Maximize Your Breath, Part 1: The Inhale - Breath Support for Singers | Madeleine Harvey | Skillshare
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Maximize Your Breath, Part 1: The Inhale - Breath Support for Singers

teacher avatar Madeleine Harvey, Vocal Coach

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Intro to the Inhale

      1:48

    • 2.

      The Breath is a Vacuum

      7:05

    • 3.

      Open "MAH" Exercise

      12:07

    • 4.

      Open "MAH" Practice

      5:38

    • 5.

      Let Go "MAH" Exercise

      15:32

    • 6.

      Let Go "MAH" Practice

      5:16

    • 7.

      Recommended Postures

      13:53

    • 8.

      Summary

      2:41

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About This Class

Do you struggle with catching your breath while singing songs? Are you gasping for air when you sing? Would you want to experience the kind of power that comes from having a good breath support?

In this voice lesson, we are going to relax the muscles that govern the breathing process. You'll gain greater access to a deeper, fuller, and more natural inhale. I recommend wearing loose fitting clothes so as not to constrict your diaphragm's natural movement.

Let's break down what you're going to learn:

  • The Breath is a Vacuum - Understand how your breath works like a vacuum and how you can restore your natural breathing.
    Key take away - Get out of the way of your breath.
  • Open "MAH" Exercise and Practice - Master the first part of the inhale process using the trigger word "open".
    Key take away - The more open your throat is, the more powerful your breath is.
  • Let Go "MAH" Exercise and Practice - Initiate the second part of the inhale process using the trigger word "let go".
    Key take away - Quick relaxation at the center of your body, pulls air in.
  • Recommended Postures - A few postures that help your body experience a deeper inhale.
    Key take away - Use these postures to connect your body even deeper to your breath.

I encourage you to follow this singing system as a system. The vocal exercises within these voice lessons are fairly simple to practice, but they're highly sophisticated muscle coordinations. Keep working until you feel that you have these singing exercises into your muscle memory. Once you've done that, feel free to move on or come back to these voice lessons and keep practicing and brushing up on your skill building.

Thank you so much for including me in your vocal journey. I'm so happy to be on this path with you. I look forward to singing with you.

Meet Your Teacher

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Madeleine Harvey

Vocal Coach

Teacher

Hi! I’m Madeleine Harvey, a voice teacher located in the Nashville, TN. On this SkillShare channel I post workshop intensive voice lessons, focused on singing techniques, songwriting tips, and performance best practices. Thanks so much for checking out this channel! I look forward to singing with you soon.

