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Breath as Relaxation

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Music-breath I had a great lesson with Dr. Martha Rowe of New Mexico State University the other day, and her ideas reiterated to me very clearly that I have tons to learn (which makes me happy). The main point I took away was to use the breath as a moment of relaxation. I had been experimenting with this before, but I was not going as far as she asked me to. Taking it that next step really worked for me.

What to Do

If you’ve ever sung a very challenging aria, you will know the feeling of fatigue that sets in as you approach the end. Your voice may not register it externally, but there is an impending sense that “Wow, this really takes a lot of energy”. If you don’t know this feeling, then that’s great.

To counteract this sensation and the panic that comes along with it, use each breath as a chance to release any tension built up during the preceding phrase. At the cut-off, release all the muscular pressure you’ve used, and inhale with as little muscular effort as necessary to feel satisfied. The breath should feel like it’s falling into you rather than being forced in. I sometimes use the image of the breath “beaming” into the lungs (you know, like Star Trek).

Just as important is that by reminding yourself what “relaxation” feels like, you can find easier paths through which to sing. If all you know is tension, then you will sing with tension.

Ways to Practice Outside of Singing

I practice this breath relaxation every day in my yoga and meditation practice, so that may be helpful to you as well when you are not singing. Practice also by walking with a very relaxed abdominal area. Many of us walk around with unnecessary ab tension. Let it go. Then apply it to your singing breath.

Perform Fearlessly Part IV: The Day of the Performance

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Chill_out

By this point of preparation, you can do little to fundamentally change your outlook on the nature of a performance. So your best bet is to set up conditions so that you are in peak shape to perform even if you still have lingering worries.

    1. Get enough sleep the night before. Pavarotti said in Great Singers on Great Singing that on a typical performance day he would sleep in until noon. Rest!
    2. Eat enough….but not too much. It’s scary being so stuffed that you cannot breathe, but it’s equally frightening to be so famished that you have no strength. This will probably deserve its own post in the future, but you must learn what is best for your body and your voice when you eat. Before a performance, try eating a light meal a few hours in advance. Then bring fruit to the performance to refuel while you are taking breaks.
    3. Beware of Caffeine. In my most recent Weekly Gathering, I posted Coffee Breakdowns: Is There a Link Between Caffeine and Hallucinations? This quote is particularly ominous for the potentially worried performer:

Caffeine heightens the physiological effects of stress, lead author Simon Jones says. When someone feels anxiety, the body releases the hormone cortisol, and when people drink plenty of caffeine-infused tea, coffee or soda, their body produces more of the hormone when they encounter stressful events. Researchers have proposed that cortisol may trigger or exaggerate psychotic experiences by increasing the amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine flowing into the brain’s limbic areas, evolutionarily ancient regions involved in emotion, memory and behavior.

I tend to get fearful jitters if I drink a lot of caffeine before a show. It’s usually unnecessary, anyway. The material should be stimulating enough to keep you awake.

  1. Warm-up slowly. Noodle around with your voice and body throughout the day just to keep it moving. Then warm-up about a half-hour before the performance. Of course, your mileage may vary, so pay attention to the signals your body is giving out.
  2. Trust that you Know Your Material: If you prepared properly, your material is learned. Try to avoid singing it over and over because you’ll tire out your voice and your mind. If you must, just recite your words to yourself and remember your acting intentions.
  3. Relax and Focus: You must pamper yourself a bit on the day of a big performance. Rest, take relaxing walks, do very light exercise, meditate, eat refreshing meals, drink water, etc. Try to avoid moving heavy furniture on a performance day. Accept that certain things must be put on hold, and let them go.

Do you have your own ideas about how to stay relaxed on performance day? Do you agree that being relaxed on performance day is necessary? If you have any comments, please leave them below!

Vocalise: Tongue Relaxing Scale

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For those of you without Scorch

For those of you without Scorch

This is something I learned from my teacher Andrew Zimmerman. As you pronounce the “mneh” let your tongue loll out of your mouth. Let the vowel “eh” sound kinda lazy. It’s not pretty, but it does help to keep that interfering tongue out of the way. Try several different vowels.

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Letting Go

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How in the world do we let go?falling_leaves_rila

I practiced a morning focusing technique called the Morning Pages for years, which was taken from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Sometimes, I would work myself up into a tizzy by trying to solve every nagging worry, and I would then spend a page writing over and over, “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe,” until I ran out of space. In my worry, I had forgotten to breathe, which is distressing to a body bent on survival, so the worry became magnified.

Tired of Pretending

Tonight, a recording of Barbara Bonney singing Andre Previn’s “Vocalise” reminded me of an episode from about a year ago. I was driving out of Tombstone, Arizona, and I had had just seen my father and sister for the last time for several months. I was sad, and I was trying to escape it. I didn’t realize that, of course. Instead I thought I was keeping myself from becoming attached to those feelings by keeping my body rigid and upright. Instead I just made it harder to breathe and kept the feelings hovering in my unconscious somewhere.

And then, I just let go of it. I just let myself wallow in the feelings and be done with it. I was tired of pretending. I was right then wonderfully sad, slouched, and relaxed. I could breathe again. The sadness coursed through me, but it was not a bad feeling. It was beautiful.

So what does this have to do with singing? Well, I’ll tell you.

We are involved with an emotional and naked art form as singers. Sometimes all the gabbing about posture and breath support and all that, which is necessary, cuts us off from the nakedness of singing. It is a primordial primitive thing that we work with. It is related to laughter, crying, babies’ yells, screams, moans, sighs, groans, surprised clips, giddy giggles. My teacher reminded me of this last week by having me think of desire so potent that it hurt. This caused a chain reaction of upward moving breath pressure along the front of my spine and a desire to get all the feeling out of me. I allowed the desire to exist and followed its instruction.

Out came uncomplicated vocal expression.

Recognition

Letting go, to me, is related to recognition. Oftentimes that is enough to release. If we are not warmed up, we can either blast our poor voices out of the water and hurt them by trying to make them something they are not at that moment. Or we can recognize them, listen, and follow. Our voices will tell us what to do. If we are upset, we can pretend we’re happy and lock up our feelings in our tight torsos. Or we can recognize the feelings and sing through them. Our voice will tell us what to do. No answer applies in every situation. Instead, through listening, we will find the little core of truth that is the creative path.

That’s easier said than done, especially because we all are blind to some extent. This is why we ought to be thankful for our teachers who point those blind spots out. But we do have some power ourselves to find our tight spots and release them:

Just breathe and find places that do not move. Then ask why.