Quote Of The Day:
“I just wanna hear you breathe”
Lenny Kravitz from an Absolut Vodka commercial
If you have been following my blog posts over the last 9 months you probably have deciphered that my biggest vocal coaching tip is “Breathe”. As a singer, breathing needs a little more attention than just the automatic reflex of inhaling oxygen into our body.
Breathing properly is the secret weapon to becoming the best possible singer you can be. Hopefully, by reading past blogs, you are already aware of how to achieve the perfect singer’s breath: air in/ tummy out, filling up your mid section, or tank as I call it, from the belly button up to help support your notes and give your diaphragm support fuel to work with. The next step is to decipher exactly where in the song you need to breathe and how big each breath should be depending on what range of your voice the phrase is in. General rule of thumb is that your breaths will be small in capacity in your low notes (for example, you will only take in 30% of the entire size of your “tank”) but will get bigger as you ascend up in your range with the biggest capacity breaths happening in your upper mid-range full voice. (85-90% of the size of your “tank”).
When choosing a song for performance the first thing you will need to do is write out your lyrics by listening to the song. Once you have that done, comb through the lyric sheet and mark with a checkmark, asterisk, dot, or whatever will become your symbol for a breath, all the places you need to breathe. This is called the “breathing rhythm” of the song and each song has a specific and unique breathing rhythm unto itself.
Upon first glance, you may think that you will just breathe at the end of every phrase and it’s obvious where your breathmarks should go. Ahhhh, not so grasshopper…
Breathmarks are strategically placed for the following reasons: to make sure you will have the right amount of air per phrase, to support specific notes with power in Diva or Rockstar placement (your upper mid range full voice) or to infuse a phrase, syllable or word with emotion creating vocal nuances and dynamics. Sometimes you will find yourself running one line into the next or breathing half way through a line to achieve the desired effect. Here is an example of some lyrics from the Alicia Keys hit “If I Ain’t Got You” at about 2:45 of the song. (Go here to listen http://youtu.be/Ju8Hr50Ckwk) She is an awesome breather as you can hear her every breath and it gives her songs such a real human emotional feel. I have notated the breaths with an asterisk *.
If I Ain’t Got You (2:45)
*You, You, You
Some people want it all
*But I don’t * want nothing at all
*If it ain’t you baby
*If I ain’t got * you baby
Some people want * diamond rings
*Some just * want everything
*But everything means nothing
*If I ain’t got * you, * yeah
Oh my gosh, hear how she infuses emotion and life into that song by where she places her breaths and how many there are in that one chorus? It really does create vocal magic.
Next time you are learning a new song, mark all the places in the song you need to breathe. This will help you deliver your song with the proper support for your notes, power where you need it and help you create the most amazing vocal emotional moments that will make your audience sit up and take notice.
Until Next Time… Breathe (big surprise) and Happy Singing!
Angela
ps – Stay tuned on information in next week’s blog about “Live At Angela’s” next Saturday, May 19th at 8pm PST
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