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Transcripts

1. Intro to the Inhale: Hi guys, I'm Madeline Harvey and welcome to maximize your breadth, part one, the inhale. So today's lesson is going to be awesome. We're going to continually use our powers of focus to go even deeper into our breathing process. We're going to work with targeted relaxation techniques to relax those muscles that govern the breathing process. This way you will have more access to a deeper, fuller, more relaxed inhale, which gives you the support that you will need for your singing. So I just want to encourage you to come to today's lesson. In relaxed attire, especially around that middle area. We don't want to be constricted by our clothing in the middle area, so we're comfortable loose fitting clothes. And I also want to encourage you to just relax and let all the belly hang loose. That will be the point of today's lesson. We're also going to be working with some postures and some gentle stretches. But if at any point that becomes too difficult for you, I just want to encourage you to drop out of that exercise, continued to observe, maybe take some notes, but joined back in when it feels a little bit more comfortable for you, okay? As we've said in our previous work together, it doesn't matter if you're a complete beginner or if you're an industry pro, I want to encourage you to come back to these lessons as often as you can until these foundational techniques become muscle memory. That way, all you need to do is just relax and enjoy your own voice because your technique will be working for you. Okay? You ready to get started? 2. The Breath is a Vacuum: Are we ready to get physical? Yeah, I'm really excited about this lesson. Matter of fact, teaching The inhale is one of my favorite voice lessons to teach simply because there's so much wonderful opportunity in it. Very few singers, very few singers are actually inhaling the way their bodies are designed to inhale. Partly because we have this confusion that the breadth is something that we have to control. Matter of fact, that's a popular phrase, breath control. So what we wanna do today is understand just how the breath actually works. It works like a vacuum or like a title. There's like an open and open up, open in, open out. So we don't want to get too involved in that. The body's response when we get to involved is actually to panic. We don't want to get too involved with that. We just want to learn what that's all about so that we have the tools to get out of the way and just reap all the rewards and the benefits from staying relaxed and staying open as we do that. But I want to talk a little bit deeper about this. You've probably done it yourself. I think all of us have. And you've definitely seen singers who do this very thing. They gasp. They, when they do their inhale, you'll see their shoulders rise like toast in a toaster pops up. Yeah. We see that a lot. And as a matter of fact, if you saw someone do that on the inhale, you know, for a fact that exhale is going to be identical. If I breathe in, then I'm going to say, it's like I've got to actually put my body under stress and strain and squeeze just to actually keep that breath. In. This lesson, maybe a little tricky because we want to gently become aware of our patterns and our tendencies without judgment. But we also want to learn that we want to guide our breathing and guide our voices back to their natural responsive, reflexive way of working. So repeat after me. The inhale is a vacuum. Go ahead. The inhale is a vacuum. What this actually means is that our only job is to get out of the way. And if we can get out of the way, the breadth will actually replace itself without any effort on our part. And to illustrate this, I have this handy-dandy visual aid. My husband uses this to get dust off of his camera lenses. Or you can get little buggies and the baby's nose is. But our breathing process works in exactly the same way. It's a vacuum. So we've got two parts to our inhale. The first part is this right here. So e.g. that is the throat on us humans. If the throat is blocked or it's not open, it doesn't matter how good we are at manipulating down here. If the throat is not open, the body is still going to have a panic response and we don't have that vacuum feeling. So what we need to do is just open the throat that we at least have access to that vacuum. Let's feel what this feels like immediately together. So go ahead and beyond for me. Good. Feel your throat gently, open. Gently, gently, gently, gently. Good. That is our trigger word and that's our sensation for it. We're going to say Open and we're going to take our time to feel that your unfeeling God. So let's try it together. We're going to do it three times. Ready? Open. Good, exhale. Open. Good, Exhale. Good. Good, good. Now, I just want to make one tiny tweak just in case you didn't feel it. And then we'll try it again. As you exhale. You feel that contraction of, oh, everything's going, going away. And then when you're ready for the inhale, you don't have to think to yourself, but you don't have to do that. All you have to do is open. So now that we've done that, let's try that three times. Go ahead, exhale until you feel like you're almost empty. Good, good, good, good as Gleevec, those abs. Good. Now open. Good. Belly, same exact as our turkey baster contraction. Good. Exhale again. Really feel that contraction good. Now open. Good, very, very good. One more time. Exhale. Really get it out there. Good, Open. Good, Very good. So you are restoring your body back to it's reflexive vacuum, kind of feeling. We want the breath to replace itself. That's so tricky on the