Written by Brianne Cardona
I find that breath support vs. breath control in voice lessons tend to be used interchangeably. It’s important to know that these terms are two very different processes and therefore, shouldn’t be mixed up. One cannot happen without the other, but they are not the same thing.
As you will see expanded in the following paragraphs, the main difference between breath support vs. breath control in voice lessons is this: breath support is the set up of a singer’s breath while breath control is the release of that breath. Read on to delve more into these concepts:
Breath Support in Voice Lessons
Breath support is specifically the set up of the singer’s breath. How we inhale is the basis of how the vocal cords will vibrate and therefore, how the air supports the making of sound. If we don’t have a conscious awareness of how we take that first initial breath, then we can’t establish the groundwork for the remaining phrase.
Exercise for Developing Breath Support
I like to have my students start their lessons by bending at their waist and hanging like a rag doll. While in this position, I have them relax and release any tension in the shoulders and neck, allowing the head and arms just to hang. I ask them to take a big breath and to tell me where they “feel” that breath originate. Most say “stomach?” but then I have them do it again, this time while placing my hands on their back, near their ribs. On this inhale, they feel that the back expands significantly.
This tends to be a shock to most students and not many new students prior to taking lessons have thought about how their back can be an important part of breath support. I now have the student recreate this expansion and awareness while standing and beginning their initial inhale process. This is going to give the student an understanding that the breath is a process done with a 360 degree scope, not just on the front of the body.
Breath Control in Voice Lessons
Breath control is the release of air–the exhale. How fast we release all of our air or how we “control” the exhale is going to determine how long we can hold out a phrase or how high we can sing.
Exercise for Developing Breath Control
Let’s talk about lip trills. Many people have heard this exercise used often in voice lessons and may even hear it on movies when showing a singer or actor warming up before a big audition.
Lip trills serve as an excellent and easy way to establish and improve good breath control. As silly as most people find it, lip trills are not a filler exercise in voice lessons and they serve two very distinct purposes for developing the singing voice; and that is, breath control and pitch regulation.
Let me explain, when we open our mouths completely and exhale on a “Ha”, we let all our air out pretty much in one blow–there’s nothing blocking the air so it escapes easily and quickly. But say we close our mouths fully–then that air cannot go anywhere (and we can’t really create any pitch that way!). But now suppose we close our mouths partially— the breath now has to “fight” its way out, thus causing us as singers to work a little harder on that exhale.
When the output of air is done correctly with the correct openness of the mouth, the lips should trill. If at any point during the exercise the lips stop trilling or they begin to sputter, that is an indicator to me that the student needs to be stronger with their air and “force” that air out more quickly. It’s a pretty telling exercise for both teacher and student!