Before we move on to the topic of breath management and support I have a few last words of wisdom to share with you about breath intake.
Before I share those words, I must again give credit where credit is due.
I was very fortunate to have studied with Barbara Honn at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music for three of the most pivotal, life-changing years of my life. These last little nuggets of truth that I will share regarding breath intake were largely shaped during those years, under her watchful ear and loving guidance. (Literally under her watchful ear…she had commissioned a piece of art that hung in her studio of a mouse with ginormous ears that used to hang just above her head as she sat at her piano and taught, I’ll never forget the image!)
During breath intake, your primary goal is the intake of air, a secondary and equally as important goal is to use that step to open up your backspace. The breath intake is one of the only times we have complete control of opening the back pharyngeal space and lifting the palate. This step is essential because once phonation starts the vocal tract is a servant to the vowel being sung. As Richard Miller says, “setting up the ‘gola aperta’ (open throat) helps the singer achieve a position of the resonators that feels open without any unnecessary tension.”
One of the other things Barbara used to say that stuck with me was, “Dina, you need to make a reservation for your high notes before you sing them!” Then she would go on to explain that, prior to singing, (during the breath intake) I needed to make sure I was creating the space necessary to sing that higher passage. This was an absolute pivotal concept for me. One day I was struggling to add depth to my tone and felt like there was a glass ceiling over my voice in regard to my higher range, the next day I was singing with a beautiful chiaroscuro, balanced tone and my high notes were a breeze! Literally!
This last nugget of truth will take us right into breath management. Barbara would repeatedly tell me that the breath intake was the release of the tone. “Breath is not a preparation Dina, it’s a release…” I’d be rich if I had a dollar for every time she said that to me. This concept takes a while to master and is fairly advanced but the pay-offs are huge! Once I mastered this I was able to rid myself of a lot of extra muscle involvement that was stealing beauty from my tone. As I’m working this concept with my singers I have them do a lot of gesturing during the intake that physicalizes a release of the tone rather than a gearing up for the next phrase. The concept is impactful and the results are impressive!
Okay, we have the correct breath intake and a nice open throat, now what? One of my teachers (I can’t remember which one or I’d credit them) used to say “it’s not how much air you get in, it’s what you do with it once you’ve got it.” Join me next week as we head down the road to managing that breath now that we have mastered the correct breath intake!
(original posting: October 7, 2013)
Anna Dembska says
Carla Strandberg says
Evelyn Hazzard says