When a car drives down the road or a plane flies in the sky, they use fuel. When a singer sings, they also use a type of fuel: breath. A singer’s breath gives life to notes. A singer’s breath brings sound to
silence. A singer’s ability to use their breath is very important for singing.

It is extremely important that a singer knows HOW to use their breath and how to sustain that breath throughout singing a phrase or song. How a singer uses her breath is referred to as “Breath Management.” Breath Management is controlled by the interaction between the windpipe, diaphragm (pronounced dye-a-fram), and lungs. Let’s take a moment to learn about each of those parts:

Credit: Zachary Wilson, Source: CK-12 Foundation, License: CC BY-NC 3.0

The windpipe (also known by the fancier word “trachea”) is a long, ridged tubed that starts at the back of your mouth and goes all the way down to your lungs. The windpipe’s only job is to move air from
outside your body into the body. Fun fact: the windpipe, or trachea, looks like a vacuum cleaner hose!

The lungs are two oddly-shaped balloons in your body. They sit in the middle of your chest and go down to just below your ribs, about an index finger’s length above your belly button. Your lungs are the tanks for your fuel for singing. When we breathe in, air goes into our lungs. We use that air (fuel) to sing.

If the lungs are like balloons that hold our fuel for singing, the diaphragm is like a bicycle pump. The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that helps controls when air goes into and out of the lungs. The diaphragm sits below the lungs, forming a partition to separate the heart and the lungs from the rest of the organs in your abdominal cavity.

When you breathe in, the diaphragm contracts and moves down. This creates a vacuum effect and draws air into your lungs. When you breathe out, the diaphragm moves up and gently pushes the air out of your
lungs. Without the diaphragm, breathing would be very difficult, indeed!

Important note to remember: When you breathe out, your diaphragm is relaxed. It goes into a form of upward freefall! For singing, we have to control that freefall, so that we don’t lose all our air all at once, by using the larger muscles that make up our abs (rectus, oblique, and transverse), the muscles in our lower back, and the muscles that surround our ribs (intercostal).

Without good management of fuel, how far do you think you’d be able to
sing?!?

Now that we have an idea of the parts of the body that make up the singer’s breath management system, here are a few exercises to strengthen yours. Beginning each of your warm-ups for practice
with breathing exercises is a great way to improve skill growth in breath management for the beginner as well as a great way for the more seasoned singer to keep in touch with their fundamentals.

Breathing Exercise 1: Panting!

On a warm summer day I’m sure you’ve seen a friendly neighborhood dog need to pant to cool off after working and playing hard.

We can also pant. We don’t do it to cool off like our furry companions, but learning how to do it correctly can help us learn valuable ways to breathe while singing. Learning to take quick breaths allows us much greater control over our breath management system. Panting also teaches us to breath even in the smallest amounts of time.

Sometimes when we sing, we don’t have a lot of time to take a breath in between phrases. Panting helps us to build the muscles to be quick and powerful. Panting is a quick inhalation (breathe in) followed by a quick exhalation (breathe out).

Practice Tip 1: It will be very important for you to make sure that you are breathing (in and out) the same amount of air for each quick inhalation and exhalation of your panting. If either the inhalation or exhalation cycle during panting is moving more air than the other, you risk getting lightheaded.

You will need a metronome for this exercise. Set your metronome at 60bpm (beats per minute). Each click is one beat, so at 60bpm over one minute there will be sixty (60) clicks or beats. If you don’t have a metronome, this is the same speed as the second hand of a clock ticking.

Try to get two full pants (breathing out then in) in every click of the metronome or clock. Don’t worry if you can’t at first. Be mindful and make sure you are breathing in and out, instead of just a series or
ins or a series of outs, is the most important thing. Many of the people I’ve worked with try to go too fast at first and end up breathing out several times in a row, instead of out-then-in. Go slowly, at first. Speed will come later.

Always start a pant by breathing OUT. This will help us get into the habit of releasing our breath (which is how we stop notes) by expelling any left over air, before starting a new breath cycle. Breathing in should happen on its own as your diaphragm takes back over for the inhalation.

It should work like this:
(The bold and underlined word is when a metronome tick happens)

Out—In—Out—In—Out—In—Out—In—Out—In—Out—In—

It should NOT look like this:

Out—Out—In—Out—In—In—Out—In—Out—Out—Out—Out—

Notice in the second example, it isn’t always out-then-in. Sometimes there were more than one outs or ins in a row. This will make breathing very difficult. We always want the breath go in a circle: Out-In-Out-In-Out-In.

