Expert: Wanda Reinholdt - 3/4/2008

Question
My musical theatre director told me I sing in the back of my throat. I don't really know what that means. Can you explain to me what this means and do you have any tips as to how I can stop doing it?

Answer
Hi there, Emily.  Thanks for writing.

Singing in the back of the throat means that your sound is remaining in your throat rather than being released with power out of your cords.  

Does that help you?

Tips on not doing that:
Most of the time singing in the back of the throat has to do with lack of breath support.  So practice breathing.  In through the nose and out through the mouth.  Put your hand to your ab and breathe all the way down into your abdomen (not your chest).  Practice this over and over.  This is really the way we were created to breathe all the time.

Then breathe in and when you breathe out, put a tone/ note to your breath out.  Sing it on ah or la (a nice open sound).  Use the power of all the breath in the abdomen to support and push out the sound.  You should notice a much more resilient and powerful tone coming out.  

Does that help?

Wanda