Hi, Gern, Don's right - it is about breathing. It is really hard to descibe this in words without being able to show you AND at the same time see how you yourself are used to breathing when you sing. I think, as Kaleea points out, that finding a GOOD teacher, which can be tricky, is the route to go if you want to preserve your voice over a long life singing.

The problem with trying to learn this fundamental part of using your voice, breath support, is that each person is unique. Whatever I write may not be the point of development for each person reading this. Be that as it may, I can say there are other discussions on that long thread of links that include my comments on breath support, and I'll give it a try again here.

Maybe a list of do's and don'ts will be a good place to start

- Don't lift your shoulders when you breath in.
- Do expand your waist/abs when you breath in.
- RELAX!
- Do gradually develop those breathing muscles with continuous singing exercises/practicing on a regular basis (every day if possible).
- Don't leak air out with breathiness when you start - get a good hold on the note and sing it. A breathy quality fits some emotional lyrics, fine, but don't make it a habit of singing that way all the time. Use it for affect if the song warrants it.

- Don't sing through your nose or keep your mouth blocked up with tongue or stiff jaw - relax and let the air out... visualize it as a thread going straight out of your mouth and to your listeners. Some people block the sound by letting it hit the roof of the mouth, then try to compensate by pushing harder against their larynx to get more volume. That will eventually harm your voice, and doesn't sound pleasant, either. Lift the soft palate on the roof of your mouth. You can see in a mirror that the uvula goes up, when you lift the soft palate.

- If you can't feel ab muscles moving, lay on your back on the floor with a heavy book on your tummy. Breath in. You should see the book rise up as your lungs fill. Sing a note and control the release of air, keeping that book up as long as you can. If the air all rushes out quickly, you have alot of work to do on developing the strength of those muscles to control the air release. (That is breath support - being able to control taking in maximum amount and control how you release it as you sing.)

- Develop the ability to have enough breath to sing long phrases without having to break them for another breath. Breathe in, as described above, and sing one note softly, slowly counting to 8 as you build the volume louder, then counting back to one as you diminish the volume. ALL ON ONE BREATH. Do this exercise every day. You will gradually build up the muscle strength to control the breath support. Don't push air against your vocal folds to get volume. Let the volume be created by flooding the sound with air. If you run out of air before you've gotten to the end of the exercise, you just need to keep doing it every day. The muscles will strengthen, just like doing any other physical exercise on a routine basis.

- You can add even more air when you breathe in by consciously expanding your ribs at the same time as pulling down on the muscles in the floor of your abdomen. Don't try to do all these things at once if you are just starting. You can add the rib expansion later after you have mastered the exercises above.

All I have time to write for now. The main thing to remember is that singing is physical. Just being tall doesn't make a person a great basketball player. You can shoot hoops for fun, but learning good technique, practicing, and working out gives you greater use of your inate gift. It's the same with the voice. If you want to keep singing and avoid injuring your voice, if you want to have a strong voice into your old age, to be able to sing several hours in performance every night and sound even better at the end of the show than when you started, using these techniques will help you do that. IT DOES NOT mean you will sound like an opera singer - sing any type of music you want, but be careful about belting out your voice or singing too high or low for your natural range.

Alice