Remembering to Breathe

If you were with me last month, you might have learned that I suffered from pneumonia at the end of April. It was rough. I was lucky to have a mild case and get the medical attention I needed. Two days into my antibiotics and I was feeling human again… mostly.

As a singer, the thing that really kicked my butt was my breath capacity (or lack of). I had already canceled 2 gigs a week before and was reluctant to cancel a 3rd since I still had groceries to buy and I truly was feeling better.  This inspired me to put together a guided breathing exercise.

The track takes you through four exercises (5 min long)

1. Slow inhales and exhales

This is the time to get mentally centered on your body and breaths, taking notice of any tension you might be holding and releasing it.

2. Inhale Hold Hiss

Here we are working on controlled breathing to a count, working on holding our breaths without tension, and using the hiss for a controlled release, similar when vocalizing.

There are a total of 3 cycles, each done twice.

In-4, Hold-4, Hiss-8 (x2)

In-4, Hold-4, Hiss-12 (x2)

In-4, Hold-8, Hiss-16 (x2)

3. Pulsed Exhales

This exercise focuses on the engagement of those core-area muscles in short pulses. We rely on these muscles while we are vocalizing to help relieve any tension in the upper body or to prevent unintentional overly breathy tone.

4. Free Humming

This is a time to apply your breathing to some vocalizing. This is meant to be more meditative and improvisational, meaning you can sing intricately or keep it to a single pitch. Just make sure you’re still breathing deep and keeping your body relaxed.

That’s it! Bookmark it and throw this on right before your practice session, during your commute or before you decide to fire your drummer…

Staying in [Musical] Shape

January of this year, I did what I felt like was my worst recording session in the past 4 years. And I paid out of pocket for it. It wasn’t the engineer, or the equipment, or that the engineer’s wife was sitting in the next room and I was a little nervous about her hearing me perform when she hadn’t seen me since college. It was me,  and I felt rusty.

I hadn’t been keeping myself in shape. I took nearly a month off from regular practice during the holidays going into January. I also wasn’t gigging as much. I was used to being performance ready at any moment– I just spent the past 9 months playing every single weekend, I sang my exercises during my commutes, I sang half of my students' warm-ups with them, I was singing all the time! Going from singing damn near every day to maybe once a week, yeah, I’m gonna get rusty.

Coming out of Spring Break and moving back into my busy season, I remembered this. If I want to be in shape from the get go, I need to be singing/playing my instrument [almost] every day. And I don’t mean setting aside hours upon hours of practice time either. Aint nobody got time for that. But how about 20-30 mins?

My most productive sessions are when I dedicate myself to an uninterrupted 20-30 minutes because it forces me to have a plan and manage my time better. I even keep a timer going on my phone as a visual cue of whether I should keep working through something or move on (and to keep myself from accidentally opening up instagram). This is how I break it down:

1. Warm-up

2. Ear training/auditation

3. Repertoire

   Warm-up

I define warm-ups as anything that gets you moving on and with your instrument, and is more technique centered. Vocal slides, arpeggios, scales, drumming grids. I typically spend 5-10 minutes on this, depending on the instrument and how far I’ve come along on an exercise. My sing-a-long warm-up tracks are 7-mins– a finite amount I can expect. Playing all my major modes in C? The first week took me the full 10 min, but took less over time. My warm-ups rarely vary unless I need to exercise a specific technique that day.

Ear training/Audiation

If this is not already a part of your routine, this will become a game changer for you. I always believe that the best musicians are those who can play by ear AND understand how that fits the context of the music they play. It opens the door for improvisation and better reading skills. 

This can look like many things– hearing a melody and learning how to sing AND play (yes, even instrumentalists can be singers). Taking a melody or lick you are working on and moving it to different keys. Working on intervals. Play/singing patterns over a drone. I have to be a little more strict with my time here– it is so easy to get carried away and dig in, but we’re trying to create bite-sized habits right now. I keep steps 1 & 2 within the 20 min mark

Repertoire

This is how most people envision what practicing looks like. Plain ol’ reps on the song you’re working on. But if we’ve only got 10 minutes, maybe we can dig a little deeper. Why are we practicing this piece? Maybe you are just barely learning it, or you keep stumbling over the chord changes from the verse into the chorus, or that B4 in the melody feels really tight when you sing. Asking yourself the question points you to the problem, and that's where your 10 minutes should go. It will be more productive than the 2-3 reps of the entire song. 

I notice the most growth in myself (and students!) when we’re being more direct and intentional with our time. When my students do this 3ish times a week, I notice huge improvement at each lesson. When I do this regularly, my sound is more consistent when I go on stage. Yes, I want to grow as a musician, but the act of showing up regularly in small amounts keeps me in musical shape. 

As a thank you for checking out this blog, help yourself to TWO free downloads this week. First one is a PDF of my weekly practice checklist. This is exactly what I use with my students each week to help them organize their time, incorporating the three topics above. The second download is a rough draft of next month’s tool– a play-a-long breathing track. I am currently recovering from pneumonia and breathing is something I am still struggling with (it used to be my superpower). This is a great tool to ground your breathing before any singing or playing, but also works as a 5-min meditation break.