Push-pull, click-click

A student recently asked me to define 'appoggio' and 'covering' for her. Neither of these is a term I use in my teaching. Covering I do know is a pulling back of sound rather than allowing it to surge forward from the instrument. In some people's heads, the sound they hear when doing this is rounder and darker. To my ear it is swallowed and out of focus. Don't do it.

Appoggio is a different problem. Appoggiare in Italian means 'to lean', as in an appoggiatura where one pitch 'leans' into a second pitch. It is also defined as meaning 'to press' or 'to hold'. These are not singing principles I agree with.

In singing, appoggio does not seem to have the definition of 'leaning'. In reading Shirlee Emmons's article on 'Breath Management', she quotes Richard Miller from his book Training Soprano Voices to support (pardon the pun) her theory of appoggio. To begin with, I do not train soprano voices much differently than alto voices or bass voices, bar the obvious range and passaggio differences. A good singing technique should apply to any voice part. Miller, in his definition of  appoggio also suggests tucking in the lower abdomen. In my opinion, this merely causes tension.

The abdominal muscles should move freely in and out without pushing, pulling or tucking. I use a breathing exercise wherein the singer takes a deep breath and then allows the air to escape. The singer doesn't push the air out. It's as if you stick a pin in a tire and develop a slow leak. You then time the release. I have had students exhale over a minute with this release. Toward the end of the breath, the abdominal muscles certainly do come in and up. But THEY do it, you are not pulling them in!

This is a perfectly natural way that these muscles operate. When you cough or sneeze, when you cry 'Watch out!!!' to someone about to be hit by a bus, they perform a more violent version of this movement. You are not pulling on them. This is an involuntary reaction to an event. 

Miller also speaks of the expansion of the chest upon inhalation. This is perfectly true, but it should, again, happen naturally, not  through purposeful pressures to expand and contract the rib cage. This only produces more tension. Tension is the enemy of good singing.

William Vennard, the noted writer and teacher, has said that vocal teachers should spend more time on phonation than on breathing techniques. I disagree whole-heartedly with this concept. The breath is the basis of singing. We are wind instruments. Everything else will follow when one develops a free breathing system. Without a good breathing system, you can phonate your head off and never learn how to sing.

With almost very new student who comes into my studio I find I must begin to insure that they can use a deep, energetic breath before we do anything else. I do not ever use the term SUPPORT in regards to the breath. I find that with most people, this word means to them: 'holding or pushing the abdominal muscles', which makes the whole body rigid. This is no way to begin to sing.

Then I work on 'focus'- phonation- whatever you want to call it. But trying to get good focus on a tense breathing system is a waste of time.

Another source speaks of 'taking a breath and then pushing in your belly muscles to move the diaphragm. Push-pull, click-click! More tension!


Emmons's main point seems to be that the chest cavity should be in a high position. This is fine with me. I simply tell singers 'Your collar bone should be the highest point of your body without tension'. Basically I am talking about good posture.

She also says that 'the descent and ascent of the diaphragm are not directly controllable.' Right on. But she then says that 'Appoggio singing retains the inspiratory posture of the sternum and ribcage, retarding the ascent of the diaphragm.'

Hmm. I thought that the speed of the diaphragm's movement was not 'directly controllable'.

Miller apparently dislikes the term 'belly breathing'. 'Your lungs are up here!' That's how a student of mine almost stopped singing when a new teacher at her University tried to change her low breathing habit which was working just fine. She left the teacher, came back to work with me outside the University,  and went right on singing beautifully.

I know where my lungs are. Everyone does. But I ask students to mentally transplant their lungs below the belly button and inhale, listening to the sound of 'ah or aw' as the air goes down the wind pipe. You instantly get a deep, relaxed breath which is ready to go to work at once to produce a free, beautiful sound. Breath should go into the lungs and be returned immediately as sound without a second of holding. When one takes this kind of breath, not only does the singer get a deep, relaxing inhalation, he relaxes the larynx simultaneously.

Emmons goes on to suggest that the singer not allow the chest to go up and down with inhalation and exhalation. Great! Me, too! But then she speaks of 'sideways' inhalation. This term puzzles me. Popeye may inhale sideways, (look at his mouth), but for singers this is a strange suggestion to my way of thinking. 'Inhale sideways, not frontways', she says. I have no idea how to do that.

She speaks of how the ribs will expand- which is great. But unless the abdominal muscles are allowed, not made, to expand as well, you are going to get a high breath.

So beyond the point of keeping the collarbone high and allowing the chest to expand with the inhalation, I still don't know what this definition of appoggio has to do with free singing. It is just too busy to allow instant access to your sound.

Like a well-known politician, I guess I am a maverick; but a number of my students have had wonderful careers without covering or appoggio.

Another source speaks of using appoggio to 'retain' air in the lungs. As Olga Averino said, 'Lose your air'. To my way of thinking, appoggio is apt to create tension in the breathing process. Here is the 'holding' part of the definition of the word.

Too many rules spoil the singer. It leaves no time for singing.

The singing process should be a simple one. Learn to take a deep breath and use it at once to produce a sound. In a lively, relaxed body, everything else that has to do with singing should flow effortlessly into infinity.

I hadn't planned to write my sixth book today, but my student's question got me up on my soapbox about this subject. It also made me really think about this term, appoggio, which I have never used in my own teaching. So thank you, Anita, for getting me interested in talking about this questionable technique.

Why make something simple complicated?

Amen!