You may not have access to the gym or to in-person voice lessons during the coronavirus pandemic and resulting shutdown, so vocal coach, composer, and music director Andrew Byrne recently took to our YouTube channel with some at-home tips. He’s here to help you with some exercises you can do in your home during the shutdown to keep your voice sharp, as well as show you some more techniques you can do to strengthen your vocal muscles. Below, he specifically focuses on the abdominal muscles of the core, as strengthening your abdominal muscles are important to help one’s exhalation. These exhalation exercises are great for those who sing for a living.
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“It’s super important for singers to know how their abdominal muscles are connected to their larynx,” Byrne explains. “If you are always working on your voice by definition, you should be working on your core, too. Whether it’s yelling or singing on stage, you need to make sure you are exhaling just as much as you are inhaling. But the focus today is on exhalation.”
Byrne showcases a number of different exercises you can do while you are exhaling. These include standing exercises where you stretch your core muscles near your ribs and several different plank positions you can perform to build up your core.
“We are going to start by assessing three different ribs that are connected to three different abdominal muscles,” he explains. “As you exhale, press your hands against your lower [seventh, eighth, and 10th] ribs and feel the muscle contraction as you do. You are going to want to exhale for 10 seconds and make sure that your ribs are contracting evenly, like a corset.
A Voice Teacher’s 4 Tips for Relaxing Your Singing Muscles “The way this is going to work is if you remember the proper queues while in a plank,” he continues. “Keep your neck long and chin down. Widen your ribs but keep your chest down. It should look splayed out but at the same time the chest needs to look wide. I want to be pretty even across the top of my back and buttocks. Before you get into the plank, if you start with your arms on the ground, make sure your elbows and palms are pressing into the ground.”
Byrne performs multiple variations of both of these exercises in his recent YouTube Live session as part of our on-camera quarantine series, The Slate. Check it out below for a proper visual guide and more information on the importance of these exercises. Meanwhile keep tabs on who’s coming up on The Slate with our list of programming right here!
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