Asthma and the Voice: Assessing, Understanding and Working with the Breath and Body of an Asthmatic Singer
Recording of Workshop available for purchase.
$59
What happens when you have a singer come to your studio with asthma? This workshop will help you better understand the condition, breathing patterns and unique issues that face a singer who is struggling to breathe.
In the workshop we will briefly review what asthma is and how it is medically managed. Then we’ll get into some specific tips for singers to help them manage the impacts of inhalers and from there we’re going straight into the tools voice teachers need to assess and understand the breath and body of an asthmatic. We will cover:
- How asthma impacts the voice
- The important and sometimes overlooked element of anxiety and asthma
- How to assess the breath – breath cycles, breath ratio, what’s moving and not moving while they are breathing
- We will cover the multiple erroneous breathing patterns found in asthmatics
- We will address the position of the ribcage and the habitual over-reliance on secondary respiratory muscles
- You will leave with several strategies for breath work to give your singers so they can be more aware and begin to improve their breathing.
- You will also leave with some specific strategies for shifting the body, restoring mobility to the ribcage and releasing tension in the accessory muscles.
While these strategies are given to you for the sake of working with an asthmatic singer, you may find that your own breath can stand to do a little work too! Something as simple as a cold can alter the fine wiring that governs our breathing and having these tools means you will always have a way to connect and shift your breathing.