Journal post 2: Light on Pranayama

I decided to look at chapters 4, 14, and 15 of this book. Chapter 4 takes a look at anatomy of the breath in relation with Pranayama, chapter 14 looks at the proper way to inhale and exhale using this technique, and chapter 15 discusses how to properly hold, or retain, the breath.

Chapter 4 is surprisingly analytical and anatomical. This section had a lot of similar information to what you would find in Richard Miller's Structure of singing, except it ties in various pranayama terms and techniques in with it. This made it a bit heard to follow exactly what they were saying. If I was more familiar with the various terms and basic methods/ideas, I probably would have made more sense of it.

Chapter 14 talks about the importance of inhaling and exhaling correctly and in sync with your body. There are a lot of metaphors used here, and a lot of yoga/pranayama terms. It gets a bit confusing until it goes step by step instructing you how to breathe in and out properly. Even then there is a lot of pranayama terminology used, but you can still get the gist of what is being said, and can at least understand the concepts in theory. The set up of chapter 15 is very much the same to 14, discussing the benefits of retention in relation to body, and then going on with how to do it.

I picked the chapters that related heavily to breathing because of the relevance it has to singing. In many ways, breath is the most important part of singing technique, because everything rides on taking a proper breath to begin with. For the most part, I think a lot of the breathing technique relates to what you learn when in singing lessons. The yoga aspect of it is helpful, in terms of centering yourself and making sure you're grounded in your breath. At the same time, it was hard to get through all the yoga terminology, and while I think I got the gist of what was being expressed, I think I only got that because I've taken yoga classes and have an idea of the basic principles involved.

I think this book would be much more helpful to people with a better grasp of yoga, and it's terminology and principles. There are definitely things to be learned from this book, but I think that aside from the yoga aspect of it, a lot can be learned elsewhere.