How does breathing work for real though?
The physiology of breathing for musicians
Today we talk about the anatomy and physiology of breathing as it pertains to making music and staying alive. I also share some snippets of what I’m working on in her own voice lessons.
Main points:
1. Oxygen in, CO2 out.
2. Air moves toward areas where there is less of it. Once you breathe in, the air wants to go back out and vice versa.
3. Ribs in and diaphragm up = exhalation.
4. Ribs out and diaphragm down = inhalation.
5. Your guts have to be able to slide up and down while the diaphragm and pelvic floor muscles dome up and down together as you breathe. Gross.
6. You need to be able to breathe easily no matter what body position you're in.
7. Common issues seen in musicians are associated with postural patterns and what your instruments have trained you to be good at.
Questions? Please ask them! Would love to hear from you!
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Good Morning, World! It’s going to be a great day!
I want to start with a little show and tell. I’ll call it share and tell because you can’t see me. I just finished a voice lesson with Liz Frazer, and we had a funny moment… Well, like 100 funny moments. But this one stuck out. She gave me an assignment to work on a song, imitating the original artist. Last week I picked Florence and Machine’s Shake It Out, which was a blast. This week, I picked Philippa Soo’s Burn from Hamilton… because who wouldn’t want to try to sound like her??
As I was working with Liz today, she was trying to get me to emphasize a more nasal sound, and after a while, I just burst out laughing because I swear I was singing out of my nose, and she was asking for more (per usual). And I was reminded of when my clients are learning new movements, and they are like, “wait… am I standing straight? I feel bent over,” and I’m like, “yea… you’re upright,” and they have no reference for this position. That is how I felt trying to sing with these new sounds. Wait… is this still singing?? Yes. Yes, it is. It’s just off the charts for the spectrum I had previously defined for myself. Yay for new things!
Ok, Today we are talking about breathing. This is the NUMBER ONE question I get from musicians, especially singers and people who play wind or brass instruments. Everyone comes with previous ideas of how breathing is supposed to work. Some of that info is correct. Some is not. A lot of it is what they have learned through the lore of musicians passing information along. Usually, these are visualizations or verbal cues to help create something new, but perhaps don’t describe what is actually happening. So I’m going to just lay out the basics of how air moves in and out of our bodies for you all.
Oxygen in. CO2 out. I told you we’re starting at the basics.
Air movement comes down to pressure management. Air wants to move toward spaces with less of it and where pressure is lower. Put another way; it will want to move away from the “full” feeling space and toward less “full” feeling space.
After you blow air out, there is more air pressure outside your lungs than inside. To “correct” this, your ribs expand, and the diaphragm flattens to create a vacuum so that air rushes back in. Once the pressure inside your lungs is greater than it is outside your body, the system reverses. Your diaphragm relaxes up into a dome inside your ribs, your ribs compress in and down so that air flows outside your body. Then rinse and repeat for a lifetime.
Ok, so let’s talk about rib movement. When ribs move to accommodate for or move air, they expand and contract in the front, back, side, other side, and up and down. So… that’s where you should feel them moving - or at least be able to move there. If you can’t move there, you will just move somewhere else a bit more, and you will be ok.
In general, the front and lower ribs move the most, so you’ll feel them move a bit more than the other parts. But all of those areas do move.
We could talk about all the different muscles that make this happen, but that seems like something we would need a visual aid for. So I’ll figure out another way to get that information to you. It’s basically all the muscles around your trunk, between your ribs, your neck muscles, and your pelvic floor/hips.
The next thing to understand is that your guts move up and down as you breathe. That means all of the contents in your abdomen need to be mobile enough to slide up and down as your diaphragm and the hammock of muscles in the bottom of your pelvic floor dome up and down together. That info may come in handy as we practice a few things now.
Positions: Sitting. Forward bend. Sidebend to the right.
This variety is absolutely paramount to being able to breathe and move. Sing and move. Play and move. There are going to be certain positions breathing feels freer for you. You might play an instrument that requires you to have a slight rib cage shift to the left (I’m looking at you, guitarists), so you may have created more mobility in the left side of your ribs than the right for expanding. That is OK. Unless you’re totally locked in there, that can be troublesome for some people. Cellists have to sit with their instrument between their knees, which often pairs with a slightly more arched low back and less space for breathing into the back. Again… fine! Unless you’re stuck there all day.
My goal as someone’s PT or coach is to assess where they are able to expand/contract easily and where they can’t. And create opportunities to broaden the spectrum a bit. How can we make sure this person can inhale easily and feel supported in their exhale no matter what they need to do with their body?
I often find that people have stiffer mid-backs, I think especially influenced by the current cultural ideas of good posture, shoulders wide, flat spine, and chest up. These people need to allow for space in their back.
I often find people who are really good at taking a big breath in, and their chest puffs out a lot, but they feel like they can’t get enough air in, or they may be feeling like they are out of air too early in their phrase. We also do a lot of drills where we are working on the end range of an exhalation. Making sure someone has a very good idea of how a full exhale feels makes filling back up easy. Having that whole spectrum available makes playing for those long phrases much easier and more supported.
Just like if I have the whole spectrum of sound, including nasal sounds, everything will actually feel more balanced and easier. Ah ha! See how I brought that around? I knew I could do it.
All right, I know you’ll have questions about this one, so bring them on! Email me, DM me. I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what you need!