inhale for a couple of reasons. One, we're riddled with tension or so tense or so tense. And to oftentimes, when we sing a song that inhale happens in a one count, so you get a quarter note of breath. So of course, people would feel stress to go through when they breathe. So we're going to take our time exploring this today and then we're going to speed it up a little bit so that we can create a solid breathing pattern that you can apply directly to songs. So now that we've talked about open, That's our first trigger word. The second I've exhaled. There goes all my all my air. How do I get the air back here? Well, our second trigger is just let go. Good. And if you let go that contraction, a full contraction of as created a vacuum. So when you relaxed, there goes all that air gets pulled back down in your body. So the relaxation sucks the air in as a vacuum and you do not have to work any harder than that right there, ladies and gentlemen. Now that we have an idea of how this breathing inhale process works, let's break it down. So let's start with our open. Are you ready? 3. Open "MAH" Exercise: Okay guys. So we're going to really master this first part of the inhale process. Our trigger word is open. That also describes the sensation we're going to feel. A sense of openness being opened up here is going to allow us to create that a vacuum effect. That where our breadth is immediately, it's there for us and ready when we need that nice open exhale. We're going to do this slowly. And then we're going to gradually speed it up. And then we're gonna put our inhale pattern into a quick breathing pattern that we're going to involve voice width. This is going to mimic or stimulate, I like that word. Stimulate the kind of the quick breadth that we will need in a song. So we want to be able to work up to that. Let's first just take a few breaths. And again, our trigger word is open. So as we exhale, we just want to see how open we can be on that throat. So as I'm exhaling, when I'm ready, relaxed my throat open. Good. And in order for me to stay relaxed, maybe I'd better do that slowly for now. So let's try it together. We're going to do that three times. Take your time, given some extra time for us to explore the space. So go ahead and exhale. When you're ready. Open. Exhale. Exhale. Hope. Good, very good, very good. So if you notice that for you, it takes you like account for two or three to just go. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Especially if your pattern is like that, do not want you to feel that at all today. But let's say that was a good pattern for you and you're ready to make it a little bit faster. So what we're gonna do is we want a tool, our inhale so that one count is all that does it because just like our visual aid here, I exhale, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, saying there goes my breath. And then one count. The breaths can replace itself on one count. So that way we can be in a nice, a nice prepared place for our next exhale, which is our next musical phrase. So we're gonna do this in one count. I'll give you a hint at how you can make this easier for yourself. Exhale to the point that you feel like you're doing crunches, like at the gym. You really want to feel that you've created that vacuum space by simply contracting those muscles like the place where you almost feel that your apps could touch your spine when you feel that contraction. Open to talk. Good. That happens very quickly. Very quickly. But if you're noticing that that's not you right now, that's okay. Take your time. I really want you to get this. So let's do our three inhales and let's see if we can get our open on one count. Okay. 33 inhale, exhale first. Really feel that contraction? Good when you're ready. Open. It's almost like surprise. Good, very fast, very fast, very good. Go ahead and exhale again. Deep, deep contracted exhale. Open. Good. Very quick. One more time. Let contraction. When you're ready. Open. Good. See you can see my belly acting and looking exactly like this. On that one count, that breadth has replaced itself relatively quickly. Go ahead. I'm hoping that everything is feeling really good for you. So now we're going to put this into a breathing pattern that we're going to put a voice into. I'm going to say a lot of words, but I'll demonstrate and then we'll do it together. Okay, so we're gonna go on middle C on a Mac. So it's just We're going to mall for seven hold counts, which you're going to see if your sweet self, that's not long at all. Especially when you get a good Inhale. That's not long at all. But on the count of eight, we're going to open, which resets that breadth mechanism. And then we're immediately going to go again for another seven on mom. And then on eight, open, the breath, gets vacuumed back in the body and then we will mark for another seven. So we're gonna do this for a total of three times. I want to encourage you do not get distracted by your voice or your sound. This lesson is not about sound, is less than is about inhale. So we're going to feel. I'll demonstrate first. Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool. And before we get going, I've seen this in less than sometimes and it's really peculiar. Very peculiar. And some people asked, how do I stop the sound? How do I stop this out? All you have to do is open your throat. When you open your throat, that mechanism is built into your body's responses. The courts, they open. And that's what creates that vacuum. Isn't that really cool? The vocal cords? Sorry. They open, the air, comes through them, they close. The exhale passes through that in the form of sound. So when you're on that count of eight, so let's say soon as I opened my throat, my chords, they swing open, stopping the sound, allowing that inhale to happen. And there we go. Bob's, your uncle, were ready to go for the next one. So it is gonna be this fast. If it gets hard. I can't stress enough. Pause the video, feel the pattern. Practice a couple of going a little slower if you need to, and then join back in. I don't want you to get stressed on something like this, but I do want to challenge you. So here we go. Exhale first. Ready? Good, very, very good. So hard, so hard. So we're just gonna do a handful of nodes like that. Each one gets three patterns of seven counts. Just we are demonstrating to our body that we're not trying to tell our bodies to breathe. Body already knows how to read. We're just saying open. That's it. Open. Not open and very because getting your body knows how to breathe. Here we go. Exhale first. Okay. Good. That happens pretty quick, doesn't it? Doesn't it? You notice how cool that sound is? It's open going in. It's going to stay open going out. Because that's nice and open and supported by the breath. You're good to go first. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Very good and very impressed with you guys. I just wanted to say we're just gonna do two more just to more as you're contemplating your exhale, just let that be, Would it be right now? Don't get distracted by your voice, by the quality of your voice. Although the power is excellent in wonderful, but really strive to focus on feeling that openness right here. That's all I want from you right now. If the sound comes out, oh, I'm okay with that. As long as you have a nice open inhale and a normal gentle exhale. Exhale. You feel what it feels like the air simply by opening your throat. Fantastic. Now, I'm really kinesthetic so I like to put my fingers where wherever I'm focusing on. So I would like I would usually put my hand like right here or to make like an open physical cue. That way my body kinda gets the sometimes we can just stop focusing and we need that reminder. Open, open feel as much natural openness as you can in your voice at that moment of open, initiate that vacuum response. That's all you have to do. Are you ready to try this on your own? 4. Open "MAH" Practice: Okay guys, I want to give you as much access to this exercise as possible. So we're going to begin this exercise a little lower. If it's too low for you, come back in when it feels more comfortable. So we'll start with the G and then we're gonna go all the way up to the G so we get a full octave of inhale practice before moving on to the next exercise. So as a reminder, really concentrate on exhaling first, create that contraction. And then when you're ready for that inhale, just embody. Open, open that throat. Here we go. Each one, count of seven. Open on Excel first. Open. Open. Open. That contraction. Ready? Open. Open. Open. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Elec contraction. Opening it through as much as you can. 0 000-000-0000. No. I did eight on the last one. Boy. Good, very, very, very, very good. The point of this exercise is to stay calm. Stay calm while you're measured against your inhale, you're just going to exhale normally for now. The exhale lesson is later. Today is all about that inhale. And right now we're hyper focusing to how open can I feel in my throat. Excellent job guys. 5. Let Go "MAH" Exercise: Okay guys, We have successfully done the first part of the inhale, so let's get our visual aid back here. We've got, we've prepared the way. We've opened up the throat so that vacuum feeling can be initiated and a deep responsive inhale can happen. Now, we're going to work on this secondary part. So if our trigger word up here was Open, exactly, our trigger word down here is going to be let go. My belly responded to it, just let go. Now that's so much easier said than done. So much easier said than done. Because I would say all of us, all of us have tension in our torsos. However, that presents for some people it could be like self-conscious tensions. Some people it could be nervous anxiety. For me. I did a lot of like ballet and gymnastics when I was really young. So my abs developed so early that it actually pushed my stomach organ to the side. So gross, I know could probably have spared that one for you. But it's very crucial because our abs and our ability to relax these big, big muscles, the abs is going to allow us to either successfully inhale or not. So I'll use a different visual aid. So these are gonna be my apps, right? So let's say if our abs are rock hard than the diaphragm which kind of rests on top of the APS, cannot lower when those lungs are ready to fill or they're filling up. It can't push down there, pushing against the abs which are not allowing for that release. When that release doesn't happen, the body then has panic response because the air is not going where it should as a vacuum so that we have to pull the breadth. And oftentimes this is why you see people when they get upset. There's a lot of, lot of energy kinda going on in their bellies in there like that because there's a lot of energy firing off nervous, anxious, excitable energy. And those apps are not letting that diaphragm lower. So it's really, really important that we first of all understand that being able to relax these really big muscles depends on our inhale, depends on it. Our inhale really depends on it. Just like you saw with the throat work that we just did with open, we had to exhale beforehand, right? We used our apps. We really felt that deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep contraction, right? And the one we already for the inhale, we just let go. Good. But let's say your abs don't want to let go. Then what can you do? This is what we're gonna do with the remainder of our lesson today. Because this is really, really hard, really, really hard physically to do, because we all have issues down here. So first thing I would like you to do is just stand with your feet about shoulder width apart. Doesn't need to be wider than shoulder width apart. We're just going to put our hands on our belly. Now, if your back is swaying like that, then you will have to tilt your hips forward. Let it feel like a little old lady on a walker. Hips will tell all the way in that way these bottom apps can get some relief. If the back is swayed, it looks great, though. It looks really great. But if the back is swayed now those bottom abs are unavailable because they're supporting the spine. So tilt the hips under, lift the chest up Ta-da. Now hands around your belly button and then just let your belly turned to water. Take your time. You may need a good minute just to even feel. Feel with this feels like let your belly turned to water and your hands. Relaxing. Very comforting. Good. Now go ahead and exhale. Feel that those those abs lifting that diaphragm, the body is getting skinny again, good. Keep exhaling till you feel that massive amount of contraction. When you're ready for the breath, Take your time. Our trigger word is let go, just let go. Good. Feel that returned that big bag of water. Excellent. Let's try that again. Exhale. Keep exhaling till you feel there is a point of tension on that contraction. Feel that point as a button, then just let go. Very good, Very good. Now this is not fat at all. This is the diaphragm gently pushing down and out your organs. Because two objects cannot occupy the same space. So we have to add muscles are huge. They're huge. They normally carry a lot of tension in them. So just take some time to feel like what would it feel like if you just let go right in your belly? Your lungs? Depend on it. So now let's do this. Let's see if we can. We're going to keep it kind of slowly. Slowly, but we're going to your breathing pattern of seven, breathe on a slower breathing pattern down a little bag of water in your hands. Exhale. We're not going to sing. Like contraction point. Good. Go. Exhale. 123467. Good, Take a moment. Let go. 1234567. Heck moment. Let go. 1234567. Good. Just really tuning in to just take a second. Don't try to make anything happen. And just let go and take your time with feeling that feeling of let go. If you need a moment to feel those abs, take their time and release. I want to encourage you to stop the video now and practice with that for a day or two and then come back because now we're gonna do it a little faster. Okay. Keep your hands on your belly. Bag of water. Let your Oregon's just relaxed down and good. Very good. Now, exhale. We're looking for that one count. When you're ready, just let go and feel one cow exhale. Get my visual aid. Let's go. Exhale. Let go. Exhale. Ready. Let's go. Excellent. Very good, Very, very good. Now, I know no way for us to do two things at once. But once you get both of these sinks in, you'll feel the work, the work of sync. And there'll be glorious and wonderful and just like our little turkey baster visual aid. So now, same exercise that we did before. We're gonna go a little slower because these muscles are bigger, this response can happen pretty quickly, but this response happens a little slower for a lot of people. So I want to set you up for success. So we're gonna go a little slower. Let's do our three are three cycles of seven counts on, starting on this G. Exhale first. Go. Ah, ah, Good, good, Really easy, isn't it? Exhale. Feel that contraction. Set yourself up for the maximum amount of vacuum effect. Let go. Lego. Lego Logo. Sounds like Lego. Lego. Lego. Let go. Good. Just feeling that that can be a relative, relatively quicker response. If you also find that you're going. That's really weird. But it's normal. But it's normal because you have this new response competing with this old behavior. So if you feel like there's movement happening, but that doesn't feel like the same amount of air that you're used to. So you feel like you've got to go on top of it. Don't do that. Don't do that. Now I'll tell you why. When you relax and you see that bag of water belly, your lungs have just filled up. They just filled up. It doesn't need to be this big crazy thing. Your breath follows that sense of relaxation. Visual aid. Yes, we contract. And then we relax. That breadth follows that feeling of relaxation all the way down to the lungs. Keep it very simple for yourself. Try not to breathe on top of that. I know how tricky this is and I know how hard it is to put it into practice. So go easy on yourself. Just let go. That's all you have to do. We can exhale. Good, very good. Lego lego Logo. Lego. Lego. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let go. Let contraction syndrome. Most point. Let go. Let go. Let go. Exhale. Don't get distracted with your voice, just exhale normally. Last one. Very good. Our objective is to create that quick breathing pattern where it's open in. You can stay open out and we're tuned in with that vacuum effect. You ready to try this on your own? 6. Let Go "MAH" Practice: Okay, Here we go guys, remember to keep your belly feeling like a bag of water. Take your time to really feel what it feels like to let go when you're ready for that inhale starting here. Now. Go that deep contraction. Ready? Go. Deep, deep, deep contraction. Feel your abs all the way to almost like they could touch her spine. Contract. Let go. In tracking jack the jack. When you're doing great. 7. Recommended Postures: All right, Good job guys. I'm so proud of the progress that you're making so far. Remember to go easy with yourself. Concentrate primarily on the sensation of each aspect. Open. Go slow. What does that feel like? Let go. Go slow. What does that? So for the remainder of our lesson today, I'm going to walk you through three postures that you can do to help explore, continue that exploration work of deep inner relaxation in the torso. We're so not accustomed to doing this. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you some postures that I love to use. And you can apply these postures to any one of the exercises that we did today, the piano version of that exercise. You can also apply them directly to songs. So you can put your body in these postures to help encourage that deep inhale work as you work with songs, as you transfer your work to songs. Our first stretch, oh, and I just want to say this first. If any of these stretches feel uncomfortable for you, I will give you a slight modification to make it a little bit more comfortable. But if that doesn't work, either, just watch and jump into the next possible stretch for you. We don't want to force anybody to do anything that it's not ready to do. Our first stretch. We're going to talk those hips and remember that we want to keep those lower abs nice and relaxed. They cannot relax if the body is swayed, if the spine is swayed like that, these lower abs can't relax and we actually can't get a full breath. Tilt those hips em little lady on old Walker. On old walker. It could be a new walker, but lady on a walker, lift your chest, stand up nice and proud, nice and good. Now, bag of water for your belly. Take your hands, put them behind you, interlace your fingers. Good. Now you're going to energy. Energy, energy goes down the body. You can see that chest pop out. Good. Now we're basically lengthening the shoulder muscles, giving them something else to do. They can't they can't contract and constrict, which is what makes those shoulders pop up. So energy is going down. You're just going to feel bag of water back in your belly. Take a moment to feel that. Good. Now, exhale. Now when you're ready, let go. Very nice, Very nice. I just want to add this because I know this is a really common adjustment for people's bodies to make sure that you're, again, you're not swayed back like this. You feeling the length in your shoulders but your hips are continually talked inward. Okay. Go ahead and relax head again. When you're ready, let go. Very good. So let's try our mom on middle C. Three cycles, seven counts, couch. Each cycle. Here we go. Exhale first. Lego. Logo. Lego. Very, very, very good. Now this is a good posture for you. If you notice you've got some really stingy shoulders and they want to keep pulling upward. This gives those muscles something else to do so they can't interfere with this. Now the modification for this is go ahead and hug yourself, but wrap your hands around your shoulders. Same thing. Tucks hips, the hips in, lift the chest. You're going to just lean forward ever so slightly, ever so slightly. Keep that back nice and straight. Good. Relax your belly bag of water. Exhale. Let go. Exhale. Let's go. Good one more time. Now let's try that on our middle C. For three cycles, seven counts each cycle. Next we'll go good. And really, I really like both of those postures. I like both of those postures. Now this next posture doesn't really need a modification. And it's just like basically like a huddle. You're gonna make a little huddle like you're like listening. Or you're, maybe you're playing some flag football or something. But your feet are gonna be slightly wider than shoulder width apart. Hips are always tucked in. Chest is lifted up, back is nice and straight. You don't want to be at the club. Okay? So back is nice and straight. We really need these lower abs to be able to be responsive so they have to be relaxed. What's going to help you in this exercise? Gravity. Gravity is gonna be so much, it's gonna give you so much assistance. So with a straight back, it's like you're going to slide your body down a wall and then we're just going to lift fault or hinge forward. At, at the hips. You can put your hands on your thighs if you'd like. But you want to feel that most of the work is being done by gravity, pulling that belly down. This will also let you take that feeling of relaxation even deeper into the lower back. Now, it's okay if you don't feel that right away, but you will tune into it relatively quickly. So straight back. There you go. Good. Bag of water. Relax your belly. Good. Exhale. When you're ready, let go but feel gravity pulling. Good. Exhale. Let go. Off your hello there. One more time. Let go. Good. Now let's do our middle C. Feel gravity, let go. Ah, yeah. I love that one. I always noticed that when I just lean forward and just feel gravity pulling, my voice feels the experience of my voices that have feels deeper, it feels fuller. And I don't have to work harder to create that sensation. I'm just kinda getting out of the way and letting those vibrations in that breadth do their thing. So our last stretch is a little uncomfortable, so I will give you a modification for it, but I'm going to describe it for you. Notice how, as we've worked with these three postures, we started at what the tendency is up here, right? If you felt that we had to give those muscles something else to do. So as we did our huddle, our lunge forward, we were able to tune into how it felt in the lower back and also feeling gravity. So this next posture is one of my favorites and I will, if I'm practicing and I'm doing a song that's particularly guilty, I will actually hold this posture while I'm working on the song. The targeted area for this posture is the interior muscles, the fascia, the big sheets of muscle that can also be very tight. So we're going to use a powerful application of imagination as well. I'm going to describe it for you first because it is a little uncomfortable and then we'll do it together. So just my dress here. It's like we're going to reach up. Our hands are together, but they're up. And then we're going to actually pull upward as if we're hanging from like monkey bars or something. And then we're going to feel as if our belly gets or we get cut in half and all our organs fall to the floor. Major, major low muscle relaxation. Really, really awesome. So I'm going to exhale, feel that contraction when I'm ready, I'm going to let go. Big belly, good, Exhale. And then I'll put my arms down. Now, you don't want to force none of this is about pushing that belly out. It's about relaxing and just letting those muscles immediately relax, go, go relaxed to go so deeply relaxed. We, I love this exercise because again, that fascia, those anterior muscles of interior tensions are really hard to relax, especially if we don't know they're there. So if we can imagine that were hanging from something that our torso gets cut in half and it's like a Oregon just fall to the ground. We're tapping into the influence of gravity. Yet. Again. If this exercise, if you just already know, this is gonna be uncomfortable for me, the modification is grab your elbows, but then like lift your shoulders. We are being pulled upward. There's active energy pulling upward. This is also going to open your back and open your ribcage, giving more expansion in the lungs. Okay. We'll do both of them together. So don't worry, we're gonna go with the reach up first. Let's try it together. Arms reach up, nice and tall. Hands together. Pull up like you're hanging from something good. Bag of water, your belly. Good Exhale. And imagine you get cut in half. Let go. Yeah. Good. One more time. Exhale. Let go. Good. Exhale. Let go. Good. Very good. And relaxed. Put your hands down. Restore the blood flow to your arms. We're going to try it with our more cycles. 477 counts three cycles. There's our note. Go ahead and reach up again. Lift bag of water. Good. Exhale. Ready? Let go. Ah, ah, go ahead and relax. Restore that blood flow. Love, love, love that stretch. I just feel the muscles around my hips and my lower abs. They relax a little deeper. It's good. Now let's try the modification. Arms up, elbows. Lift up your hair. Good. Relax the belly bag of water. Exhale. Let go. Let go. Look. Good for your ear. There's our middle C. Go arms up. Relaxed, the belly. Exhale. Here we go. Ah, good and relax and relax. You can feel free to do more than three cycles. Also, feel free to make more counts if you want, if you want to double the time and go to instead of seven, go to 15 and breathe on 16. I really strongly encourage that to that way we build up some endurance. So those are our postures. That's how we can take the experience of the breadth so much more deeper by relaxing shoulders, relaxing back and ribcage, and then going further deeper into that fascia and into those lower ab, muscles. So there we have it guys. Let's go ahead and recap what we learned today. 8. Summary: Congratulations guys. You did it, refocused. You showed up. And hopefully you learned a lot about how to tap into your most authentic, amazing vocal power through the inhale. So there's a couple of things I just want to reiterate that we learned today. Your inhale is a vacuum. So our primary work is getting out of the way. Now we're not distorting or contouring anything. We're just using relaxation to gently stay out of the way. So we've got two components to this. We've got the open of the throat. Spend a couple of seconds before you begin your vocal work with gently exploring that sensation. Just keep that sensation is active in your focus as you possibly can. This will demonstrate to your body what you want it to do when you actively sing. Same thing is true with let go. That one's a little bit trickier because it's really hard for us to be able to relax. But as you begin to build that dexterity with those diaphragmatic muscles, spend a couple of seconds doing the same thing. Just exhale, relax, let go. The more you can do this slowly and feel the full extent of that relaxation, then you can do it quicker and quicker and quicker developing a breathing pattern you can immediately apply to your song work. Also feel free to use any one of these postures. If you're focusing on some work and you're not quite sure what your breath is up to. Put yourself in one of these, put yourself in one of these postures and sing as you normally would. This really allows your body to not rely on those restrictive behaviors with the inhale, but instead to go straight to that lower abdominal release work. So as I've said before, it doesn't matter if you're a complete beginner or if you're an industry pro, come back to this video as often as you need to. You'll get something new each time. And we want to make sure that these foundational habits, our total muscle memory. So comeback as often as you need to there, here as a resource for you in your learning. If you're feeling all firstly, and you want to share some of your work demonstrating what you've learned today. Be sure to leave a link of you singing in the forum below. And always you can reach out to me with any direct questions that you have. Thank you so much for including NINR vocal journey. I'm so happy to be here for you guys and I will see you again for part two, the exhale.