I'm just gonna copypaste what Singing Success E-mailed me, so here you go. I want to hear what you think of this, this is quite different view on breathing than the one I'm used to hear.


"The 9 Biggest Lies About Singing



Big Lie #4 - You will need special instruction to learn how to breathe
correctly for singing.

Truth - You were born breathing correctly. You've continued to breathe.
You breathe in, and speak easily on a regular basis. YOU KNOW HOW
TO BREATHE ALREADY!

If you feel you are breathing ineffectively for singing, find a baby and
watch them breathe. They are doing it just like it needs to be done for
singing.

In fact, I can tell you how to check yourself, right now. Find a comfy
spot on the carpet and lie down with your back against the floor. Now, just
breathe normally in a relaxed manner. Feel your stomach with your hand
as you breathe.

Do you feel how your abdomen rises and falls with each breath? That's
how it was designed to work. As you breathe in, your abdomen moves
outward.

Now, do some singers breathe poorly for singing? Yes! But it's not
because they've missed out on any special instructions. It's because they
are trying some strange way of breathing only when they sing. Or maybe
they are getting nervous and trying TOO HARD. Or, they are thinking
more about breathing than about singing!

I personally have noticed myself getting short of breath in the middle of
singing or speaking in public. At that point, I realize I've been holding my
stomach in so I won't look fat!

So if you can get your mind off of breathing (or looking thin) and get back to
singing, your breath will normally regulate itself.

The only thing I say is this: If you notice that you are holding your stomach
in while breathing, just let it hang out. If your chest is rising when you breath
in, then you're probably holding your stomach in.

So stop doing that and you've got your breathing back to "baby normal,"
which is what you want for singing. In my humble opinion, that's about all
the "studying" you need to do about breathing.

Much of classical training in the area of breathing is built on the strange
assumption that your breath should regulate your tone production. But
our method teaches that a singer should concentrate on tone production and
allow that to regulate their breath!

If that paragraph is confusing, it's not worth laboring over.

Just remember that if you are making your vocal cords come together and
produce a pleasing tone, your lungs and "diaphragm" will deliver just the
right amount of air! Work on the tone, the breath will take care of itself."



So, what do you think about this? The third last paragraph quite sums it up.

The email seems to be aimed at belittling methods of singing which aren't 'Singing Success' or SLS. Sure, breathing for singing is easy and should be natural. But that doesn't change the fact that most people need instruction on how to do this (myself included).

I wouldn't say that 'looking thin' or not looking thin is the best way to tell if you are getting it right.

Also, was there anything in the email about support? Since the two (breathing & support) go hand in hand, I'd assume that it would be mentioned?

Yeah the weird thing about Singing Success is that it doesn't teach support. Luckily there are other methods that cover breathing and support very well, cause I think it's helpful for me too. And I don't like it either when Singing Success or Brett Manning (or anybody else) mocks other methods, he does that even on his own CD:s. Unfortunately it just gives a negative and unprofessional vibe about himself and his own method. Some classical teachers at my University do that too, and I think that it's just lame.

recently i've been doing the singing success cds (and with great results btw)

i want to give my 2 cents on this support thing.

before i start i'll just debunk this stupid statement:

"Truth - You were born breathing correctly. You've continued to breathe.
You breathe in, and speak easily on a regular basis. YOU KNOW HOW
TO BREATHE ALREADY!"

correct, we were BORN breathing correctly. we were also born with a connected voice. but most people have over years acquired negative conditionings that have ruined our voices developing breaks and especially breathing. most people breathe shallow and only with the top portion of the lungs, i see it all the time, especially fat people. there definately IS MORE TO BREATHING than most realise, just ask any legit practitioner of tai chi, systema, or chi kung. what they said about "watch a baby" is correct, but them assuming we all breathe like that is bull****, most don't. we have to re-acquire the ability through some conditioning

anyway onto what i really wanted to talk about:

on the singing success, brett manning says don't support any of the notes, just sing them. I WILL TELL YOU WHAT THIS DID TO ME: it started making my voice zip up into the headvoice from chest properly without any flipping. before i was using the support and it'd push my chest voice higher adding power, but then there was a point where i couldn't go higher (c5) and those top few notes get difficult. when i stopped supporting and just let the voice go, i was zipping up and easily went higher than c5. it didn't have the full voice power and sounded **** BUT HERES WHERE IM AT NOW PAY ATTENTION: I have been doing this approach for 2 weeks, NOW when i sing songs, I apply the support from vendera's method, but my voice still zips up freely like the SLS method! So now i'm getting full voiced awesome sounds but witht he freedom i was getting from SLS!

So in conclusion my opinion is this: train RYV and if you hit a plateu like i did, try working the SLS method of not applying any effort and no support, let your voice just go where it wants to go, you'll develop a soft ability which is useful for rnb and soul etc. then start practicing RYV together with SLS stuff and that's when I've started getting great results.

i think the problem with support is that it pushes your voice to skip the zipping, at least it was for me if it doesn't do that to you then obviously you've got nothing to worry about but for me that was the case. and you need to zip to hit the higher notes

Thanks to bad singing habits I did RYV all wrong and then SS just made it worse! I was tensing my throat, my jaw, and everything way too much. So, it is important for me to learn how to support? absolutely, because it prevents the tension in my face, jaw and neck. Moral of the story?, an advice pretending to universalize singers needs is definitely wrong!

Thanks Phil, that is awesome to hear you've had those results with SS and RYV combined.

"you'll develop a soft ability which is useful for rnb and soul etc."
Good!

"So now i'm getting full voiced awesome sounds but witht he freedom i was getting from SLS!"
Sounds even better.

"i think the problem with support is that it pushes your voice to skip the zipping"
I must be zipping because I can reach very high notes but I do strain and push way too much, not always though. Usually I strain from where chest register ends and cords start zipping up, so again it's the most common thing ever. I'm expecting that SS exercises will help me clear this up now and tap into that easy and effortless singing through my whole range.

Anyway thanks for your post, it was helpful.

yeah man. for me, and i can only speak for myself: my conclusion is that i need to learn to sing softly and connected throughought my range BEFORE adding support and intensity. this is what SLS is doing, then RYV is my "make it sound awesome" tool.

my current routine is going through the singing success stuff (i advance through the cd's when i feel i can do the exercises really well)
then at the end i do the RYV exercises, then sing until i run out of time.