Dear Zach,

I don’t know exactly how Jussi breathed when he sang but I do know he sang;
"Into The Mask." This would indicate to me that he did have knowledge of breath
support. As to the business of ; "Tucking in the stomach," It depends where and
what is meant; "The stomach!" I will give you an explanation of the way to
breath when you sing.

The breath is acquired by lifting the lowest back ribs. This is accomplished by
finding the muscles that control this area of the body. You must exercise by
bending over at the waist, keeping your arms close to your sides and extending
your hands and fingers upwards. You must do this exercise until you begin to
notice where these muscles are. You will feel the muscles ache (because you’ve
never used them before.) Another way in aiding the body to find them is to take
a deep breath, suspend that breath (without closing the throat to hold it,) Take
another breath upon that, keep repeating that exercise until you start to feel
the supporting muscles. Once you find these muscles you will learn how to flex
them without using the exercises. Now you can begin to extend the back ribs to
inflate the lungs with the air to sing with. Remember, you must be able to
control the intake of air so that you can control the outlet of it. The lower
back ribs also control the opening of the throat, when
the lower back ribs are not extending outward, the throat will close! The
diaphragm will go downward, this is where the "Tuck" will be employed. The front
and rear sphincter muscles will be drawn inward and upward, this action will
help support and motivate the breath and keep the tone forward. Once you let the
support down, the voice becomes throaty and tension begins to move into the jaw,
the tongue pulls back into the throat, the soft pallet raises and cuts off the
sinus cavities. You cannot resonate through the nose. This is only the start,
you must learn to connect the breath to the voice, that takes many years to
learn how to accomplish and many students of today don’t want to take the time
to learn how to do this. I believe that breath control for singers must start at
a very young age, as young a 10 or 11 years of age, the younger the better. We
develop many bad habits as we age, so learn the proper way early. I hope you
understand what I’ve written to you. If you have any
questions, please write again, if I can help, I’ll be glad to answer.


strauss87 <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
I have recently begun looking into certian breathing techniques. In
my training i have always been taught to "tuck" in the stomach (as
joan sutherland describes it) and compress the breath in my lungs,
thus causing an inner expansion.
While no two vocal tecniques are ever exactly the same, i have been
told Bjoerling did something like it. If you run a search for Mayer
Vocal Arts, you will find a man named Michael Mayer who has done
research into Bjoerling's technique. He apparently was from a vocal
lineage that yeilded Kirsten Flagstadt, Birgit Nilsson, and
eventually Shirley Verrett, all i think to be fine singers.
There's a story where Bjoerling went to a voice teacher who put a
belt around his waist and told him to expand against it. He
replied "JACKASS! that is the perfect way to ruin the voice!"

anyone else have any information?
Zach





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