Fact number one:

You are facing a temporary obstacle. Obstacles should be considered a blessing in disguise. Why? Because the vocal nodule will eventually teach you to sing well, since you won’t be able to sing comfortably in your throat. Therefore, it will search until it finds the answer. That’s exciting! Setbacks and setbacks cannot affect morale if viewed this way. There is a saying: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Maintaining a positive attitude in the face of obstacles is part of a successful solution to all of life’s problems.

Fact number two:

It is impossible to learn to sing from exercises on a piece of paper or on a CD or DVD. Why? You need a teacher with the right knowledge to give you specific advice on your specific problem on the spot. That being said, I will still give some exercises that can help and explain them so that you can understand something.

Fact number three:

There are very few good singing teachers. Those who are famous are not necessarily good. You, however, will not know who is good or not due to lack of experience. I suggest going to a speech therapist to re-educate the voice, there are more good speech therapists than good singing teachers, the speaking voice is the hand and the singing voice is the arm. If you speak forward into the resonators using your breath, chanting will follow as the next easy step for you.

How the diaphragm works

Rock, blues, country, pop singers use the natural speech function of the diaphragm, where the diaphragm contracts on exhalation and expands on inhalation. Locate the front of the diaphragm by placing your hand horizontally from just below the last rib to the waist. The hand will feel a three to four inch area that goes up to the waist. The sides of the diaphragm are to the right and left of the waist line. These two areas will need to become elastic with the in-breath and out-breath movement described below. Don’t overdo your abdominal exercises because if your abs are too hard, you don’t have flexibility with your diaphragm! Many singers think that the diaphragm is the abdominal muscles or the stomach muscles. It is not, the stomach is not the diaphragm. We use the diaphragm to sing. The stomach is for digesting food. It is true that in certain schools of breathing such as yoga, the abdominal muscles are relaxed when inhaling. Much less, however, for singing. In fact, it is okay if the stomach muscles remain toned, not contracted, but toned. Sometimes it is permissible to allow the abdominals to relax on the inhale, but mostly for very high notes. For the rest of the range, the diaphragm is the proper muscle to develop and expand with air.

Support for classical singers is different from that for singers of any other genre. Classical singers use compressed air, so the function is actually the opposite. Support for the classical singer is with the diaphragm muscle coming out on the exhale, which is the opposite of its natural function. However, some classical singers support the entry of the diaphragm on exhalation with good results. I will talk about the natural function of breathing, which is used mainly by non-classical singers.

Before you begin the exercises, do twenty minutes of non-stop brisk walking (or as many minutes as you can). As you walk, exhale using the SSSS sound or the SCH sound. Count to four (exhale) and allow four counts to inhale. This will make the breathing mechanism (diaphragm) work properly. If it’s raining do the same by walking on a treadmill or on the spot. Then, as you walk and time your breathing, notice the muscles of the diaphragm and how they work. You will need to recreate this. Notice that you are not breathing high into your chest and that your shoulders are not rising and falling. You’ll also notice that your abdominal muscles stretch as you inhale with this type of aerobic exercise. to sing try to concentrate on the diaphragm, both in front and on the sides. The back of the diaphragm can be located by placing the thumbs on the sides of the waist and the fingers on the back. It’s nice if the back of the diaphragm also expands for high notes.

Exercises to understand breathing:

1. Tell someone to shut up using the sound: SCH. Get all the air out. Now look at what muscles were used when you did that because you will have to recreate the same action when you sing but instead of saying SCH you will be singing using that level of air from the diaphragm.

2. The following exercise is the same but brief. Again use the sound SCH. Do this five times in staccato (very short) and notice that the diaphragm moves in on the exhale and then relaxes out. Don’t think about taking a breath as it will happen on its own. Try to understand this function by doing this exercise, as you will have to recreate it in speech. Put your hand horizontally in front of the diaphragm (below the last rib to the waist) and do both exercises again and see what happens.

3. Now do the same as above on the SS sound. You can do these exercises throughout the day.

Combining breath with sound:

1. After understanding how the diaphragm works as a muscle that generates airflow, it is necessary to be able to speak using the nasal resonator and have that speech exhaled in the same way that the SCH sound was exhaled. You will have to help the diaphragm to get into the word and then let it relax on its own. When you try to speak by helping the diaphragm to go into speech, you will find that it is more difficult and not as automatic as when you used sound: Sch. Then allow the diaphragm to relax on its own. By doing so, the air enters by itself.

2. Now to find the nasal resonator: make the Mm hm sound like you agree with someone and you didn’t speak but made this sound. Now place your two index fingers half an inch to the right and left of your nostrils. See if you can feel the sound there when you say: MmHm. Now say Mm hm and the word one. Say the word one at the same pitch level as the Mm hm. You may need to say the word one as a question, as it is normal to drop your tone. You don’t want to drop the tone. No doubt it is speaking in the lower throat without the correct use of breath that has caused the problem in the first place. This is an exercise that the famous doctor Morton Cooper uses to cure Asphonic Dysphonia (the strangled voice) that the medical profession has called incurable. Remember that this exercise must go hand in hand with the breath as described above. When you can say Mm Hm one, use the diaphragmatic movement by coming in on the exhale and then relaxing again to allow the air back in. Remember that the muscle relaxes after speaking, not during, as in the SCH exercise. Feel the sound resonate in the face at the height of the sides of the nose and cheekbones and you will be right. You can increase the number of words you say like Mm Hm one, two only when you have mastered both breathing, exhaling from the diaphragm, and speech, at the level of the nasal resonator. It should become a habit for your normal daily speech.

Then you can start trying to do the same with the singing voice using simple exercises with diaphragmatic exhalation and nasal resonators. You can start on a note using the same function as the Sch exercise but using the H consonant preceding the vowel. The vowel e will become He. A will become Ha, etc. This is to ensure the airflow that will ensure the H. Start the staccato exercise on a note that is at an easy pitch level for you and then hold the no for two, three and more beats, etc. while maintaining airflow from the diaphragm to the resonator.

You can do the breathing exercises for hours, but when you add the voice you need to start very slowly with five to ten minutes, no more, several times a day. You can do them four or five times a day but only for this short amount of time. Later you can increase the practice time a little more. Do not sing your songs until you have completely changed the use of your voice. Good luck!