diaphragm breathing

[Wolf]

I really wish I could sing well so I've been trying to look up videos of singing lessons, and nearly all of them tell you to do diaphragm breathing.. making your stomach move instead of your chest and shoulders when you breathe.  The thing is, when I was younger I noticed that when I breathed my stomach moved instead of my chest, and I had thought I was weird or something like maybe my lungs were in my stomach, LOL.  But I've always breathed this way, and now I find out that most people don't breathe this way, but that breathing that way is the better way of breathing?

[cherimoya_kid]

Well, I don't think it makes that big of a difference either way, as long as you can relax and have good posture while you are singing.  I've seen very good singers that don't do diaphragm breathing.

If you want an example of good posture, Esther Gokhale's work ( you can look her up onyoutube or at her website gokhalemethod.com ) is excellent.  She's a guru of paleo movement.   If your posture is good while you're singing, then you'll have a much easier time sounding your best.

[eveheart]

Coming from a yoga perspective, where breath is very important, complete breathing includes lowering your diaphragm rather than just lifting the top of your rib cage. Breathing completely like this expels most of the exhaust gases in your lungs. I think this is a good thing for the whole body. I don't sing, but my work requires many hours of public speaking each day, so my diaphragm gets a good workout. As CK said, good posture is important, but I would explain that correct posture is what lets the diaphragm move downward where it is supposed to go. If you slouch, you collapse your chest cavity into your midsection, therefore the diaphragm has nowhere to go, so you have to settle for breathing into the chest only.

[Wolf]

Well, I'm 24 years old and pretty much my whole life the only time I've ever really sang is, when I was younger, only when I was alone and playing music that I really knew the words too(which was rarely), and when I got older, when I was alone in my car.  Once I started driving is probably when I started singing the most and the loudest, because there was no one else to hear me and I could blast the music loud enough to not hear my own voice even when singing at the top of my lungs.  I've also never really talked much my whole life, I've always been a shy and quiet girl.. hated talking on the phone and stuff.  I actually spent so much time online talking to internet friends, I probably had typed more words in my life than I'd ever spoken.  Only lately have I been trying to improve on my singing voice, and I've also been using skype to talk a lot more than just typing, so I've been a lot more vocal in the passed couple years than my entire life.  But yeah, my voice is just HORRIBLE for singing.  I can't sing worth crap, LOL, and no matter how well I breathe or position myself or any other little tricks like that aren't going to help me at all.  Though I actually really like singing, and I wish so badly that I had a beautiful singing voice, but I've been wondering if it's possible to actually practice enough  to develop an actually decent singing voice.  Like I mean, at least one that won't make people cringe like my voice does now LOL. 

But yeah, I didn't really make this thread to be about singing, it's just how I ended up coming across what breathing through your stomach was called, because I never knew there was a name for it, or even that it was normal, before.  A lot of those places say how diaphragm breathing is healthy for you overall, not just to help you sing better, which is what made me think to come and ask here, since we're all health nuts here.  Plus I read one that said diaphragm breathing is the way we're SUPPOSED to breathe, which sounds paleo to me.  Though I've always breathed that way, so it just seems weird to me that anyone would have a problem with being able to breath that way.  I even slouch a LOT.. like, if I don't have anything to lean my back against, I'm going to be slouched over pretty badly.  I try not to slouch so much but it's just most comfortable to sit that way when I have nothing to lean against.. so I just try to make sure I always have something lean against so that I can keep my back straight as much as possible.  I've never had problems diaphragm breathing while slouched.  Well actually right now I'm trying to chest-breathe while slouching and sitting straight I can't really do it either way lol.. slouching seems to be easier to stomach-breathe though.