kevin,
if you really had forgotten how to breath, well, you know what would
happen...
instead of distracting yourself, which is like taking your hands off the
steering wheel as you head for the edge of the cliff, you need to decide what
you are going to do with your breathing and do it.
if you haven't found the 'shangri-la' of breathing yet, in the meantime,
why not try that which you do best and most easily while you waiting for that
'pot of gold' to magically appear?
what i'm suggesting is to use the breathing you use when you talk (ala
carlo bergonzi and piero cappuccilli). as jerome hines describes it in 'the
four voices of man', breathing as you do when you speak means starting
phonation on residual air. when the phrase is over, the inhalation is
executed by a relaxation response.
this is the approach to breathing used in Qi Gong which is practiced in
many techniques of martial arts, particularly the more passive ones (like tai
chi and probably aikido). relaxed muscles move faster than tense muscles
and what feels like a small motion will probably draw in more air than you
get when you inhale 'on purpose'.
as you have been 'trying too hard', try the above as an experiment, just
to see what happens. you might want to try being lazy, for a change (it's
got me this far).
something else you can try is to take a vocalize, like a five note scale
pattern, and repeat it over and over counting how many you can do. repeat
the same but, breath out first just to see how much you can do with little
air. of course, you won't be able to do as many breathing out first but,
you'll probably find that you can sing longer than you expected with little
air. you'll probably find that you can sing longer, with little air, than
most phrases you would ever sing. if you find this to be true, you'll then
have to ask yourself 'why do i need to make such a production out of
breathing?'
mike
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