In my last article we were working with you on the floor. I labeled these preparatory exercises "floor work." They are, as I said, basic exercises designed to invrease your breathing capacity so that, eventually, you will have full breathing capacity at your command when you are singing vocal exercises and, ultimately, when you are performing. They are two of the many exercises which you can do. Before we discuss any new ones, however, let us review quickly the information I covered last month.

The process of lying on the floor on your back, ver still and calm, was the first exercise we did. I asked you to lie there and simply observe what was happening while your body breathed involuntarily. As you obvserved your own breathing capacity, you found (if your breathing was correct) that your abdomen expanded and the expansion stretched all the way around your back and all the way down to your pelvis. If you did not see much movement, then I said to put about 5 to 10 lbs. of pressure on your abdomen using weights or books. After your muscles have worked against this weight for a while (a few minutes is usually sufficient) I told you to remove the weight and observe how freely your abdomen moved then. We repeated this same procedure with you lying on your stomach. In this way we could attain an increased breathing expansion in your back as well.

Now that you are on the floor on your stomach, stay there and let's begin another exercise. But first, let me explain something about breath velocity. I am sure that some of you have never heard that term. Many of you have heard a lot these days about coardiovascular endurance because of the increased interest in exercise and self-improvement, through such sports as running and jogging. One of the main things that running does is to increase the amount of oxygen which curculates through your body. Now what does that have to do with lying on the floor and what is breath velocity?

Your breathing capacity, which is greatly enhanced by such vigorous activity such as running, can also be increased by lying on the floor and working with the air as it leaves your body. The speed at which breath leaves your body is called breath velocity. During the phonation process and even more so during singing, you have a certain amount of air leaving the body and a certain amount of air held back. Your larynx, which actually acts as a valve during this process, is what will regulate the balance between the two. Air held back is called breath compression. The vibration and muscular tension which your larynx exhibits during phonation is called laryngeal resistance and the amount of air which is realeased at a certain speed is called breath velocity. Breath velocity is always connected to resistance and compression but the main focus of the following exercise emphasizes velocity.

In a whisper, with one arm above your head, your head turned to the most comfortable side, and one arm down by your side, count until you run out of breath. Now let's say you count up to 20 or 15 or even 10 or even 32. It will be different for each person. Whatever number you get up to is your starting point. The rate (or tempo) at which you say the numbers, varies greatly from person to person and there is no right or wrong. Count at whatever pace you feel is comfortable and don't stop until you have no breath left at all.

Next, do it again but this time make a determined effort to pass your first number. For example, if your first number was 24, then the second time try to get to 30, or even 31 or 32. Let us say that the first time you counted to 24. The next time you counted to 31. Do it again and again until you reach a number which you cannot pass. If you do this count in a whisper and find that your can't seem to pass the number 46, then that is your number. You must aim during this exercise for that number from then on and still try every time to pass it. This increases your breath velocity. And for the singer, breath velocity means volume and strength.

Now, while you have been lying on the floor counting in a whisper (and I do mean whisper) your body has been regulating air. You began this exercise and you reached the number 24. The next time you reached the number 31. Then finally you seemed to be able to get to 46, but not much further. How is it that your body was able, without any obvious instruction, to change and regulate the air so that you could count more numbers and run out of breath later in only three tries?

This happens because your body is capable of enormous amounts of adjustment which, as a speaking adult, you experience on a daily basis every time you talk. All your sentences vary in length from one to another and yet your body seems to know just how much air you need, whether the sentence has four words or fourteen. Well, that process began as an infant with one or two syllables, which ten became one or two words and which eventaully developed into sentences and even paragraphs.

For a singer, this process begins by learning to sing correctly one pitch, then two, then three note phrases, scales, etc. You learn to breathe for singing as you sing. As in the whispered counting, you the body give the body a task, allow it to perform and regulate the air to accommodate that task until it is an easy process. Then you increase the task and give it something harder to do, then continue making demands upon your instrument which allows the instrument to develop. After you can sing an enitre phrase in one breath comfortably, then you must go for two phrases in one breath, then three, until you have stretched yourself to your limits. Your breath velocity will greatly increase by repeating the whispered counting. That will increase the amount of volume you can achieve and also greatly enhance your control of phrasing and coloring and dramatic interpretation and delivery, then greatly improving your capacity to perform and communicate. When you couple this with vigorous physical activity such as running or swimming, you really can improve yourself as a singer and a perfomer.

See you next month.