Without the proper diaphragmatic breathing(belly breathing, abdominal breathing or deep breathing) your voice can sound unnatural, tense, forced & weak. The correct diaphragmatic breathing makes your voice more relaxed, more natural, more powerful and richer with more control in phrasing, which means that you will be able to hold your breath longer.
Here are the 3 steps that are involved in creating your voice.
1. Breathing in (Respiration) With The Diaphragmatic Breathing -> 2. Voicing (Phonation) -> 3. Vibration (Resonance)
And let's learn the 1st step, Respiration (Breathing in) with The Diaphragmatic Breathing in this blog~!
[1] Breathing in: Respiration with the Diaphragmatic Breathing
; Your lungs store and filter air by exchanging gas between oxygen that is sent to the bloodstream as you breathe in and carbon dioxide that is forced out from the bloodstream and the body as you breathe out.
Blausen.com staff. "Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 20018762.
The diaphragm helps force the air out from the lungs with increased pressure as you breathe out by the decreased volume of the chest cavity(by Boyle's law) as the diaphragm moves back up and becomes relaxed. The air expelled from the lungs by the increased pressure from the relaxed & raised diaphragm muscle helps you produce more power & hold your breath longer for singing.
As you inhale, oxygen is sent to the cells of your body and carbon dioxide is carried out of your mouth and also nose from your lungs. Your lungs have min. 300 million tiny air sacs called alveoli where gas exchange between oxygen & carbon dioxide happens.
The diaphragm is an extremely important muscle for singers which assists your breathing when you sing. Lungs have spongy light slippery elastic texture and don't have muscular structures and therefore need support of the diaphragm, which is the intercostal muscle between the ribs and abdomen.
Blausen.com staff. "Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 20018762.
Your diaphragm looks like the bell of a jelly fish(or a dome) and helps build pressure by reducing your chest cavity to force the air out and this air stream gives your voice power & stability and helps you hold the sentences longer as a singer.
When you breathe in, your diaphragm goes downward and the rib cage expands and the pressure in the chest(thoracic) cavity goes down. And this process creates a vacuum that draws air into the lungs.
When you breathe out, your diaphragm becomes relaxed and goes back up and the rib cage contracts and the pressure in the chest(thoracic) cavity goes up. And this process forces the air out of the lungs.
Blausen.com staff. "Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 20018762.
According to Boyle's law as the space gets smaller, the pressure gets higher; in other words as the space gets larger, the pressure gets lower.
Learning the proper deep diaphragmatic breathing technique to produce steady continuous powerful airflow can make a huge difference in your signing voice.
Voicing / Phonation in Singing will be continued here~
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