Sing From Your Diaphragm
The cruelest joke is one which got stuck in a lot of heads, both singers and non-singers.
It is said as if it is something everybody knows or should know, but it is impossible to sing from your diaphragm.
It is impossible to sing from your diaphragm.
Most people don’t know these things about the diaphragm:
How is it shaped?
Where is it?
It gets worse. The diaphragm has no preoceptive nerves in it. Your arm has propreoceptive nerves and you can feel where your arm is. You cannot feel your diaphragm or its location.
It gets worse still! If you are told to control or manipulate something that you cannot feel, what does that do to your mind? It sends you into a world of fantasy and pretense and you are out of control. More than that there other issues.
Your diaphragm separates the chest from the abdomen. It is a muscle.
When it contracts, it descends and causes a suction action and air is drawn into the lungs. It is a muscle. It can only contract in one direction, down. It doesn’t have another muscle on top or underneath, to then push out your air. When you are exhaling, which you do when you sing, the diaphragm is relaxed, not flexed, and has nothing to do with forcing out your air.
Abdominal muscles are used to force out the air. Doctors have known this since the 1700s. Where did everyone go off track with this? For may years, singing pedagogues had the idea that mixing science with art would destroy the art. The truth is that ignorance or science has ended or impeded careers of singers who injured their voices from vocal abuse.
Forcing air through the vocal folds, especially if they are hyper-adducted (coming together too hard) can cause irritation, blisters, blood blisters, and later, nodules as the injuries progress.
The air stream is rarely the problem in singers voices. The real problem is actually in the larynx. Working the correct muscles the correct way can free a singer from strain, pain, and will give freedom for artistic expression without it being thwarted by faulty technique.
Diaphragm Key Points
The diaphragm is the muscle for inhalation.
The diaphragm cannot push out your air.
Your lungs contain the air. Air doesn’t go into your abdomen.
Singing from your diaphragm is a myth and a fantasy. It is impossible.
You can use your diaphragm to have more air, when you need it for long and/or loud phrases.