How to learn to sing correctly? Advice from vocalist Elizaveta Bokova

For people just starting to sing, if they have never practiced vocals, professional teachers give one important piece of advice: to learn to sing correctly, you need to learn to breathe correctly. When life is not connected with singing or acting, we do not pay any attention to our own breathing, and therefore the advice comes as some surprise.

However, it passes quickly, you just have to hold out one note for a long time, located, for comfort, approximately in the middle of the vocal range. The air from the lungs quickly runs out, and the soloist is forced to “take” his breath, that is, inhale in order to continue the sound. But a performance is not a warm-up, the voice must sound smooth and beautiful, and for this the breathing must be long. Video lessons by Elizaveta Bokova will tell you how to learn to sing correctly.

You can watch this amazing post right now or read about what’s to come first:

What is the diaphragm and how does it help a singer?

Taking a deep breath into your chest and singing loudly is for those who have never had to sing for a long time (professionals sing for hours – literally all day). In fact, the air is not drawn into the chest at all, but “into the stomach.” You didn’t know this? You can consider that one of the main secrets has been revealed to you! Our diaphragm helps us regulate and consciously hold our breath.

A short excursion into medicine. The diaphragm is a thin but very strong membrane muscle that is located between the lungs and the digestive tract. The strength of sound delivery to natural resonators – chest and head – depends on this organ. In addition, the active work of the diaphragm has an overall positive effect on the human body.

Breathing exercises according to Strelnikova

In order to develop and train the diaphragm, the author of the video lesson uses some of the exercises of the famous vocalist Alexandra Strelnikova, who proposed a unique technique not only for those who want to know how to learn to sing correctly, but also to cure various diseases. One of them, simple and effective, is done like this:

• exhale completely through the mouth;
• place your palm on the diaphragm to control breathing;
• We begin to rhythmically draw in and relax the stomach from 5 to 10 times, without inhaling air;
• We try to gradually increase the exercise time to 30-50 seconds.

Help you learn long breathing… Hands!

In addition to this technique, other exercises generally accepted for teaching vocals are used. For example, to learn to feel the diaphragm by holding a quiet whistling or buzzing consonant sound for a long time. The main difficulty is that it be very even and as long as possible.

The third exercise is as follows: take a breath and begin to draw out any vowel sound (for example, uuuu or iiii). At the same time, you need to help yourself sing… with your hands! This is an associative method. You need to place your hands in such a way as if the volume of your breathing is concentrated between them. Another association is as if you are holding a thread by the ends and stretching it, and it stretches completely calmly and smoothly.

What else will help you learn to sing correctly?

In addition to developing vocal strength and health benefits, proper breathing with the diaphragm helps preserve the health of the vocal cords. The sound finds powerful support in it and works at full strength, without overloading the latter and without forcing them to work for “two”. However, diction and open, clear pronunciation of sounds, especially vowels, play an important role in singing.

Watching singing professionals allows you to notice how they open their mouths wide and produce their voices and sounds. Their eyebrows are raised, their facial muscles are stretched – there is a so-called “vocal mask” on the face, which helps to raise the palate and get a strong, beautiful sound.

You can learn other secrets of beautiful and professional singing from the rest of the vocal lessons, which are suitable for any male and female voices. You can get these lessons by clicking on this banner:

Summarizing what has been said, we can confidently say that without proper breathing, a singer will not be able to sing for a long time (and singing should be easy and pleasant), and breathing is the basic skill in mastering the difficult art of vocals.

In conclusion, we invite you to watch another video lesson on vocals by the same author. The essence and topic are the same – how to learn to sing correctly, but the approach is a little different. If you didn’t understand something the first time, then it’s time to get acquainted with the repeated explanation: