Breathing Exercises Before Recording: Your Breath Is Your Voice

If you asked me what separates an amateur voice from a professional one, I would answer without thinking: breath.

Voice is air leaving the lungs and passing over the vocal folds, making them vibrate. If that air is not controlled, the whole voice suffers: it shakes, it cuts out mid-sentence, or it gets weak at the end.

Chest or belly?

Most of us breathe from the chest in daily life: short breaths, shoulders rising. That does not work for voice performance. It gives you little air and keeps your neck and shoulders tense.

Proper breathing comes from the diaphragm. The diaphragm is a muscle under the lungs, and when it moves down it gives the lungs room to fill. The sign: your belly and sides expand outward as you breathe in, and your shoulders stay still.

5 exercises to do before any recording

1. Breathing lying on your back

Lie on your back with a light book on your belly. Breathe in gently through your nose and let the book rise, then breathe out slowly and let it fall. Lying down makes it easier to feel the diaphragm. Repeat 10 times.

2. The 4-4-6 exercise

• Breathe in for 4 counts.
• Hold for 4 counts.
• Breathe out for 6 counts.

An exhale longer than the inhale calms your nerves, which is very useful before going on air or before an important session.

3. The "sss" exercise

Take a good breath and release it on a steady, gentle "ssss" sound while you count the seconds. The goal is for the sound to stay steady to the end without wobbling. Note your number and push it up little by little without straining. This teaches you to spend air slowly, which is exactly the skill that lets you finish a long sentence on one breath.

4. Lip trills

Close your lips gently and blow air through them so they vibrate and make a "brrrr" sound. If it is hard, place your fingers on your cheeks and push them slightly forward. This balances breath and voice and warms up the vocal folds without strain.

5. Yawn and sigh

Take a real yawn, and at the end let out a sigh that slides from high to low. It loosens the throat and jaw and relaxes the neck. Very often it is tension, not the voice itself, that is choking the sound.

While recording

• Breathe at the natural pauses in meaning, not in the middle of a sentence.
• Do not take a huge breath every time. Take what the next sentence needs.
• A loud inhale is audible on the microphone. Learn to breathe quietly, or turn your head slightly away from the mic.
• If you feel dizzy during the exercises, stop and go back to normal breathing. You are taking in more air than you need.

The bottom line

Five minutes of breathing exercises before recording will make a difference you will not believe. More importantly, practise them every day until proper breathing becomes a habit, not something you only remember in front of the mic.