My Trick During Singing Lessons

During a new student's first singing lesson I will place their hand on my solar plexus (after asking for permission), blow all the air out of my body—and sing a long phrase with full voice.

Eyes go wide. Mouths gape. The student stammers: "How do you do that?"

How indeed.

I am singing on the residual air in my lungs—but it's more than that: I am singing on breath than is compressed by my whole body. Paradoxically, I don't need to breathe to compress the air. It happens even before I inhale and involves extension.

I can croon or sing like a Wagnerian on this breath.

Real control. It was taught to me by my teacher during my first lesson, or, I should say—it was a result of that first lesson—a lesson that it took me a long time to learn.

To have full control you have to be fully alive. You aren't thinking about thinking. That's what academics do. They think about stuff. Good luck trying to get a room full of them singing! They have no breath whatsoever, their thinking depriving them of any real voice.

Singers live on another level. One that is instinctual, sensual, full of pleasure and being.

Full of the strong desire to sing and touch the listener.