Quality and Quantity

Hopefully (and all being well) when we are born we take our first breath. Most of us start our breathing journey when the capillaries of our lungs are filled with blood and they kick into action to expel any remaining amniotic fluids or mucus. It’s also been quite a traumatic time being expelled from the warm, safe environment of our mothers, where we’ve had all the nourishment supplied via the placenta and umbilical cord. So begins the process of learning a massive new coordination; how to breath and swallow. Once we’ve got the hang of that and had our fill of food, eventually we feel a discomfort in our awakening body and, by crying, begin a different pattern of breathing and squeezing. Then, lo and behold, the uncomfortable pressure has dissipated and our first bowel movement has successfully been accomplished. All of this due to the amazing feat of breathing. From there on in that’s pretty much it, we leave breathing to “nature”.

Some might say we all breathe naturally and that our bodies know how to breathe, so why interfere? If that’s truly the case and we all breathe “naturally “ then why is it estimated that over fifty percent of the world’s population don’t breathe through their nose?

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and asthma are prevalent in the world. Under developed jaws and small mouths caused by mouth breathing from a young age as well as diet can lead to other respiratory problems such as apnoeas, etc.

The undeniable effects of smoking, diet and air quality are the main factors that world health organisations deem responsible. A plethora of drugs are available and prescribed for many respiratory system illnesses. Operations are offered to snorers and sufferers of sleep apnoea. And yet, no mainstream Western medical facility prescribes learning how to breathe and very few advocate the various methods available to do so, even though some of them have been around for millennia. Some of the medically trained people I’ve spoken to, listened to or read state that some of what is being taught by powerful faculties and institutions that teach Western medicine is out of date, out of touch or just plain wrong.

Lots of us over breathe, some under breathe; quite a lot have various techniques for singing then forget about these when they’re not singing and some obsess about their breathing technique all the time (except when they’re sleeping or distracted). The numerous ways and taught techniques for breathing are simply astounding. And yet, rather than using these techniques and methods for training their awareness or self exploration, they begin to create a pattern of breathing or a habit of how they think they should breathe to perform. Until we are faced with illness, injury or some other debilitation, few of us ask ourselves the question: is the way I am breathing entirely serving me and what I want to achieve?

The other question might be: how would I know?

Yoga anatomist and founder of The Breath Project Leslie Kaminoff tells us that when it comes to breathing patterns: “One of the first things to get free from is the idea that there is a “right” way […or a wrong way to breathe]. It doesn't matter what pattern you're stuck in, the problem is being stuck!”

I ended up with two inguinal hernias due to being stuck in a habitual engagement of forceful breathing in a “Valsava manoeuvre” type of singing. I’m not the only singer to have had a hernia or two, but some of them refuse to believe that their breathing had anything to do with it…!

I see many singers who have become attached mentally as well as physically to the way they breathe: “This is the way my teacher taught me to breathe. It must be right!” Or “Caruso breathed this way!” Or “Sutherland breathed that way!” And so on.

This is the elephant in the room when it comes to a discussion amongst singers with opinions on how to breathe and how to sing. We are all individuals and the somatic sensation of one person doesn’t always translate well to another without trial and error, self enquiry and the enquiry of the teacher, “ How does it feel?”.

(I have another piece on the way that expands on the difficulty of articulating how one person feels physically and imparting that information to someone else, or “the semantics of the somatic”, and how advocating self enquiry when teaching a technique can be a key part of singing and breathing education).

I despair when I catch a mainstream media article about singers (or wind players) who have trained their breathing and therefore breathe really well - some articles go so far to say that singers never snore! This sadly just isn’t the case and how someone breathes when they’re not singing is also vitally important to their health, as well as how efficiently they breathe when they are singing. Before I started this work I was a snorer as well as having bruxism (grinding my teeth). What is sadly true is that singers (and wind players) can suffer from all kinds of respiratory related problems and illnesses just like everyone else due to the quality of their habitual breathing.

What do I mean by quality of breathing? Do you feel like your breathing is sufficient enough and efficient enough for your needs? Are you kinaesthetically aware enough to know what your body is capable of telling you? What sort of breathing promotes or prevents free movement, does your vocal system react to in a good way or a bad way to a particular inhalation? What happens if you breathe like a free diver through an aria, or like a gymnast before singing an art song?

We don’t breathe the same way when lifting weights as we do if we’re running, nor breathe the same way walking quietly as we do when walking and talking, or acting and singing. We don’t all breathe in exactly the same way. Especially as we are all people with a complex psychosomatic makeup and an individual life experience that impacts our physical development. We are a whole in the way we affect our breath, from the way that we look at the world to how we walk, talk and behave as a human being both physically and psychologically.

Breathing through your nose is with no doubt the healthiest breathing habit we can form. It is, after all, designed for the job. The nose, and all its sinus areas, warm, filter, turbinate, regulate, stimulate and create the ideal conditions for the air we take in from the outside into our bodies before releasing the altered gases back into the world’s vast reservoir.

When we’re singing, breathing through our noses isn’t always viable nor practical. And not all mouth breathing is “wrong”. We rely on a pretty high turnaround of breath line by line and phrase by phrase, and the dichotomy is that if we think about it too much we will invariably get in our own way. That’s where the self enquiry in our practise and rehearsals comes in. (See my article “The Zone - A Conscious Choice?”).

To state the obvious - we’re not singing all the time! Those times when we’re not performing, rehearsing or practising etc. are just as important for our vocal health as much as the corporeal, psychological, spiritual or energetic aspects of our health. Patrick McKeown is one of the leading breath experts in the world and his company ‘Oxygen Advantage’ are pioneers in teaching high level athletes. He says, “How you breathe during physical exercise is going to be influenced by how you breathe during wakefulness and of course during sleep.” A key factor for we singers and vocal performers is that how you breathe when you’re not performing impacts directly on your breathing when you want to perform.

Thank you

Darren

PS - I’m sure that some of you will have read James Nestor’s amazingly researched book “Breath: The new science of a lost art.” If you haven’t, then go borrow or buy a copy!