Q: Degrees of Diaphragm Support
“After seeing some of your free teaching videos, I now understand that different ranges of my voice will require different degrees of diaphragm support. I am a bit unclear how to figure that out when I am actually learning a song.”
Annika T.
A: Hi Annika!
Good question! When first becoming aware of your voice and how it works, especially in learning a song, I like to suggest that my students “Map Out” their lyric sheet (see page 71 in The 5 Point Singing System manual.) What that means is marking the breathing rhythm (where you put your breaths in the body of a song), what word or syllable you need to engage diaphragm support on, and which vowels need to be open or modified to make them easier to sing.
For some students, I’ve taken the mapping process one step further and colour coded what range of your voice the phrases or individual notes are in by using different colours for low, mid and higher ranges.This map will give you the tools and strategy to sing a song with great pitch and power.
The Lyric Mapping Process in Action
Here’s an example of me walking through this mapping process on the song “Stay” by Rhianna. Note, I didn’t use the last step of colour coding on this example.
I hope this helps!
