Breath Support

jonnybb

Hi Guys, I have just joined, and have made a start on the course material. I have been trying to learn to sing for a couple of years with mixed results, and have always felt like I have made a stride forward, and then the next day feel like I have taken a step backwards. So I am looking forward to doing this process properly now.

I have come to the conclusion (and the early videos bear this out), that my current block to really getting past chest voice is breath support - and this is something I really need to develop to move forwards. In one of the early videos Ken demonstrates an exercise laying on his back, doing controlled sit ups while practicing breath support. Can I ask - is this to demonstrate the "feeling" required for breath support when singing, so you know when you are doing it - or is this an actual exercise that if done regularly will actually improve breath support.

Any other suggestions on how to develop better breath support would be welcome - a lot of exercises on Youtube seem more geared towards yoga breathing.

skv123159

Well yes breathing is the core of every thing
The sit up one you are talking about is to understand the feel and also to practice daily
Add it in your daily routine it will help a lot
Other breathing like the shhhhhh sound and counting is also helpful to increase your lung capacity
The yoga breathing is also important but it is more for the mental support to calm down your nerves
I suggest Make your own time table/routine of all these exercises and make sure to do these daily
First do the breathing and then jump to scales and then to singing

Hope it helps
You just started singing so you have a long way to go ahead just keep going and don't over think about any aspect just keep practicing you will see improvement s

Keep singing

skv123159

I suggest first do early morning the yoga one to slowly start your flow of air
Then go to the sit up ones to create strength
And then. The sh exercise to increase your capacity and prevent from overusing or forcing air

jonnybb

Many thanks for your comments. I'll build these in.

bentk

The sit up exercise shows you to what degree you use your abdominal muscles. It is not to teach you the support mechanism. You actually practice your support on every singing exercise. Maybe review Ken's videos on support again? They are much more clear than i can explain to you. Next to that, have a look around in the sub-forum for diaphragmatic support. There is loads of info there

codeowl

@jonnybb,

Hey mate, I too struggled with support when I first started. I describe my experience here, you may relate to it:
https://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/15501/hi-from-a-land-down-under

You may find this post helpful as it has a cool vid in it that will help you visualize what is happening with support. As I mention in the post above I later found I was confused between diaphragmatic breathing, and support. The penny dropped for me once I understood what support was, and I describe my understanding here:
https://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/comment/84437/#Comment_84437

This vid draws attention to some key spots in the videos of Volume 1 where Ken shows lifting the soft palate as he goes up in pitch which is also great stuff to learn when you starting, and there are also some cool experiments to begin understanding the mechanics of things Ken teaches. There is so much info in his videos, it is easy to just sort of watch them and listen to him and not take it all in. There is great technical info in what Ken says, but there is also a ton of info in what he does. I try to draw your attention to some of this in the following post specifying timestamps in his vids to check out, and talking about small experiments you can do based on what you see in his vids to start understanding his technique:
https://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/comment/84489/#Comment_84489

Check this stuff out and then practice for a bit and post up your Lah scales to get some feed back on how you are going and what you need to work on.

The following post shows you how to post your scales:
https://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/14675/how-to-upload-your-audio-and-video-files-for-feedback#

Regards,

Scotty