Find Your Breath: The Organic Breathing Exercise (aka Become Aware)
1. Lie down with pillows under your knees and rolled towel under your head or neck.
2. Place one hand on you lower abdomen and one on your upper chest making sure that both are completely relaxed.
3. Leave your mouth open letting air flow freely in and out through mouth and nose.
4. Let your breath settle into the most organic rhythm.
5. Take note of how your body moves when your breath is settled.

Connect Your Vocal Cords: Diaphragm Target Training
1. Lie down with pillows under your head and knees – placing one hand on your lower abdomen and one hand on your upper chest. Make sure that your chest and abdomen are completely relaxed.
2. Breathe through your open mouth – 10-20 breaths and notice that there is no tension in chest and abdomen restricting your organic breathing pattern.
3. For 5 breaths, use your exhale to passively produce a “la la la” sound.
4. Do the exercise again, breathe for 10-20, and la la la for 5-10. Then, get out of bed and go to work!

Getting Vertical: Balance and Body Release Practice
1. Stand up with your feet shoulder width apart from front to back and side to side
2. Bend your knees slightly letting your bum drop to follow the motion
3. Bend your upper body forward slightly from the hips
4. Round your shoulders forward slightly and let your back round to follow the motion
5. Keep your head steady -- - not forward or back.


Movement Exercises: Body Release and Diaphragm Freedom
1. Still Standing in your balanced orientation, wiggle your ribs side to side (loosens back and frees diaphragm)
2. Slightly bend your knees and use the movement of the bent knees to help release pelvis and abdomen
3. Soften your upper chest so it releases down
4. Let your head rock back slightly to open your throat
5. Sing and experience your newfound joy!


Steven Flam has perfected the training of your diaphragm for vocal power.
GET YOUR FREE ‘FROM THE PRESCRIPTION PAD OF BREATHINGRX’ EBOOK NOW.

Four exercises for you to improve your Daily Practice

Find Your Breath:  The Organic Breathing Exercise:  Become Aware!
1.Lie down with pillows under your knees and rolled towel under your head or neck.
2.Place one hand on you lower abdomen and one on your upper chest making sure that both are completely relaxed.
3.Leave your mouth open letting air flow freely in and out through mouth and nose.
4.Let your breath settle into the most organic rhythm.
5.Take note of how your body moves when your breath is settled.

Connect Your Vocal Cords:  Diaphragm Target Training
1.Lie down with pillows under your head and knees – placing one hand on your lower abdomen and one hand on your upper chest.   Make sure that your chest and abdomen are completely relaxed.
2.Breathe through your open mouth – 10-20 breaths and notice that there is no tension in chest and abdomen restricting your organic breathing pattern.
3.For 5 breaths, use your exhale to passively produce a “la la la” sound.
4.Do the exercise again, breathe for 10-20, and la la la for 5-10.  Then, get out of bed and go to work!

Free Your Articulators:  Jaw Traction and Tongue Thrust and Lip Trill release exercises

Jaw Traction:  Repeat 3 times with 2 minute breaks (light chewing) in between
1.Sit or stand with balanced body alignment in front of a mirror
2.Hook the pads of your thumbs behind your jaw and under your ears
3.Rest your hands on your cheeks
4.Open your mouth so your teeth are one inch apart
5.Keep your mouth open and push your lower jaw straight forward as far as you can comfortably
6.Keep your mouth open one inch still and pull your jaw straight forward further, using your thumbs
7.Hold the traction for 45 seconds until it feels comfortable

Tongue Thrusts
1.Sit or stand with balanced body alignment in front of a mirror
2.Envision your tongue at the back of your throat
3.Thrust your tongue forward from the place that you have envisioned
4.Hold it for three seconds and release
5.Thrust harder for 3 seconds and release
6.Thrust it one more time even harder, and release
7.When you get an impulse to cough or your jaw wants to lock up before the 3 repetitions, you have completed this exercise.
 
Lip Trills
1. Let your lips touch lightly
2.Breath out through your lips --- saying an elongated bbbbbbbb
3.Vary the pitch sliding it up and down
4.Practice until you can keep the lips with a consistent buzz throughout the pitch variation
Standing Now – putting it on it’s feet --- the baby is walking

Getting Vertical:  Balance and Body Release Practice
1.Stand up with your feet shoulder width apart from front to back and side to side
2.Bend your knees slightly letting your bum drop to follow the motion
3.Bend your upper body forward slightly from the hips
4.Round your shoulders forward slightly and let your back round to follow the motion
5.Keep your head steady --- not forward or back. 

Steven Flam is the developer of the groundbreaking teaching technique called BreathingRx For Singers which includes diaphragm target training. For more information or to debate the content of this article please contact him at info@breathingrx.com or check out our website at:  www.breathingrx.com

Find Your Breath: The Organic Breathing Exercise: Become Aware!

1. Lie down with pillows under your knees and rolled towel under your head or neck.
2. Place one hand on you lower abdomen and one on your upper chest making sure that both are completely relaxed.
3. Leave your mouth open letting air flow freely in and out through mouth and nose.
4. Let your breath settle into the most organic rhythm.
5. Take note of how your body moves when your breath is settled.

Connect Your Vocal Cords: Diaphragm Target Training
​
1. Lie down with pillows under your head and knees – placing one hand on your lower abdomen and one hand on your upper chest. Make sure that your chest and abdomen are completely relaxed.
2. Breathe through your open mouth – 10-20 breaths and notice that there is no tension in chest and abdomen restricting your organic breathing pattern.
3. For 5 breaths, use your exhale to passively produce a “la la la” sound.
4. Do the exercise again, breathe for 10-20, and la la la for 5-10. Then, get out of bed and go to work!

These are exercises 1 and 2 in an ongoing series of 5.

