Women, Breath and Singing

It seems that we women do have a slightly different instinctual way of breathing from our male counterparts.

What got me thinking about this was the fact that after doing Yoga most of my adult life (which does involve a lot of various deep breathing exercises), I was surprised (and somewhat dismayed) to find that my vocal coach had to remind me several times to breathe from my belly while vocalizing or singing. Unless I was consciously thinking about breathing, which isn't always easy to do when one is concentrating on pitch, timing, lyrics and all the other things involved in doing scales or songs, I would inevitably end up taking a shallow chest breath.

So I was quite relieved when I discovered the video from Seth Riggs (link below), well known vocal coach in Los Angeles, about breathing. In it, Seth explains that he was puzzled by the difficulty that women often experience in trying to breathe "from the belly" or in keeping the breath low. A gynaecologist  explained to Seth that women breathe instinctively into their chest. That is in keeping with female biology since the female body is designed for childbirth. In the delivery process, a woman has to breathe into her chest and then push the air down through the birth canal to aid the delivery. Whether we choose to have babies or not, that is what nature prepares our bodies for.

That got me experimenting with breath and I realized that it does feel more natural to breathe into my chest and  to then allow the breath to flow naturally down into my lower body on the exhalation. That way of breathing  feels very grounding and natural to me.

On the other hand, I still want to vocalize and sing so I also make a point of consciously practicing the low breath -- or allowing my inhalation to move more deeply into my belly and allowing the exhalation to move up through my torso, through my throat and out of my mouth or nose as I would for singing.

I found this really fascinating because I do love to explore the breath in many ways and I just love how amazingly adaptable these bodies we inhabit really are.

     Seth Riggs Video on breathing      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5W3_Otvm4U 

So have fun exploring your breath. Who knows where it might take you!!


And happy singing and vocalizing.

                                                Barbara