Practice Tip 3: If you find that you are doing multiple ins or outs, especially as you try to speed up the panting, it is a good indicator that you are not allow your abs to relax fully when you breathe in. Locking of the abs often results in multiple outs in a row.

Do this a few times. Once you can get two whole pant cycles (out/in) during each click, try for three or four! Once you can get four pant cycles for each click of the metronome, if you would like to get even faster at panting, start to move the metronome marker (MM) up by 5bmp (60bmp, 65bmp, 70bmp, etc). Only go as fast as you can accurately and cleanly perform the exercise.

Working on panting can sometimes make us dizzy. Do this exercise sitting down and if you feel lightheaded or dizzy STOP and breathe normally.

The Farinelli Breathing Exercise

In the 1700s there lived a very famous singer who went by the name Farinelli. His breathing was of epic proportions.

He was documented by historians to be able to sing over 250 notes on a SINGLE breath, and was able
to hold a single note for an entire minute. Some people during his time thought he sold his soul to the devil to be able to have such breath capacity.


Can you imagine being able hold a note for a whole minute? Try holding your arms out to your sides for a minute. It’s a lot longer than it seems!

How did he do it? Good breath management, of course! Farinelli even wrote down his main breathing exercise so other people could practice it. Other people…like YOU! With practice, maybe even you can sustain a note for a minute.

The Farinelli exercise has three parts: inhalation (breathing in), suspension (holding the air), and exhalation (breathing out).

You will need a metronome for this exercise (an online metronome can be found here). Set your metronome to 60bpm for this exercise. Each part of the exercise lasts a equal number of beats.

Practice Tip 1: Quiet breathing is an important skill to learn for musicality and vocal health and longevity. It is very important during this exercise that only you can hear your breathing. If someone sitting in the same room can hear you breathing during this exercise, you are breathing too hard or are constricting your vocal folds while breathing.

The exercise works this way:

(1) Breathe in for the required number of beats. Breathe in slowly over the entire number of beats, making sure to fill your lungs COMPLETELY. Feel the ribs expand. Pay attention to how it feels to engage those rib muscles as you inhale. You will need to keep the ribs engaged outward (in the same manner as when you are breathing in) during the next step.

(2) Suspend (hold) the air in your lungs for the required number of beats. Keep your vocal folds open – the diaphragm should be kept stable by keeping your ribs out and using your abs to control the breath. The vocal folds should not be closed together, stoppering the air inside the lungs. Try not to tighten your throat while suspending in the air. Use your abdominal muscles (abs) to keep the diaphragm from moving until you are
the required number of beats happen. If your throat tenses up, sticking your tongue out of your mouth during this step helps many people. It looks silly, but it often works!

(3) Exhale the held air over the required number of beats. Make sure to breathe out the entire number of beats and get rid of all of the air in your lungs. This requires measuring your breath and slow control of your ribs and abs.

After you do these three steps, without stopping in between each step, immediately go into the cycle again, but add one more beat to each step. See how far you can get.

A good starting goal is to try to make it to eight (8) beats per section. You may not be able to do that, at first, but that’s okay. In time, with regular practice you will be able to go even higher. Who knows? If you can get to 20/20/20, you’ll have made a whole minute breath cycle – almost like Farinelli himself!

Practice Tip 2: If you watch yourself in the mirror during this exercise, your voice box (larynx) should not be moving around. If it does, it shows muscles in the neck or tongue are engaged in a way they don’t need to be.

Example: The Farinelli Exercise

Set your metronome to 60bmp. Each click of the metronome is one beat. We will start with four (4) beats for each section and move into the next cycle with five (5) beats per section. The new cycle starts
immediately after the first and is noted by the asterisk (*).

Inhale, 2, 3, 4, Hold, 2, 3, 4, Exhale, 2, 3, 4,
*Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, Hold, 2, 3, 4, 5, Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5

Do this exercise as part of your vocal warmup, before singing any notes. Focus on using big muscles in your torso to allow the little muscles of your neck to remain loose and relaxed. This exercise can be done anywhere and doesn’t tire your voice. Practice it at home, work, school, or just walking down the street.

Now that you have a better grasp on how to work on breathing for singing, go out there and see just how much good breath management makes singing fun! “Sang purty” as my momma would have told me.