Air – Part 2

So, I’m back.

A proud papa of a tenor just getting his feet wet in the business requested some workout advice for his son. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words so:

The photo belongs to Johns Hopkins University and once came with a very good description of the movement I believe every singer should do if they engage in any physical exercise at all. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about a video? I found a You Tube that does a great job of speaking to my intent for suggesting this exercise:

There are only two ways to become a master of long phrasing. One is to become a meticulous manager of the air we can get into our lungs, and number two is to make room for as much air as our breathing apparatus can contain. Back in the day before anyone had the chance to tell me I couldn’t do it, I set my sights on both goals.

The Dumbbell Pullover was one of my favorite moves, and it put my rib cage in the best shape I could possibly hope for. I might have liked to have a chassis like Seth Feroce’s, but I knew I had better things to do with my time, if I wanted to sing well.

By the way, girls can profit from this exercise too:

Seth speaks a “real guy” kind of language that I find refreshing and is all about expanding the chest for competitive reasons. I may not use many of his locutions, but I want everyone to know that we are both talking about competing for the attention of an audience. Seth has a competition judging panel in mind:

My idea has nothing to do with attracting the attention of a similar panel one normally has to face in a Music program

No. As important as these gatherings are to the educational institutions that marshal them, they are much less important than crowds like this:

It is in front of these ticket paying populations that your worth is determined, and it can be risky business, but I’m getting a bit off track here.

Let’s get back to basics. Being able to sing a lot of notes before having to take a breath, hopefully between words, is a good thing. The more notes you can sing without needing more air, the longer you inspire your sympathetic listeners to hold their breaths. That’s only one benefit. If you get a few of your audience members to gasp for air while you keep putting notes together in a long phrase, you might get noticed by more people than you think possible. In a sold out La Scala performance the numbers can be outstanding. Let’s face it. You can never be sure that even one bored member on a board of judges will even notice that you started singing.

Making lots of room for air is what I have in mind. You cannot make your rib cage larger, but you can force it to present the largest space for your lungs that the bones will allow by working on the muscles and connecting tissues.

No matter how much effort you put into this or other exercises, it will all be for nothing if you slouch and flounce about while singing. Stand up, hold yourself on your feet as straight and perpendicular to the ground as you can comfortably do so.

Take as deep a breath as you are capable, and proceed to exhale as slowly as possible without letting your rib cage collapse. Keep it up there where you started. When you can no longer cause air to flow out of your system otherwise, only then start bringing down the rib cage, until you run out of capacity. Make this procedure your standard way to sing your phrases, and you will discover that the rib cage collapse will become your standby maneuver. Like a reserve tank for saving you from having to gulp air in the middle of a word. When you come toward the end of a phrase, and you notice that the rib cage is starting to go down, just think of it as your air tank gauge beginning to flash “EMPTY”. So what do you do? Quickly find a convenient point in the phrase, between two words, preferably at a comma. That is where you should breathe.

The old school would have you do this deep breathing exercise with a lit candle just in front of you. The trick was to exhale in a manner that bent the flame over away from you. Oh!! The bigger trick is to keep the flame bent over without a tremble in the flame. The next big trick is to vary the bend in the flame in such a controlled way that it moves, but does not tremble.

The pull over is for increasing your air capacity, and the candle trick is for increasing your control over that air.

I’ll be back. You can call me an Air Head if you want, but most of what our audience hears has to do with our manipulation of air. So it’s always on my mind. How much air we can contain has a personal limit, but we can stretch it.