To Breathe or Not To Breathe. Is that a question or a battle between old school voice training and cutting edge contemporary vocal technique? It may be both.

Sing Like You Speak™ (cutting edge contemporary vocal technique) offers an exercise to make diaphragmatic breathing a habit. It’s called the candle exercise. A new student asked me if the candle was supposed to flicker but never go out or if the candle was supposed to be extinguished with every blow.

I was very surprised by this question because I had forgotten – probably buried it along with other antiquated singing technique ideas – that some traditional vocal training asks the trainee to ‘conserve’ breath when singing. Personally, I am horrified by this outdated and harmful vocal training.

Let me explain. We’ll do a little candle exercise together. Your thumb becomes the candle, placed sternum height about 6” from your body. With 3 quick, powerful blasts of air, blow out the candle. Feel which part of your body is doing the work to move the air. Yes, you feel the abs doing the work, just as they were meant to.

Let’s try the exercise as traditional vocal technique asks you to. Your thumb becomes the candle, placed sternum height about 6” from your body. Now say, sing like you speak, being careful that the ‘flame’ flickers but does not go out. Yes, you feel yourself holding breath and creating tension in your instrument – your body. ADDING TENSION to an already scary process!

Now let’s go back to Sing Like You Speak™ Candle Exercise. Your thumb becomes the candle, placed sternum height about 6” from your body. This time we’ll add sound. With 3 quick, powerful blasts of air saying ‘sh, sh, sh’, blow out the candle. Again, your diaphragmatic breathing is working properly without any physical or mental effort on your part. That is how it should be!

Focusing on your makeshift candle teaches you to breathe diaphragmatically without ever thinking about diaphragmatic breathing. You are simply asking your body to respond to the need to blow out a candle. It works because the natural response of the body is to breathe diaphragmatically.

Sing Like You Speak™ Candle Exercises make diaphragmatic breathing a habit. They encourage the breath to move quickly and efficiently along the specific path opened on inhale.

The human instrument is brilliant. And if you ask it in the right way, it will obey with brilliance and beauty. Breathing is a constant cycle of inhale – exhale. Use the breath, release it with your voice and you will find vocal freedom.

For more information about Sally Morgan and Sing Like You Speak™ visit Sing Like You Speak.com and VocalPowerTools.com.

About the author

Sally Morgan is a professional vocal trainer with over 30 years of experience. Sally is also the creator and author of SingLikeYouSpeak(TM)!

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