The 3 Most Important Essentials for Singing

This may shock you but the three most important essentials for singing are sleep, water, and air.  Let's look at those. 
  1. Sleep - Interestingly, the older we get, the less sleep we generally need.  According to the National Sleep Foundation (https://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need), when we enter the world we need between fourteen and seventeen hours a sleep a night.  However, by the time you're around eighteen, you only need seven to ten hours a night, and even else when you become elderly.  My son can sleep longer than any human I've ever known, even at the ripe old age of twenty-three but he can also stay awake for days on end, as evidenced by his stint in the US Marine Corps.  The human body is a miraculous but unique machine but pretty consistently, a school-aged child still needs between eleven and fourteen hours of sleep, and a teenager, upwards of ten hours a night.  One of my favorite sayings is, "God does His best work while we're asleep because we're not awake to try to help Him out!"
  2. Water - According to the United States Geological Society, (yes, Geological Society), approximately 60% of an adult human body is water.  According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%, (http://water.usgs.gov/edu/propertyyou.html).  Why is water so important for singing specifically?  It is essential for singing because it hydrates, washes, and invigorates all of the vocal tract area.  Here's a crucial secret about the human body's vocal "cords" or folds:  their primary purpose is NOT vocal production.  Wow, right?  The Vocal Folds act as a sphincter type of muscle, rather like the anus (sorry).  These muscles create a seal, which keeps air IN the lungs, food IN the stomach; air OUT of the stomach and food OUT of the lungs.  Have you ever "choked" when food "went down the wrong way"?  This only happens when we're talking while swallowing, causing food to go into the trachea rather than the esophagus.  Usually, a few "coughs" straighten the situation out and get the food headed on the correct path.  All of this is to say that water serves as a super-agent for keeping all the workings of the vocal folds and larynx working efficiently and cleanly, as well as feeding our cells, beautifying our skin, hydrating our skin, and all kinds of other, wonderful things.
  3. Air - Your car won't run without gas; your body won't live without food or water; and your voice cannot perform without sufficient air.  If you suffer from pitch problems, you need more support (and possibly some more ear training).  If you suffer from poor control, you need better breath support.  This goes on and on.  When you see a singer with veins popping out on their neck, looking as though their head is about to explode, that singer is attempting to produce his or her voice using neck muscles created to hold up the head, rather than providing the crucial component of air/fuel to produce vocal music correctly.  Unfortunately, these singers sentence themselves to a short career and almost certain vocal troubles in the near future.  The Vocal Folds must open and close, vibrate in order to produce sound.  Just as holding a rubber band and pulling it apart between your two hands cannot produce a sound until you apply necessary "wind" to force its vibration, the human Vocal Folds cannot properly vibrate without that same ingredient.  I live in Southern California and we have a LOT of wind.  I can testify to the fact that wind is very powerful.  Anyone living in the path of tornadoes or even hurricanes, can attest to this same reality.  Wind can devastate and destroy.  However, if you've ever watched a live birth, you also know that "wind" brings life.  Obviously, air, more expressly Oxygen, is required for the function and growth of the human body but it is also indispensable for singing.  The Diaphragm contracts down, sucking air INTO the lungs, and once the Oxygen has been separated out of that air, the Diaphragm then EXPELS the Carbon Dioxide out of the lungs.  As it is exhaled, air sets the Vocal Folds to vibrating.  The higher the pitch, the more vibrations required to produce it.  This also works similarly for longer phrases and necessarily controlled, elongated pitches.  The "Golden Ticket" for great singing is great breathing, particularly great exhalation.

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