The Diaphragm - Vocal Technique Breakdown - Aliki Katriou
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2023
- A video running over the basics of the diaphragm (the mythical diaphragm)!
If you'd like a lesson please visit my website www.aliki.katriou.com
If you'd like to sign up to my ACCs: landing.mailerlite.com/webfor...
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I'm a metal singer and singing teacher. I specialize in distortions - what people would call false cord, vocal fry, screaming, growling, grunting, grit, rasp, yelling. Basically, vocal texture!
Find me on social media:
Instagram - / aliki.katriou_vocals
Facebook - / alikikatriouvocals
Also, check out my band
Eight Lives Down - www.eightlivesdown.com/
Video on support would be great!
+1
Thank you very much for this video and yes please make a video on support too!
Support is on my list! If you have any thoughts/ideas on the current mythology of what humanity (or the internet) thinks support is, let me know XD
@@AlikiKatriou
One thing I heard is that for support you need to transfer the tension to your back muscles and also neck muscles thus creating a sort of muscular corsetto that's supposed to ease the load on vocal cords. The goal is to look like a roaring Hulk with veins popping everywhere
No sabes cuánto te amo, pero es muchísimo. Gracias por desmentir y explicar a tanta gente este concepto (You don't know how much I love you, but it's a lot. Thank you for denying and explaining this concept to so many people.)
As a vocal student in college, I love this video!!! Thank you for being so well informed on what the diaphragm actually does.
thank you!
The controversy 🌪️
oh u come back 🎉
You are a very beautiful person
A vocal coach here on UA-cam (can't remember her name) talked about this, too. She talked about how everyone focuses on the front, especially on your tummy (put your hand on your tummy and make it pop out when you inhale, bla bla bla...) but rarely talk about how you use many other muscles including muscles on your back and around your waist to control your breathing.
Yes, the 360 degree approach is the "normal" classical singing approach to breath control :)
I have to go back too the dark ages to erase that one.
your videos are amazing, do we need to engage our core muscles while singing?
some other vocal coaches were saying that we need to engage the pelvic floor muscle
I personally don't. Most singers I work with don't either. Most singers I know, try to and/or do, but it seems to be due to a belief system rather than anything grounded in measurable reality. I don't know if you've come across my video on support but it might be worth a watch ua-cam.com/video/XRWRqy1s3ns/v-deo.html
I find the pelvic floor muscles are unnecessarily hyped up in some singing circles. It's true that the diaphragm and the pelvic floor tend to cooperate and work together, and it's also true that engagement of the pelvic floor relates to shifting the pressure in our breathing mechanism. That being said a) they already work together so you're better off not thinking about it, b) the less you have to think about as a singer, the better, and c) do we really want more pressure when singing? I would argue no... :) I think the bottom line is: if you try it and you feel it helps, keep doing it. If you feel like it doesn't work, then it isn't working and there's no point in stressing about something that isn't actually important :)
More debunking please. We're all listening. It's relieving. Pelvic floor?
Oh my... the pelvic floor... well that will be a fun one... 😵💫
Super insightful and fascinating content as always! My lyrical-trained singing teacher often tells me that I cannot sustain my notes as long as I'd like to because my diaphragm is too "tense". Could she be talking about the abdominals tensing and / or support issues?
As you said, I think there is value in her remark, even though she's not using the right terminology, but now I understand I shouldn't be looking for "ways to relax the diaphragm" on UA-cam 😅
XD Yes, it's likely. Try focusing on the upper abs - when they tighten it tends to be very problematic for singing. Ideally, we want the upper abs and the area around the solar plexus to be really loose. You can always try moving the muscles in the opposite direction, so if there is a tendency to "pull in" the abs, try actively pushing them out when sustaining notes, at least temporarily until your brain no longer sends the "pull in" signal.
@@AlikiKatriou Thank you Aliki, I'll focus on relaxing my abs whenever I sing something that my subconscious considers difficult 💪😆
Most of the times I've heard UA-camrs talk about diaphragm, first of all it has been interchangeably with support so tbh I don't even know the difference anymore. Second, it has mostly been in context of learning to make this "compression" or using "hypercompression" to introduce grit, sound similar to the one you called "chest + light false chord" in your Before I forget cover or ig better example would be the kind of voice near the end of schism by TOOL.
I've just started trying to get into harsh vocals and connot for the love of God do any sort of distortion so now I'm pretty confused 😢
TL;DR
1) A video on support, yes please
2) What do people actually mean when they ask to use the abdominal muscles to produce grit.
Sorry if the questions are ill-formed, I'm pretty new to this is dunno much of what's going on 🫁🧠🐌🐌
Let's see if I can help...
I'll do a video on support. You are right, the internet thinks support and the diaphragm are interchangeable. I personally would ignore both, they are useless, unless you are trying to sing operatically and have to generate massive amounts of volume!
When people talk about using the abdominal muscles to produce grit they are talking about a reflex in the human body. When we tense our upper abs, our larynx's tend to tighten as well (unless you've done interesting exercises, dance etc and have isolated these processes). Because of that tightening, if you squeeze enough, the false vocal folds can passively start to vibrate giving you some grit.
I personally don't teach this approach because 1) it doesn't work for everyone, 2) it's a passive approach and I prefer more active, controlled vocal choices usually, 3) it can generate very different sounding distortions from person to person and from moment to moment from the same person, 4) squeezing the upper abs would never be recommended for singing, too much effort, too much tension. Now, that being said, if your body is happy with that level of effort and tension and it's working, go for it!
I hope that sheds some light on all the chaos!
Thnks 🎉🎉
Looking forward to the future video if you decide to make it
Keep debunking! The local head vocal professor for music majors had a mandatory masterclass where I had to listen to the professor explain that the breath on certain notes originates in the upper thigh, so it is required to "breathe INTO that area". (!!. Ridiculous.) And like many other vocal professors she insisted on repeatedly giving the direction, "go low, to sing high!" She would make students squat down a bit to "allow" their voices to "properly move higher" (actually activates the core muscles, but it would never be explained that way). Her students had to add physical therapy stretches to their warmup practice (yoga actually, like Cobbler's Pose, but it was not called by proper yoga names). She would physically manipulate her students into various awkward poses and claim their singing became better. There seems to be no end to the false mythologies of those teaching vocals even in academia. Maybe with enough debunking, enough students will call out the misinformation from professors and finally vocal classes will be based in real anatomy ("actual science"!).
I believe I heard a different vocal professor in academia say something like: "Don't bother to control your diaphragm because you can't. It is involuntary so ignore any advice that talks about 'use your diaphragm'."
😵😵💫 ah, humans... I have always been an annoying student. I would sing a phrase, be told to "support" or "use my diaphragm", I would listen intently and politely and then I would repeat the phrase in exactly the same way and listen to my teachers monologue about "how much better it sounds with support"... and that was how I first realised that not only was it all myths, but people weren't even being honest to themselves and were listening with built-in biases >.
Hi! I watched your videos awhile and I'm delighted with the ways of yours. How do you do teaching to be so cool? Are you from Eastern Europe origins perhaps?
¡Hahaha! Alas, I checked the video specs and I read you are greek and a headbanger.
You're wonderful.
Hahaha, yes I'm half Greek, half kiwi. But I am living in Croatia, and my brother-in-law (who is also the bassist in my band Eight Lives Down) is Polish, and I have a number of friends from various Eastern European countries so there is much Eastern European influence going on!
@@AlikiKatriou ¿Kiwi? Means, ¿you are half new zealander? I'm from Italy.
Yes, my mother is from New Zealand and half the family live there :)@@dadaistaingegniere
potato belly yeaah!! ;)
Haha, potatoes gonna potate! \m/
6:19 "They might just been using the wrong words" ... Isn't that what a typical vocal lesson is made of? Misleading you with wrong words and keep telling you you do it wrong for months/years instead of explaining properly at the first place.
I would agree, that has also been the majority of my personal experience in singing lessons.