Dear Savannah,

 

I assume that the two questions you ask are within the context of singing in a group setting, and so you are trying to help a particular student, or perhaps more than one, to achieve these two states without having to meet with the student privately. 

 

Since we all have experienced deep breathing and relaxation, the first step is to direct the students to remember/imagine those sensations in other contexts.  "How do you breathe after climbing up four flights of stairs?"  "Can you imagine yourself dozing in a comfortable chair?"  (Since I work with adults, the image I use is of the slack-jawed, completely relaxed position achieved when dozing while watching golf on TV.  My apologies if you are an avid golfer!  :-)  ) 

 

Once they understand by association the various physical states you want them to achieve, the next step is to give them specific acts to help them achieve those states while singing.   Here are several that I have used over the years:

 

At the beginning of my warm-ups, I ask everyone to lift their hands up over their heads, then have them breathe deeply, hold the full inhalation (without closing the glottus) for a few seconds, then sigh in a slow descending gliss (around 6 - 8 seconds).  This accomplishes several things: 1. By inhaling with arms stretched up, the muscles of the upper chest cannot be activated, and so all the muscular activity occurs, and is perceived to be, below the ribcage.  2. By holding the inhalation with abdominal muscles extended and diaphragm contracted, one's attention can easily be directed to them.  3. The long, slow descending sigh with arms up-stretched forces the students to use those contracting abs exclusively to provid the stream of air.  The intercostals and upper chest muscles cannot be engaged so the typical tense, "bellow" effect caused by high, shallow breathing is avoided.

 

Also, during warm-ups, but also at different points in rehearsal, I will ask singers to moniter their tongue tension by placing their thumbs under the chin and pushing up lightly.  If the thumb is met with hard, tensed muscle, then the tongue is tight and that affects vocal production.  This crude form of "bio-feedback" gives your singers a vivid, easily understood sensation to moniter and modify.

 

There are other awareness tools that bring unnecessary tension to the singers' consciousness, but for the purposes of this forum, I hope that these two will be helpful to you as you address vocal issues in the choral context.

 

Best wishes,

 

Richard Hynson

Music Director

Bel Canto Chorus

Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra

I have the kids in my younger choirs lie down flat on the floor all over the choir room and relax for a minute or two. I then tell them that when they were babies they always breathed correctly, but through stress, tension and frenetic lifestyles, bad "high" breathing developed. I have them put their hands just below the sternum and have them breathe deeply through their noses "into their hands". Almost all of the kids experience the low diaphragmatic breathing and react with smiles and I can the see lights come on. 

Transferring to upright breathing is a bit less successful, but a good number of kids get it- though often only momentarily. It's a long process to get anyone to do it regularly and w/o conscious effort.

I use the reflex breath exercise from Estil method, the only one that consistently works for everyone and really implants low breathing into the singing itself, rather than as a separate exercise! In twenty years I have never foud anything else that works so thoroughly and so well. It needs to be included in every warm-up, with the whole group singing any one of their warm-up songs on the reflex breath, all breathing at the same place. (It's dead easy to do, tricky to write out.. Google it: the Estil people have it nailed!)

 

I would be careful around the work 'relaxing' too! Asking singers to relax will sometimes knock the energy out of their singing and set them up so the body isn't poised or balanced, so that the vocal folds can't function efficiently. The truth, for me, is more complex (isn't it always?!)- and is about taking out inappropriate tension or effort and placing energy where it's going to be effective. This can feel to singers like patting their heads while rubbing their stomachs of course, but can be as simple a doing a long voiced 'vv' whilst using your brain to focus on feeling the effort at diaphragm level and monitoring there's no push at throat level - then transfer into a sung note. For another example, in Estil method you'd want to be putting an 8 out of ten amount of energy into the inner smile (retracting the false vocal folds), whilst not allowing that to spread to unnecessary tension in the neck and throat. To help singers get the idea of placing the energy without allowing it to create unwanted and inappropriate tension elsewhere, ask them to press their forefinger and thumb together very hard, at a ten out of ten pressure, whilst not allowing that energy to transfer into the arm, neck or shoulder. They'll soon catch on. 

 

Sally Brown

Choir Invisible: The Desmond and Leah Tutu Peace Choir

There are many ways to train breathing without tention. 

On the website of Vocal Technique Tips you can find several exercises. 

One very effective exercise is using yawning to trigger a relaxed but powerfull breathing.

 

https://sites.google.com/site/vocaltechniquetips/the-basics/breathing-exercises/the-benefits-of-yawning

 

Good luck!