse of "Constant craving", it uses the DESH effect to lift the melody higher, in a way where kd lang puts a dampner on things.

But we don't listen for music nerdery. We listen because it's a happy and uplifting song. Surely the greatest achievement by Cathy Dennis and Ronnie Hazlehurst.

The rules of #Uncool50 limit me to songs released as a commercial single on the Isles Trans-Manche. And that sorely limits my scope to include Eurovision Song Contest entries – there are twice as many interval performances in this top 50 as competitive ESC songs.

"My star" by Brainstorm (LTV, 2000) is a post-grunge song, cautious optimism for the future while being honest that life can be a bit shit.

Renars Kaupers, the singer, is an affable and geeky chap. Made a connection through the screen, enough to have the song rise to an unexpected third place, and a small release a month or so later. The song got me through some more difficult times, while I finally got my head together.

But more on that next time...

[rubenovichoff]

Artur Żmijewski - Singing Lesson 1 (2/2, 1/2) 2001 (betacam, running time: 14 min.)

Alumni of the Deaf-Mute Institute in Warsaw perform Kyrie from Jan Maklakiewicz’s Polish Mess.

[adamharkus]

How to Learn to Sing Using 30 Day Singer

If you are looking to learn how to sing or improve your existing vocal skills, 30 Day Singer can help! There are a variety of vocal warm-ups, lessons, and practice routines dedicated to building your singing technique. So whether you are a beginner or maybe even have a little experience in warbling and crooning, it is best to dive right in! Here are some tips on learning how to sing with 30 Day…

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Turtle Takedown Teamwork.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[aescheretalks]

Ri achi xu chakuj ri ko’k nabe che ri xik’

Pa ri ko’k kog’ ri chikop che ri alajil re rapapik

Humans invented the jail cell before they invented wings.

In their cages, the winged ones sing about freedom

[littlepawz]

When only one of your kids inherits your musical talent :)

[foldingfittedsheets]

So my singing voice is alright. I can harmonize like a motherfucker but on my own I’m just like. Okay.

This one day, years ago, I was at work in retail, it was a slow day without customers. I had a coworker, M, who was extremely temperamental, but a wonderful performer. Her voice was angelic. She’d do a ton of open mics with her guitar, and rooms would fall silent to hear her.

A different coworker, A, asked me what I was getting my partner for the holidays. “Oh,” I said, “I want to get him a shirt with Marceline from Adventure Time with some song lyrics!”

“What’s the song?”

At this moment, I rolled the only nat 20 I’ll ever be granted for singing, and I sang the first two lines. It’s a dumb song by a cartoon vampire. But it sounded. So. Good.

And when I looked up three of my coworkers were staring at me, jaws dropped. One of them was M, who looked absolutely furious. I made an enemy with those two lines, upstaging her at the thing she was supposed to be best at.

Fully convinced the universe used me to punish that girl for some reason. She never forgave me for having that one beautiful moment of singing, and I’ll never be able to replicate it.

[carmen-berzattos]

There's something at the tip of my tongue about the parallels between Jackie and Wilson and Who We Are

How the narrator of Jackie and Wilson wants to run away with a woman that he's carved out of his imagination based on a brief interaction. How they would try the world, but good god it wasn't for them. So they run away from it into a fantasy world where they live by their own rules.

And then comes the narrator of Who We Are, who dreamt his whole life of finding someone who would hold him like water or like a knife, only to find that running away from the world will only get them so far, since "the hardest part is who we are". And only to find out that the "phantom life" he's fantasized about is actually just that: a phantom. And its absence sharpens like a knife

[opera-ghosts]

(No. 3): The Oscar Saenger Singing Lessons for Tenor: Tone Production (1915)

Speaker Oscar Saenger (1868-1929).

Tenor vocalist (uncredited): Paul Althouse (1889-1954)

Pianist (uncredited): H. Vaughan (no dates)

Recorded: September 1, 1915 in Camden, New Jersey (take one)

Oscar Saenger (January 5, 1868 - April 20, 1929): Singing teacher. With the Victor Talking Machine Company he produced a complete course in vocal training in twenty lessons.

Paul Shearer Althouse (December 2, 1889 – February 6, 1954): American opera singer. He began his career as a lyric tenor with a robust Italianate sound, in roles including Cavaradossi in Tosca, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana. He later branched out into the dramatic tenor repertoire, finding success in portraying Wagnerian heroes. He sang with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for 30 years.

[ansonmountdaily]

Anson Mount in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"

[kate-cosette-vocals]

Online Singing Lessons | Black Friday Deal

Schedule a lesson with me at katecosettevocals.com ! :)

[staygaybaby]

🗣️MY 🗣️BOYS🗣️ SPITTIN 🗣️FACTS 🗣️THEY 🗣️LOCKED 🗣️AND 🗣️LOADED BA 🐑BA🐑

*other lyrics*

WHY⁉️ U 🤨MAD 🤬BRAH😥

3RACHA🐷🦫🦘

*mumbles Korean lyrics*

🐺🐺🐺‼️💯GRRRRAAHHH‼️ 💯🐺🐺🐺

SHUT UP🙅🙅🙅

*mumble mumble mumble*

The shower karaoke goes hard 🤷

Han is a beaver cuz I can’t find the squirrel emoji

oh wait squirrels 🐿️

too late ah well

[blorbocedes]

"I mean christian put me on the spot, so I cannot leave him hanging! you know, so I have to, I have to sing. i definitely need some lessons, so i need to go to geri and book an appointment i guess!"

max on post race radio singing sessions 😆 he can't leave christian hanging 🥹