Voice and Singing Osteopathy: Do I breathe and emit sounds correctly? Self Observation and Evaluatio

As everyone knows, a correct inhalation should start from the nose and not from the mouth. This allows filtration, heating, and humidification of the inspired air. The chest, in general, should increase its diameters slightly, even if most of the active breathing is abdominal.

The chest should therefore not increase substantially and the supraclavicular muscles should not be involved in inspiration, so to speak, the shoulders should not rise. Shoulders and neck muscles must not come under tension even with a deep inhalation and the abdominal support must be in a flexion position before the tone begins and this can be assessed visually in front of a mirror or by palpation. The muscles of the neck and face must be relaxed.

At this point the singer should sing a scale (five notes are sufficient) on the vowel / a /, starting from any 'comfortable' note. Any waste of energy, movement, and muscle tension is usually considered a harmful element. The technical errors that are most frequently encountered during this execution are the contraction of the neck and chin muscles, the retraction of the lower lip, the retraction of the tongue, and the stiffening of the chewing muscles. The singer's mouth should be open wide but comfortably, not forced. When singing / a /, the singer's tongue should rest in a neutral position, with the tip of the tongue resting against the back of the teeth. If the tongue pulls back or engages in obvious muscular activity as the singer performs his scales, we can in principle assume an improper use of the voice. The position of the larynx should not vary substantially with changes in hue. Laryngeal augmentation with increasing notes can also be evidence of technical dysfunction.

All the variations from what should be normality can be attributable to both technical errors and functional disharmonies therefore, in evidence of this, it would be advisable to contact professionals such as vocal coach, speech therapist, speech therapist and why not, to your osteopath, in a way to be able to correct the anomalies before further compensatory mechanisms are triggered.