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Views from the Choir Loft

Quick Vocal Tip: Be Breathy, but Briefly

Keven Smith · August 24, 2020

You’ll never meet a serious choral singer who strives for a breathy sound. And there’s not a choir director on earth who will ever stop during rehearsal to say, “It’s too clear and resonant, guys! I want to hear more air escaping all around your tone!”

But I’ve found that in rehearsal warmups and personal practice, being breathy in very small amounts can be helpful.

We all know we can’t make a sound without using air. We also know that if we try to push the air as we sing, we might generate more volume but we’ll produce an undesirable breathiness—and wear out the voice. Of course, if you tell a choir member “Don’t push the sound,” they may consciously hold back their airstream, resulting in late entrances and timid singing.

Vocal pedagogues have written volumes about the muscular coordination required to sing “on the breath.” I’ll probably explore this topic in future articles. For now, let’s just say our challenge is to let the airstream feel free without actually pushing air through the sound. It all starts with developing a healthy attack, or onset, for our sound.

There’s a simple exercise that can help. It appears in different forms in various vocal technique manuals. I first learned of it in The Diagnosis & Correction of Vocal Faults by James C. McKinney—a book I highly recommend. It goes roughly like this:

  1. Drop the jaw, take a deep breath, and let it out with an audible “HHHHH.” You should feel a totally free release of air on the “HHHHH.”
  2. Choose a comfortable note in the middle of your range.
  3. Take another deep breath, let it out on “HHHHH” again, but after a few seconds, switch to singing “ah” on the note you chose.
  4. Repeat step 3 several times, but use less H each time. You’ll start to develop a sense of exactly when the vocal chords engage and how little air pressure it takes to get them to work. Remember this sensation. 
  5. Now, start the note again. Simply think the “HHHHH” but don’t make it audible. You’ll end up with an “ah” that has a clear starting point and carries a healthy, balanced sound. Sing several notes this way. Go up and down the scale. Try it at different dynamics and on all the vowels.

This is how a good onset should feel. Of course, things get in the way—things like performance anxiety, limited attention spans, and of course, those pesky consonants with which most words begin. But this should be our baseline for starting a note.

I’ve tried this exercise with my choir to great profit. Not only did it help our singers find a healthier onset, but it also prompted one very astute choir member to speculate that this could be the reason our choir often comes in a bit late after my downbeats. Perhaps some singers are starting the tone with a split second of extra breath, and if they can learn to deliver pure tone at the instant my hands complete their drop, we’ll be more together! It was an astounding insight and one that will guide our exploration in future rehearsals. It’s scary to come in right on time, but good choral singing is all about overcoming our fears. 

Singers who are (rightly) conditioned to avoid breathiness may recoil from doing this exercise because it seems like practicing a bad habit. But I’ve found that doing a bit of “HHHHH” every now and then can help us recalibrate our sense of how little pressure it really takes to engage the voice.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: vocal technique Last Updated: August 24, 2020

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About Keven Smith

Keven Smith, music director at St. Stephen the First Martyr, lives in Sacramento with his wife and five musical children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “What Martin Luther Said…”
    My pastor asked me to write little columns for the bulletin each week. The article for 20 July 2025 has been posted, and it’s called: “What Luther Said…” Martin Luther (an ex-priest and apostate) was an infamous heretic whose ignorance of JESUS CHRIST was only exceeded by his filthy and disgusting vulgarity.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • 15th in Ordinary Time (Year C)
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (13 July 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. As always, the Responsorial Psalm, Gospel Acclamation, and propers for this Sunday are also provided at the the feasts website.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
    This coming Sunday—13 July 2025—is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). All the chants have been conveniently assembled and posted at the feasts website. The OFFERTORY, Ad Te Levávi, is particularly beautiful.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

“The choir shall henceforth sing or say no anthems of our Lady or other Saints, but only of our Lord, and then not in Latin; but choosing out the best and most sounding to Christian religion they shall turn the same into English, setting thereunto a plain and distinct note for every syllable one: they shall sing them and none other.”

— 1548 Edict of King Edward VI (a heretic) for Lincoln Cathedral

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