Understanding the Diaphragm: Key to Resonant Speaking and Singing (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Where does the diaphragm live in the body? Where's my diaphragm? Right here. Singers learn something about this. When you teach a singer to sing, what are they taught? Anybody a singer in here? What are singers taught? Sing from the diaphragm. What does that mean, sing from the diaphragm? It means, let's try this for a second. When you breathe in, we'll call it your stomach for right now, but it's really your diaphragm. When I breathe in, what should my diaphragm do if I breathe in? It should expand. Gina, you're right. And then when I breathe out, it comes back in. The problem is, most people struggle to use their diaphragm when they speak. Most people speak from their throat, not from their diaphragm. When I speak from my throat, it kind of sounds like I'm in this little teeny bottle and you can't really hear it. But when I speak from my diaphragm and I let my words float off my mouth, the air float out of my mouth and the words floating on top of the words, it sounds more resonant. Whatever my natural tone is will come out. This is why the great singers do this. The problem is, most people don't know how to coach themselves to speak from the diaphragm. Well, let's change that. I actually had a singing coach for around three years. I'm not a very good singer, which is why I needed a singing coach. But I learned something really cool about the diaphragm. This coach taught me this. I'm going to model this for you now. It turns out that when you lay on your back, and I'm going to do that for you now so you can see this. When you lay on your back, you cannot possibly not breathe well. So watch this. When I lay on my back, I have to breathe from my diaphragm. I can't talk in my throat at all. It's all my natural resonant tone. Can't change it. This is how I actually sound when I was born. But most people don't know that. And then they'll get in front of people and they'll talk like this. And they'll start to talk in their throat, especially when they get nervous. And they won't sound like their normal diaphragm self. See the difference? Resonance, non-resonance.