Before doing breathing warm-up exercises remember to adjust your posture. Below are four breathing exercises. You can find online a multitude of exercises, feel free to use those too. The important take away from this is to learn how to breathe properly in order not only protect your voice but to improve your instrument technically and to fully cover and perfect the five essential properties of tone. Breathing is the key ingredient needed in order to do anything with your voice. Master the breath!
Warm-up One
To experience the sensation of the diaphragm expanding, exhale all the air, tighten your stomach muscle, then inhale deeply through your nose. You should feel the diaphragm expanding as well as feeling a little dizzy. (When you are breathing correctly you will feel this dizzy sensation, that’s because your brain is getting more oxygen than when you breathe in a shallow way. This sensation will past the more you get used to breathing properly.) Then exhale through your mouth.
Note: Always when exhaling air, make sure you exhale all the way out. Breath out all the air until you reach the point where you must take a breath.
Warm-up Two
Tie a scarf just under your ribcage where your diaphragm is located. Breath out all of your air and tighten the scarf, snug, but not too tight. Inhale deeply through your nose. The scarf should loosen as you inhale.
Warm-up Three
Get a book or two that have a little bit of weight. Lie flat on your back. Place the books on the area of your stomach just under the ribcage. Take a deep breath through our nose and exhale. The book(s) should move up and down as you breathe in and out.
Warm-up Four
Using Exercise Three instead of just breathing in and out, inhale and as you exhale try singing ha, ha, ha, ha, in rapid successions. Try these other syllables – hoo, he, hey, hi, ho.
