One of the first things you’ll hear when you start researching how to sing is going to be breathing from your diaphragm.
But what does that mean? And why do you have to breathe this way to sing well?
Don’t worry; by the time you’re finished reading this page, you’ll know exactly what all these singing gurus are talking about and why they care so much about breathing this way.
I made a video about this exact trick, but for those of you who like to read rather than watch, this blog on the exact same things I talk about in the video.
So let’s get started!
Why do you need to breathe from your diaphragm to sing better?
Well, in all essence, your breath is the #1 most important factor in singing.
Why?
Because breathing out air is literally singing.
You cannot sing without breathing out, and your exhale, shaped in special ways (singing vowels), is what allows people to sing in a way that’s very pleasing to the ear.
So, your breath is mightily important.
When we breathe in and out like normal, for simply breathing to survive or speaking, we aren’t taking in enough air to sing. We take in enough to survive, and to speak, but not enough to sing. When we speak, our words aren’t held like a belted note in a song or elongated, for example, like in the first few words in the Star Spangled Banner. It would take you about two seconds to speak “Oh, say can you see,” but it takes between five and ten seconds to sing it. We hold the words longer when we sing. That’s one reason why we need more air than we normally take in.
The other reason is so that you have support. When singers or singing teachers talk about a “supported” voice, or proper breath support, they’re talking about the breath. They’re referring to having enough air to, well, literally support the notes you sing. Think of it like dragging a bunch of items along the ground. If you put a tissue beneath them, it’ll rip and the items will go everywhere and scatter. But if you put a nice thick blanket beneath them, it’s strong enough to keep them where they’re supposed to be for a long time. Think of normal breathing from your lungs as support like the tissue, and breathing from your diaphragm as support like the thick blanket. If you don’t have enough air when you sing, your exhale doesn’t have a lot to work with, and when you try to sing, there’s not enough air to both sustain the notes you sing, or allow them to come out clearly. When there’s not enough air, it doesn’t pass through your vocal cords in the right way to form the sounds you want. That can make you go off pitch or throw off the tone of your voice, and tone is the really crystal clear sound you want to make.
Bottom line is, if you want to learn to sing well, breathing from your diaphragm is the way to start. The best part is that it isn’t hard and doesn’t take too much practice to become second nature. But no singer gets by without learning to breathe from their diaphragm, and when you learn to do it too, you’ll see why.
How do you breathe from your diaphragm?
You already know how!
You just don't know you know.
First, I’ll quickly explain what the heck the diaphragm is.
Your diaphragm is a muscle in your torso, beneath your ribs. Imagine it as being horizontal. You can feel it right now. When you inhale, notice that something below your ribs moves down. That’s your diaphragm. It moves down to give you room for your lungs to expand with air. As you breathe out, your diaphragm moves back up, helping push the air back out of your body. And this repeats, your whole life.
When people say to “breathe from your diaphragm,” that makes it sound like you’re breathing from a completely different place. The term “breathing from your diaphragm” is huge and a very common thing to hear in singing, but I find it very misleading. What we’re doing is really just breathing lower than normal. So, continue breathing from your diaphragm. Just, well, do it more.
When you breathe normally, your diaphragm only moves down a few inches—just a couple. It’s a very small movement. But that’s okay; we don’t need a ton of air to simply breathe or to speak. But when we sing, we need a lot more air to work with. What we’re going to do is allow the diaphragm to move further down than it usually does, so that we can allow our lungs to fill with a lot more air. You’ll quickly notice just how much air fits into your lungs and how little of that space you utilize in daily life.
Remember when I said you already know how to breathe lower than normal?
You do!
Everyone naturally breathes from their diaphragm (deeper and lower) while laying down on their backs.
Try it!
First, lay down on a couch, bed or even your floor.
The number one way to tell if you’re breathing from your diaphragm instead of your lungs is to notice that your stomach moves out when you breathe, your chest doesn’t, and your shoulders stay put. When you breathe from your lungs (like normal) your chest and shoulders rise. When you sing, your chest and shoulders should not rise (though everything is connected; you will see them move, but a tiny fraction of the amount they used to). When you sing, the movement you should make when you breathe is for your stomach to expand forward with your air. This is showing you that your diaphragm has moved far down enough to get a nice, low breath.
Put your hands on your stomach, and notice that, while laying down, your stomach moves outward. Your chest and shoulders do not. And this happens naturally.
But notice when you sit or stand back up, you’re back to breathing from your lungs and your chest and shoulders rise again.
Why?
Gravity! For whatever reason (I’m no scientist here) you always breathe up and down, so, toward the sky and back toward the ground. So when you sit or stand up, you breathe with your chest and shoulders rising to the sky. When you lay down, your stomach raises to the sky. I’ve no idea why, but if you were wondering, there’s the general answer. (If you're a scientist and you know why, please leave a comment letting me know why!)
But now, the big question: how do you train yourself to breathe from your diaphragm while sitting up or standing up?
There are a million tricks people have invented to teach you to do this, but nothing I ever saw helped me. I tried everything on the internet, but still, I really struggled with being able to breathe this way sitting or standing up.
So, one night, I invented my own trick, and I can 100% guarantee to you that it’s a foolproof method to teach you how to do this yourself.
My Foolproof Exercise for Breathing with Your Diaphragm
Step 1 - Lie on your back, preferably on the floor.
Step 2 - Notice that you’re breathing from your stomach, not your chest.
Step 3 - Lift your chest and torso up about an inch off the ground, propping yourself up on your elbows to stay there. Notice that you’re still breathing from your stomach.
Step 4 - Lift yourself up another inch. Notice that you’re still breathing from your stomach.
Step 5 - Lift yourself up until you hit the point where you switch to breathing from your lungs. Notice this.
Step 6 - Try to force yourself to breathe from your stomach instead. If this is hard, go back down an inch, see how it feels again to breathe from your stomach. Then raise yourself up and make yourself breathe into your stomach instead. Do not leave this step until you can do this.
Step 7 - Keep lifting yourself up inch by inch, repeating step 6 at each new level until you reach an upright sitting position.
This was a trick I made up one night after getting frustrated with the though, “I can do this laying down, why can’t I do it sitting up?” I wondered when the switch happened, from diaphragm to lungs, and I found it about halfway up. I made myself breathe from my stomach instead, and then made it to standing and breathing from my diaphragm.
Note: this took me several weeks to be able to do this upright. It took even longer for it to become second nature, where I could do it without thinking about it. Don’t get discouraged if this takes a while; this is something very new to you! Give your muscles a chance to learn a new habit. Habits naturally take 2-3 months to become new habits, so it’s only natural this will take a while. Don’t give up!
This is the first step in getting the singing voice you want, and are capable of. Give yourself time to learn this—it’s a brand new habit that you’ve never done before. You’ll get it! Trust the process and yourself, and as always, happy singing!
Leave any questions or comments below, and if you need any more help, I offer online voice lessons over here!
Happy Singing!
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