#1
Find Your Breath: The Organic Breathing Exercise: Become Aware!

1. Lie down with pillows under your knees and rolled towel under your head or neck.
2. Place one hand on you lower abdomen and one on your upper chest making sure that both
3. Leave your mouth open letting air flow freely in and out through mouth and nose.
4. Let your breath settle into the most organic rhythm.
5. Take note of how your body moves when your breath is settled.

1. Lie down with pillows under your knees and rolled towel under your head or neck.

2. Place one hand on you lower abdomen and one on your upper chest making sure that both are completely relaxed.

3. Leave your mouth open letting air flow freely in and out through mouth and nose.

4. Let your breath settle into the most organic rhythm.

5. Take note of how your body moves when your breath is settled.

Steven Flam is the developer of the groundbreaking teaching technique called BreathingRx For Singers which includes diaphragm target training. For more information or to debate the content of this article please contact him at info@breathingrx.com or check out our website at: www.breathingrx.com

When I was younger, my mother made me take piano lessons and every day I had to practice. I had a great teacher who loved to teach me the songs but I needed technique, I had to start my practicing extremely boring scales which gave me the familiarity with the instrument that I needed to play the rag time riff I loved to play.

So how does one make the daily ritual fun enough so that our students will actually do it? When you teach students to have joy, they will both do the work, and it will provide freedom for them to grow as singers more quickly.

Our recommended morning routine which warms up the body before singing, which our students find pleasurable and easy to integrate into their day is detailed below:

The pace of our lives has increased geometrically.  And in turn we want faster results.  Students and their parents want to see real results in weeks, not months or years.  To accommodate them, we have to teach our students to relax.  No pressure!

Really, we mean NO PRESSURE. 

To experience the phenomenon of NO PRESSURE in your body yourself, try these steps in a morning routine.  When you do it every day for a month your diaphragm will grow stronger:  

1.  Lie down with pillows under your head and knees – placing one hand on your lower abdomen and one hand on your upper chest.   Make sure that your chest and abdomen are completely relaxed.
2. Breathe through your open mouth – 10-20 breaths and notice that there is no tension in chest and abdomen restricting your organic breathing pattern.
3. For 5 breaths, use your exhale to passively produce a “la la la” sound.
4. Do the exercise again, breathe for 10-20, and la la la for 5-10.  Then, get out of bed and go to work!

 
Notice that when you do this practice you do not have to consciously push air out – it is a reflexive, organic behavior.  Transferring this behavior to your students’ singing will result in a quicker development with less tension.  Viola!  Hurry up and calm down!

Steven Flam has perfected the training of your diaphragm for vocal power.
GET YOUR FREE ‘FROM THE PRESCRIPTION PAD OF BREATHINGRX’ EBOOK NOW 
​

Dear Breath Support Master:

I am a 45 year old man and I remember vividly when my voice changed as an adolescent but who expected to yet again have to worry about my voice changing as I turned middle aged? I seem to have already lost some vocal power, endurance and some pitch control.

Signed,
Getting older every day

Dear Getting Older:

Some think that the voice is like the violin or wine, improving with age. If the violin is stored correctly and played, and the wine is kept in a climate controlled environment, they will improve with age. Likewise, our voices may sound completely different yet improve if we train it correctly, separating the diaphragm from the voice training as we age. And age can give your voice a quality that you could not achieve as a younger singer, especially if you do diaphragm training.

We have taught 70 year old singers and seen significant improvement over a brief time as they incorporated diaphragm training into their daily routine. Another benefit of this type of practice is that older singers regain vocal power, endurance and flexibility.

Diaphragm training is like restorative yoga for the voice. Here is one seated position diaphragm training exercise to prove my theory. Try it 5 times (consecutive breaths) each morning for a week and see if you feel and sound different when you sing.

In some religions, it is the trinity that makes things work out.  Typically one is earthly, one is spiritual, and the third is the creator.  When they fight, and don’t agree, really bad things happen.  Floods, Plagues, crucifixions, and other nasty destructive things come into play.

Likewise, your articulators must work in concert or you could be crucifying your voice.  You can control your own trinity.  It includes:  YOUR JAW, YOUR TONGUE, and YOUR LIPS.  When they are working together, the rainbow appears, showing a myriad of colors and lightening up the sky.

In the 80’s, the fastest runner of the 50 yard dash could do it in 5.24 seconds, yet in 2013, the fastest runner made it in 4.35 seconds. That is a direct result of the coaches’ understanding the body and training their athletes better. Likewise, voice “coaches” can speed the learning curve of their students.

In the beginning singers were focused on the external muscles of vocal support. Back in the 30’s and 40’s teachers of the voice believed that if you trained abdominal, chest, back and intercostal muscles that your vocal support would be enhanced.

THEN- the prophet appeared! Doing studies with emphysema patients in military hospitals in the 50’s and 60’s Carl Stough changed our belief system FROM focus on the external muscles TO focus on the internal membrane of the diaphragm. Carl was an award winning choral director when he was asked by a pulmonologist to do this research. This seemingly small discovery changes what is possible for vocal development and achievement.

a. Lie down with pillows under your head and knees – placing one hand on your lower abdomen and one hand on your upper chest. Make sure that your chest and abdomen are completely relaxed.

b. Breathe through your open mouth – 10-20 breaths and notice that there is no tension in chest and abdomen restricting your organic breathing pattern.

c. For 5 breaths, use your exhale to passively produce a “la la la” sound.

d. Do the exercise again, breathe for 10-20, and la la la for 5-10. Then, get out of bed and go to work!

Steven Flam has perfected the training of your diaphragm for vocal power.
GET YOUR FREE ‘FROM THE PRESCRIPTION PAD OF BREATHINGRX’ EBOOK NOW