How do you sing from your diaphragm?

Question

I've seen a lot of these questions but I still don't get it.
I'm only 12 and I hope to be a very successful singer one day.
I try and try to reach the high notes but whenever I do, I end up singing through my throat.
I'm also taking private vocal lessons from my church choir teacher. She told me to squeeze my stomach muscles and push it out but I don't understand what she's saying.
And I didn't know how to do it, so she told me to sing through my nose..
Is the problem that my vocal cords are not fully developed yet?

Answer 1

no it has nothing to do with your vocal cords. all they do is vibrate. all the work is done in your diaphragm. do you know where your diaphragm is? if you don't it's below your rib cage. where the bottom of the band of your bra hits, it's right below that. so if you tighten up your stomach muscles the diaphragm feels different than your abs. okay this is really hard to explain without me actually being there. when i was first learning to sing i didn't get it either. but trust me, you will. okay so hopefully you've found where your diaphragm is. now you can experiment. this is the fun part. try expanding your rib cage. (i know you can't actually expand it but the visual is what helps.) when you breath through your diaphragm your chest will expand very little and the upper part of your stomach will expand, because that's where your diaphragm is. so now find a mirror and put your hand right where i've been telling you your diaphragm. now try and expand it. then once it's expand it tighten up your stomach muscles (without letting it fall) and you can poke it. it should be tight and hard. if it's not hard you can do crunches to help tighten it up. now singing is mostly about breathing so once you learn how to breath you should be on your way. just practice and practice and practice. i really hope i helped. sorry if it's a little bit confusing. i tried, but it's really hard to explain without being able to show you. i'm wishing you tons of good luck. and i hope you succeed. if you ever want to talk email me. [e-mail]

p.s. be thankful your not singing thorugh your nose!

Answer 2

The easiest way to practice is to lie flat on your back on the floor when you practice singing. It's almost impossible to breathe wrong when you're on your back.

This will give you the feeling of what it's like to breathe properly, so you can recreate it when you get to choir practice.

Just close the door to your room so nobody laughs at you!

Answer 3

Well...that could be part of it. Realistically, even if you learned how to sing properly now, your voice would still develop and so you would have to develop your technique with that. Your diaphragm, as you probably know, is the muscle right below your lungs. You actually can't breathe without the diaphragm. If you lay down flat and just relax and take normal breaths...put your hand on your stomach. It will be moving up and down. That would be your diaphragm at work.

I wouldn't worry too much about technique right now. Is your choir teacher a good singer herself? If not, I would seek other teachers to learn from.

Some tips might be to relax. Everyone says to tighten muscles but it's not about tightening anything, really. The diaphragm does what it does naturally, so your job is to just focus that energy that you get. It can sometimes feel like you are tightening muscles. But the diaphragm is the only thing that should be working along with other muscles around your lungs and rib cage which you can't really control.

Relaxing is usually most difficult especially when singing in front of a crowd. But it is necessary to a successful performance. You can still be nervous and relaxed. Deep breaths are also key. When you take a deep breath, be conscious of what on your torso moves. If your shoulders and chest are lifting up then you are breathing incorrectly. Your belly needs to be moving out when you breathe. This is not too difficult to do consciously...it's natural. It's just difficult to train yourself to do it all the time when you are singing.

When you are trying to get volume, don't push from your throat. That can actually cause not so great injuries down the road to your vocal chords. And don't sing through your nose. That is absolutely incorrect. Here's why:

The next tip is to lift your soft pallet. Maybe you've heard of this too. It's that fold of flesh right in the back of your throat. When you have a stuffy nose and you sniffle so hard you feel the snot go back into your throat...that's the soft pallet. It lifts naturally when you yawn. So if you can yawn and try to feel that you'll know kind of what I'm talking about. If you are yawning, try to breathe out of your nose...it's not going to work...at least not comfortably. When you lift the soft pallet, it helps make your entire head a resonator for the sound that you are producing. If there is air leaking out of the resonator (from your nose) then it will not sound as it should. This greatly affects the timbre or tone quality of your voice. An exercise for this would be to sing while plugging your nose. If pressure is building up, then try making the back of your throat feel the way it does when you yawn and then try again. You should be able to sing across your vocal range all the while holding your nose closed.

Techniques for hitting high notes are just practicing as much as you can a day. I knew students who would practice vocal scales for hours a day. While vocal chords have their limits because of their varying sizes, they can also be worked out like muscles to max out their potential. Doing scales in repetition and working higher and lower helps to stretch your range. It's a long, slow, patient road to that.

I think I've answered everything here ... except the "squeeze and push it out". Okay...ever do a sit up? Feel how your abdomen tightens. Well...you can't feel your diaphragm. You can only really feel your abdominal muscles because your diaphragm is behind them. When the diaphragm draws itself out (belly out position) it pulls down on the lungs drawing air in. When the diaphragm pushes up on the lungs (belly in) it forces the air back out of the lungs. We can use our abdominal muscles to aid in the slow, powerful, and controlled release of air because we can control those abdominal muscles. And they can push in on the diaphragm which in turn pushes in on the lungs. When you take a deep breath (properly without the shoulders and chest lifting) breathe like your are pushing your belly out...but don't lose your posture (which is also very very important...without posture you can't breath correctly). The feeling can be best described as one of those circular air tubes that you might go swimming with or tubing in the snow with. Picture one of those filling up with air around your stomach when you breathe in. Now...when you sing...the feeling is like trying to expel the air while keeping that tube inflated...get it? If you push to keep the "tube" inflated and still sing...then you have the feeling of controling your diaphragm. Practice taking in deep breaths long and slow which make your belly move out. Place your hands just below your rib cage on either side of your abdomen and squeeze inward. Then take a deep breath. Nothing should be moving upward. Everything should be moving down and out. You will feel what muscles are working this way. There are other similar techniques to check yourself...but that one will do for now.

All of these things take lots of time and training to learn. And you are only 12 so you have lots of time to learn and develop yet. But that's the extent of what I can tell you over the computer like this.