How can you tell if you are singing from your diaphragm?

How can I tell if I'm singing from my diaphragm or not?

• Answer:

  When you use your diaphragm, chest cavity should be expanding. If you are breathing wrong, it is usually your shoulders that move up, so you want to be able to tell the difference. I use the exercise below as it easily shows if you are expanding your chest cavity when breathing. Place a belt high on your belly. It should be so that it is around the bottom part of your rib cage, and only tight enough to keep it from falling off. Take a deep breath with the goal of expanding your rib cage, back muscles and top of your belly to make the belt tight. Once you have the belt tight, hiss your breath out to a count of 8. On the 8th count, you want all your air out. Then repeat several time. (I do this 4 times in my warm up) then do the exact exercise only on a count of 12, again fully expelling your breath by count 12. The trick to this correct breath is to not let the belt start to loosen until 2/3 through your hiss. In other words, start releasing after a count of 5 for the 8 count and a count of 9 for the 12 count. Work this exercise until you can, at the very least, get to a count of 16. It might take several weeks to build to this. After you get comfortable with this exercise, you want to work it so that you are not "forcing" a breath. Open your mouth and then your "tummy" (really your diaphragm) and the air should just fill up your lungs. You do not have to force or "pump" air in, it just fills the space. You will hear this referred to as a "Silent Breath." Imagine a plastic bottle. If you place it under water, up side down, and squeeze it, it pushes all the air out, when you let go, and it pulls back to its' normal shape, it fills up with water. You don't pump water into it, it just fills itself. Your lungs will do the exact same thing using the exercise above. Hope this helps, and good luck..