Five Breathing Exercises for Choir Singers
As we approach the end of the school year, I find myself more and more instructing students to “take a deep breath.” Sure, the breath helps our choir to have a nice supported sound, but it also helps us to clear our minds and find perspective. Check out these five breathing exercises for choir – great for singing and mindfulness:
- Square Breathing
- Alternate Nostril Breathing
- Interrupted Breathing (In and Out)
- The “Shh” Challenge
- Sip and Buzz
Choir Teachers: I have so many tools and visuals I love to use when discussing breathing with my students. Check out my favorite Choir Teacher Breathing Visual Aids below!
It’s All In the Breath
Singing is all about breath. But when a singer gets stressed or excited, often their breath is the first thing to go, leaving them with a less supported sound. I like to work one good breathing exercise into every warm-up – most of these are routine to my students by now! That way, when we are getting a less supported sound or the singers are stressed about a difficult piece, we can connect back to our breathing exercises and turn our rehearsals around quickly. Below, I share descriptions of five of my favorite breathing exercises for choir.
Square Breathing
The easiest breathing exercise to work into your choral warm-ups is square breathing. In this exercise, you breathe in, suspend the breath, breathe out, and suspend the breath again. This breathing exercise allows singers to connect to their breath, clear their minds, and begin controlling their intake and output of air. Here are my cues:
- Take a deep breath in and let it all out
- Breathe in for four (count 1, 2, 3, 4)
- Suspend for four (count 1, 2, 3, 4)
- Breathe out for four (count 1, 2, 3, 4)
- Suspend for four (count 1, 2, 3, 4)
- Repeat 2-3 times, working the verbal counting out and allowing the singers to feel the beat on their own.
As we complete this breathing exercise, I usually draw a square in the air with my hands for a visual. Sometimes students draw their own squares. There are a lot of square breathing gifs that are easy to insert into a slideshow. Sometimes I’ll have one of these gifs on the screen before class starts and the students start breathing without any cues from me.
Alternate Nostril Breathing
Alternate nostril breathing is my favorite way to clear my mind before any stressful situation. In the moments before any big speech or concert or interview, I am likely sitting somewhere quiet, trying to quiet my mind with this breathing exercise. Warning: do not try this exercise if you have a stuffy nose – it really stinks if you have a stuffy nose! Here are my cues for this breathing exercise for choir singers:
- Place your middle finger and your ring finger at the bridge of your nose. Your thumb should fall near one nostril and your pinky near the other.
- Use your thumb to gently plug one nostril and breathe deeply through the other nostril. Now plug that nostril with your pinky, release your thumb and exhale through that nostril. Inhale deeply through your thumb-side nostril. Use your thumb to plug your nostril, release your pinky and breathe out through our pinky side. This is one round of alternate nostril breathing.
- I then complete one more round with cues and invite students to complete one or two more rounds on their own.
As I introduce singers to breathing techniques like these, I encourage them to examine how they feel before and after the exercise. Did they like it? Did they hate it? Why? What did the exercise do to their bodies? To their minds? Not all exercises will work for all students, which is why I like to try a variety of breathing exercises for choir and teaching techniques throughout a year.
Interrupted Breathing (In and Out)
I encountered interrupted breathing for the first time in a yoga class and immediately thought, “I need to try these with choirs!” Both of these exercises challenge choir singers to mindfully control the pace of their breathing as well as the amount of air they inhale or exhale in short intervals. Here are my cues for this breathing exercise for choir:
Interrupted breathing in
- Take a deep breath in, and let it all out
- Inhale a little bit, pause; inhale a little bit, pause; inhale a little bit, pause; inhale a little bit, pause; inhale a little bit, pause; inhale a little bit, pause; inhale a little bit, pause.
- With control, exhale all of your air (Sometimes we’ll buzz or “shh” or vocalize)
- I then complete one more round with cues and invite students to complete one or two more rounds on their own.
Interrupted breathing out
- Take a deep breath in, and let it all out
- Slow and with control, inhale as much air as you can.
- Exhale a little bit, pause; exhale a little bit, pause; exhale a little bit, pause; exhale a little bit, pause; exhale a little bit, pause; exhale a little bit, pause; exhale a little bit, pause.
- I then complete one more round with cues and invite students to complete one or two more rounds on their own.
You’ll find that some students will prefer one of these to the other. I generally invite students to simply focus on nice deep breaths if the interrupted breathing makes them uncomfortable in any way. I’ve found, though, that most students are able to feel the direct correlation between these breathing exercises and their singing in choir.
The “Shh” Challenge
Every once in a while I like to game-ify warm-ups and let my singers compete a little bit – whether against themselves, their classmates, or other classes. The “Shh” Challenge is a breathing game I have had success with in choirs of all kinds and ages. The goal of the “game” is to “shh” the longest at a consistent dynamic. Here are my cues for this breathing exercise for choirs:
- Take a deep breath in for four counts: 1, 2, 3, 4
- Now shh out for 8 counts (Conduct and count. Check in on dynamic of the “shh” – we want it to be a nice supported mezzo forte or so)
- Breathe in for four counts: 1, 2, 3, 4
- Breathe out for 12 counts (Conduct and count)
- Breathe in for four counts: 1, 2, 3, 4
- Breathe out for 16 counts (Conduct and count)
- Continue increasing by intervals of four as you are able
Day one you might stop at 16 counts. The next choir meeting, have the singers compete with their previous record as a group. Or, invite students to take a seat as they reach their limit and crown a breathing king/queen/monarch for the day. The goal is consistent breath output throughout.
Sip and Buzz
Similar to the “shh” challenge, the sip and buzz breath exercise is a playful approach to breathing for choirs. Here are my cues for this exercise:
- Imagine you are holding a straw. Inhale through the straw for four until your lungs feel full. 1, 2, 3, 4. Now quickly sip, sip in and hold.
- Bzz your breath out now and follow the bumble bee. Teacher or volunteer from the choir represents a bumble bee moving up and down with their pointer finger and singers respond by varying the pitch of their buzz.
This exercise starts connecting the breath to pitched warm-ups and allows the singers to have a bit of silly fun together before moving on to the rest of their rehearsal.
Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero additional cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
Breathing Tools & Visual Aids
A good body map can be essential to getting a good breath. Here are a few breathing tools and visual aids to help singers connect to and/or understand what is going on with their breathing mechanisms.
- Breathing & respiratory system coloring pages
- DIY model lungs
- Straw breathing leading to straw phonation
- Puffball games
Breathing Sphere
breathing book
Pinwheels
Resistance Bands
Enjoying the Inspiration?
I have more Take Five For Inspiration Posts for you! Take a look:
