any vocal coaches or has anyone been coached for vocals?

[Tone Deft]

over in the Link Your Music forum we started discussing the merits of the old advice to 'sing from your diaphragm' rather than 'singing from your throat.' some say it's just cliche bullshit, others don't.

the counterargument:

I recently read this book called The Psychology of Singing: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21957

It's 110 years old now , but the author argues that singing instructors focus their technique explanations to students on control over their body, like opening the throat and such, but that this kind of instruction is ineffective because one can't control such bodily functions that directly. I really don't know what the state of vocal instruction is nowadays, but most of the time when I've heard vocal teachers correct a student's technique, talking about supporting the tone or moving it to a place in the body doesn't seem to mean much at all. Makes me wonder if simple imitation is still the best way to teach and learn how to sing properly.

does anyone have any real wold experience with this? is it valid to suggest that someone should sing from the diaphragm?

Myth busted, plausible or confirmed?

[Pitch Black]

The thing about your diaphram is its a big floor of muscle at the bottom of your chest cavity. When you "sing from your diaphram" you contact these muscles to push upwards against your lungs, squeezing the air out. This allows you to have a more steady "push" of air up through your vocal chords. A more steady and sustained column of air, a stronger and less wavery note.

Try it. Breath outwards normally using your lungs. Then try pushing air by only tightening your stomach muscles - "sucking in the gut" so to speak. You can still push air without using any of your "lung muscles". The ideal is to use both in combination. Breath training, which is a big part of voice training, is like any other exercise, the aim is to develop muscle memory so that it becomes natural and instinctive, and then build up that muscle.

I say confirmed.

[DangerousDave]

I have had vocal coaches tell me to do such things. Something along the lines of pushing air out with your diaphragm instead of using your lips and tongue to form sounds (so dont do it like you are just talking.) Ideally you want to drive air out with your diaphragm moreso than regular speech. This allows you to create a 'big' sound as opposed to simply a louder sound. I would recommend looking into formal opera training, they are some of the most technically sound singers on the planet and they perform many breathing exercises specifically for diaphragm control.

Like Pitch said, try it. Try to get down and dirty and really belt out a note, anything really. You will find that really driving air out of your body with your diaphragm (not wheezing or excessive of course) will produce a richer, deeper sound.

[rbmonosylabik]

Cool seeing this sparked some discussion.

I agree that breathing technique is really important. I'm not a singer and don't know much about vocal instruction, but from experience with other activities involving breathing techniques, I know how they can change how your body works.

The part I would really like to know more about is the other subtleties of proper tone generation, opening the throat and such. How do singers learn how to create the best tone possible? Because, while watching a well trained singer sing, you can see they're doing something very different than any other person trying to sing, but the technique fine points are not as easy to spot as with most other instruments. You can see a guitarist play and notice stuff in his technique that add up to his sound, but with singers it's hard to discern between developed technique and raw talent.

If you can, give the book a read. I don't know how dated it is, but more than making me question vocal training, it made me curious about the current state of vocal training.

[4.33]

i've had academic voice lessons for about a year and the most useful thing is that they give you confidence in your voice.
the approach was first to remove tension from vocal cords - first by shouting, then slowly taming it down.
subsequently the excercises went from high to bottom and not vice versa as in most approaches.
as a result i was hitting high C in excercises and G below it in most songs without breaking a sweat in about 6 months.
and i'm a baritone, which normally means top limit of E-F#

so i'd defenitely recommend a coach - a book won't spot your mistakes

[Silverfish]

Interesting topic on this board!

I studied voice for five years at university, and now I'm singing six or more hours a day, five days a week. I could go on forever about this topic, but I'll try to keep it brief.

Yes, absolutely sing from the diaphragm. For most of us, at this point in our lives it's not the most natural thing to do, but more or less it was at one point in our lives. Watch a baby lying on it's back and notice how it breathes. The little tummy just goes up and down so effortlessly. One of the complications of singing this way is trying to get rid of everything we've learned wrong over the years. I actually spent more time unlearning and breaking bad habits than anything else.

It's not that singing from the throat isn't valid, but if you're not really, really careful, you'll have a very short singing career. Notice in Broadway productions that the vast majority of singers are quite young. They haven't trashed their voices yet. Opera, on the other hand, requires mature voices. I'm 25, and really, even if I wanted to, I'm pretty much too young to sing professional opera.

Also, if you're looking for good reading on vocal technique, check out the Burton Coffin books. They're really hard to track down, and expensive compared to most books, but those are pretty much regarded as THE books on classical vocal technique.

Sorry if I got all preachy and teachery... hehe. That's my classical background showing through.

[8O]

Yup, another vote for "confirmed", both from my own limited experience, but especially from hearing friends who've been to singing coaches.

[bosonHavoc]

sing from yar balls!!
i think thats what they are trying to say

[Rave]

My Sister is a pro musical theatre actress and she sings from the diaphragm.

I think with vocal training you can sing more consistently and are able to sing longer, especially if you are on tour.

When I try to sing (from the throat) it gets sore quite quickly.

[madlab]

Tone Deft, do you really intend to sing or do you just want to get that mythic 20,000 limit ?

[Tone Deft]

the talent that comes out of the woodwork here is amazing, please do ramble on about this stuff.

rbmono posed a question and I really didn't know. you hear about this stuff but in practice what really goes on?

the other thing that came to mind is circular breathing. I've heard stories about Sinatra being able to sing out while breathing in, two way air flow in his throat, singers breathing through their tear ducts, weird stuff like that.

'sing from your balls.' I bet that advice has been given. how about posting from them? you don't want to hear my singing.

[gjm]

the other thing that came to mind is circular breathing. I've heard stories about Sinatra being able to sing out while breathing in, two way air flow in his throat...

I would like to know about this as well. The first thing that comes to mind is a flexible water tank that is full of a liquid with only 1 filler pipe and no breather vent. Trying to fill that tank and empty it at the same time through the one opening/pipe creates confusion with the direction of the liquid in the filler pipe/ not to mention turbulence because of the bi directional flow of the water.

The other thing is do you actually need to be breathing out to use your voice box? Very crude test (putting my hand in front of my mouth while saying ohm and trying to feel any breath and then trying to prevent any makes me want to say that singing while breathing in can be split into two different bodily functions.

I wonder if singing out while breathing in is different to circular breathing which I picture as the water tank scenario above /shrugs\

[Pitch Black]

From what I've learned about "circular breathing" from one didjeridoo lesson, I'm not sure you can apply it to vocals. As my didge teacher taught it, you gather a pouch of air in your cheek, kinda like a chipmunk, and by squeezing the air out of the cheek using only your cheek muscles, not the lungs, you can inhale at the same time. He had us taking a glass of water and holding some in the cheek then squirting it out as a practice exercise. Long story short, I'm not sure you could get any kind of vocal tone apart from Donald Duck using this method.

Sceptical...

[Rodeolio]

What I want to know is how Beardyman does the kinds of things he does in the first few minutes of this video. It sure sounds like he is doing some reverse breathing, or SOMETHING, but man, I'd like to know more. Anyone?

[rccdmn]

I studied singing with Voicecraft method, it doesn't relate with diaphragm or breathing tecniques, but with your lung, your tongue, and all the voluntary muscles of your phonetic apparatus. It really changed my life.... as singer.