How do you fix a BREATHY voice? | Singing Lessons For Beginner

Author

Ivan Lu
August 07, 2024

How do you fix a BREATHY voice? | Singing Lessons For Beginner

One of the most common issues I tackle with my students is how do we fix a breathy voice.

Maybe you’ve been told you’re too breathy. You’re not supporting your sound.

You need more cord closure, compression etc.

So for today, I want to break-down

1) What breathy singing is

2) How it sounds

3) And also share with you a simple exercise/routine you can start using to build

Now first of all what is breathy singing?

Breathiness in a nutshell is when there’s more AIR than CLOSURE. And that excess air is leaking through into the sound.

Now this could due to too much air being used. But what I’ve found with my students, is it’s usually more of a lack of control over VOCAL FOLD CLOSURE.

Now how does it BREATHY SINGING sound?

[DEMONSTRATION]

Quick point to make. You’re probably wondering. That actually sounds not too bad.

Why do we need to fix this?

And you’re right. In a song as long as it’s done DELIBERATELY, it can be a really cool style.

The problem is when it isn’t deliberate.

Because this reveals a lack of control of your voice at a fundamental level.

You see, one of the key mechanics of the voice, is learning to close the cords with FINESSE. We can decide whether we want a lot of closure or little. And when this is balanced with the APPROPRIATE amount of airflow. This gives you a more efficient sound.

So when we’re learning to tackle breathiness, what’s we’re really tackling is

“How do I learn to have better control over how much I close my cords?”

Real quick! Before we dive into the exercise. For those of you who don’t know me. My name is Ivan, I love making music and also teaching singing to students all around the world. On this newsletter my goal is to make learning to sing simple. If that’s up your lane, consider subscribing. If you want to improve your voice faster, check out the links down below for ways to work with me

If you want to inspire our next episode! Drop in the comments below what you want me to talk about next.

Anyway, let’s dive back into the exercise.

THE EXERCISE

Now this is a simple exercise that I’ve been working on a lot recently. And i’ll break it down into 3 simples steps for you all today.

STEP 1: Finding a sweet spot in closure with a tap

To tackle this problem, we first need to you feel GOOD closure of the cords.

So let’s try this.

Somewhere comfortable in your range. I want you to find a sound like this

[SEE VIDEO FOR DEMONSTRATION]

Cues:

  1. Start somewhere really comfortable in your range. For me it’s lower

  2. It’s not just about JAMMING those cords together. I’m looking for a sweet spot (Not too breathy. And not too over-squeezed)

  3. Somewhere at a speaking level is a great place to start.

STEP 2: Bring it to a scale

Cues:

  1. Keep it even

STEP 3: Bring it more of a spoken sound

Once you have a feeling of this closure. Let’s introduce some airflow to this now.

This is going to bring more to a sound you’d use for singing.

Let’s try the first EXERCISE one more time. But this time, on the top note we’re going to switch to a WOO

[SEE VIDEO FOR DEMONSTRATION]

Cues:

  1. Try to keep the pitch exactly the same (if you lose the pitch, you’ve lost the stretch)

  2. Get a match with that feeling of connection (don’t let it get STRONGER or WEAKER)

From there you can bring it to a song.

Anyway! That’s all. If you found this episode useful, please share this episode or give it 5 star wherever you’re listening from. This really helps spread the word. If you’d like to study with me, links are down in description. Take care!

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