Hold a Note

To hold a note, you need to train your breathing and your posture. Standing properly and practicing breathing techniques will train your voice to emerge from you steadily, easily, and at greater and greater lengths.

Steps

Training Your Breath

1. Breathe in quickly and steadily. Singing uses more breath than speaking, so you might be tempted to gulp your lungs full of air. This is not as helpful as taking steady quick breaths while you sing. Practice drawing in ordinary amounts of air at the beginning of each phrase you sing.
   • If you catch yourself gulping or gasping, pause and begin again. Trust your lungs to do their job.
   • You will need more air to sing long notes, but you'll get more duration of a slow exhalation than you will out of a deep inhalation.
2. Breathe out slowly. Your breath carries your voice. If you force out air, or try to choke it back, you will not be able to hold long notes. As you sing, notice yourself pushing or halting your exhalation. If you are pushing, you may sound shouty or breathy. Relax your abdominal muscles and try again.
   • If you are choking your exhalation, try this exercise: sing a vowel at a pitch in the middle of your range, then gradually shift the note to being a stream of air with no vocalization.
   • Once you have mastered moving gradually from a clean tone to a breathy tone to no tone while maintaining pitch, you can try the technique on higher notes.
   • Notes that are held are often high, so this is an exceptionally useful exercise.
3. Let no air escape. You need breath to sustain a note. Practice singing without releasing air by listening to your voice. Do you sound breathy? Try to sing the same note again, clearly. Hold a mirror in front of your mouth while you sing the note. The mirror will fog up if you are releasing breath.
   • Generally, trying to actively control the flow of your breath will cause you to inadvertently choke or force the air, leading to uneven tone and loss of breath.
4. Hiss. Breathe in, and exhale while saying "SSSS." Release your breath evenly and entirely. Do it again, trying (without pressing or forcing) to say "SSSS" for slightly longer. Don't press or force your "S," but try to release your air evenly and slowly. Incorporate this exercise into your regular warm-up routine.
5. Lie on your back and breathe. Lie on the floor with your knees up, and inhale and exhale slowly. Feel your back press into the floor. Balance a book on your stomach and exhale. The book should rise: you want to be breathing into your belly, not your chest. This exercise helps you regulate your breathing and can train you to trust your lower back to support your voice.
6. Use the Farinelli technique. In this technique, you will breathe in for three seconds, hold your breath for three seconds, and release your breathe for three seconds. Your inhalation, hold, and exhalation of breath should be even and should not leave you gasping for air. Once you have completed the cycle smoothly, go immediately into the next cycle, this time breathing, holding, and exhaling for four seconds each.
   • Do as many cycles as you comfortably can, each time adding a second per stage.
   • Stop when you feel abdominal pressure or lightheadedness.
   • Six cycles is probably your maximum for your first round, unless you are already a trained vocalist.
   • Once you have reached your maximum, repeat the exercise in reverse, subtracting one second per cycle.
   • Use a stopwatch or metronome.
   • Do this daily, increasing your seconds per cycle, without pausing between cycles.

Holding A Note With Your Body

1. Raise your sternum. Raise your arms over your head as you inhale. Keeping your sternum in the same position, lower your arms as you exhale. Another technique is to layer your hands on your lower back, palms outward. Practice the posture of singing with a lifted sternum until it becomes natural.
   • Singing with good posture will help you sustain high notes. Your sternum should be raised, and your chest should stay in the same position. Sing in front of a mirror to monitor your posture.
2. Engage the muscles that effect your diaphragm. Before you sing, spend a moment flexing and noticing the muscles of your lower abdomen, lumbar spine, and pelvic floor. As you sing, check in again with these muscles, and engage them if they are relaxed. The air flowing through your diaphragm is controlled by these muscles, and engaging them allows you to control the flow of your breath.
   • Use your lower abdomen, lumbar spine, and pelvic floor muscles whenever a vocal coach tells you to "use your diaphragm."
   • Use this technique rather than that of contracting your abdominal muscles. This will cause uneven pressure and result in injury.
3. Check for tongue tension. When you sing long notes, which are often high notes, you need your tongue to be relaxed. As you sing, check if your tongue is tense. Push your thumb underneath your chin, which is where the bottom of your tongue is rooted. If you feel tension, massage under your chin while continuing to sing.
   • This will help you practice relaxing your tongue as you hold those long high notes.

Related Articles

• Sing
• Sing Vibrato
• Act While Singing
• Be Your Own Vocal Coach
• Accompany a Singer on Piano

Sources and Citations

See also

• Heal Your Vocal Chords
• Be a Singer
• Prepare and Relax Vocal Cords Prior to and During Singing
• Have a Good Singing Voice
• Harmonize
• Sing
• Sing Better if You Think You Are Bad
• Make Your Singing Voice Sound Better
• Sing Vibrato
• Become a Good Singer

Read more ...