Kim Hyuk Gun's Research on Vocal Technique 1/24 · Study Overview: How Much Does Abdominal Breathing Help High Notes?

01.A Vocal Study Written by a Singer

This dissertation is a study in which a singer who performs on stage tested the principles of his own voice through an experiment. The researcher is a rock vocalist who debuted in 2003 with "Don't Cry," and the singing lessons in the experiment used 24 videos of "Cross Kim Hyuk Gun Vocal Lessons," which he made himself.

The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Kyung Hee University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation and Office of Research (project no. KHSIRB-17-047). Participants were told the purpose, procedure and methods of the study, and only those who volunteered signed a consent form; they were told they could withdraw their consent at any time. The dissertation does not name the participants and refers to them only by letter.

The experiment ran for eight months, from October 2017 to May 2018.

02.The Six Chapters of the Dissertation

The dissertation has six chapters. First, here is which chapter this series reads in which parts.

Chapter II is background for understanding the study's diaphragmatic-paralysis group. The dissertation notes that the diaphragm is controlled by the phrenic nerve, which arises from the third to fifth cervical vertebrae, and that it handles 70% of the inhalation function in a healthy person's breathing. One passage speaks directly to singing students: the dissertation explains that the diaphragm assists the work of the vocal folds, so the better you use the diaphragm, the less fatigue the vocal folds feel and the longer you can sustain and support the sound.

The first part of Chapter IV sets out the concept and types of respiratory rehabilitation as research background. This series does not cover that part separately; it reads the posture, correct breathing, support, pitch, nasal resonance, resonance methods and practice methods in section 3, "Respiratory rehabilitation and vocal education," from the point of view of singing practice.

03.The Two Questions the Study Asked

The line every singing student hears — "breathe from your belly" — connects directly to the question of this dissertation. Does abdominal breathing really help high notes? The dissertation divided this into two questions.

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The research model is simple. Before training, measure the amount of breath and the range; after training, measure again with the same tools and compare. The dissertation also set a third question about everyday indicators alongside range expansion, but this series reads mainly the breathing and range results that singing practice needs.

On the purpose of the study, the dissertation writes this: to measure the range when the diaphragmatic-paralysis group sings breathing on their own and when they sing with forced abdominal breathing, to find out how much abdominal breathing helps in singing high notes, and to find out how the range changes before and after singing lessons that train control of the vocal folds. Behind this lies one explanation of the diaphragm. We breathe without thinking about it, but because we can control the speed of our breath or hold it, the diaphragm is a voluntary muscle that can be moved at will and strengthened through training.

04.Eight People, Four Groups

The dissertation set up two groups side by side: people who cannot breathe abdominally on their own, and people who can.

Because the diaphragmatic-paralysis group cannot tense the abdomen, the effect of "passive abdominal breathing" — pressing on the belly from outside to push the diaphragm up — can be seen on its own. With this method, the dissertation measured how abdominal pressure affects singing in the passaggio. People less than two years from onset were excluded to reduce the variable of natural recovery.

05.Three Kinds of Training and Ten Sessions

The experimental program had three parts.

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1. Ambu bag breathing training — after inhaling as much as possible on their own, participants had more air added with a 500cc manual resuscitator (Ambu bag) to expand the lungs.
2. Forced abdominal compression — passive abdominal breathing in which both hands press hard on the belly to push the diaphragm up. In the non-paralysis group the abdominal muscles resisted by reflex, so this method could not be used; it was applied only to the diaphragmatic-paralysis group.
3. Singing training — lessons centered on breathing and vocal technique. The goal was to carry high notes through the passaggio, the zone connecting the low and high registers, through a balance of force between the diaphragm and the vocal folds.

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The singing training was given to the non-majors over ten sessions. In each lesson they watched videos from the 24-part "Cross Kim Hyuk Gun Vocal Lessons" together, practiced along and received feedback. Here is the dissertation's Table 5, reorganized for students.

Source: reorganized from Kim Hyuk Gun (2019), Table 5, "Vocal training program and lesson content." Ambu bag breathing training was done alongside in sessions 2–9. The links in the table are the edition the dissertation cites (re-uploaded in December 2012). Lesson videos are in Korean.

Measurements were taken in session 1 and session 10 with the same tools. Exhaled breath was measured with a peak flow meter, inhaled breath with an inspiratory meter with three chambers (700cc, 1300cc and 1900cc), and range with a tuner. When you sing a note, the tuner shows the pitch and how high or low it is as a number.

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Following Scientific Pitch Notation (SPN), the dissertation calls middle C (C4) "2-octave C" and C5 "3-octave C."

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06.What the Study Found

The results the dissertation reported come down to three points (group results).

• Breath increased. All four non-majors who received the ten sessions of singing and breathing training (two from each group) showed increased inhaled and exhaled volume, and the dissertation reported that the difference in breathing volume before and after training was highly statistically significant.
• Abdominal compression widened the range. In the diaphragmatic-paralysis group, passive abdominal breathing produced by pressing on the belly widened the range. After singing and breathing training, the range also widened in their own unassisted breathing, and the non-paralysis group's range widened with training as well. The change was larger among the non-majors.
• When the forces lose balance, the note breaks. When the exhaling force was too strong and the force closing the vocal folds was too weak, the note broke. Pushing breath hard is not, by itself, how high notes are made.

With this, the dissertation confirmed that abdominal breathing was an important factor in crossing the passaggio, and concluded that high-note progression and resonance in the passaggio are possible when the diaphragm, a breathing muscle, and the vocal folds are in balance. It also noted that, with only eight participants, the study is limited in how far its results can be generalized. The results in numbers are set out as group figures in Part 24 · Practice Routine and Experimental Results.

07.How to Use This Series in Practice

You can use the order the dissertation used in its experiment as your practice order.

1. Write down your range before you start. With a tuner app, record the lowest and highest notes you can sing comfortably in SPN (for example, C5 = "3-octave C"). As in the study, you need a "before" to compare with an "after."
2. Treat ten sessions as one cycle. Watch and follow the lesson videos in the order of the sessions in the table in section 05. Session 10 is for review and measuring again.
3. Watch breath and vocal folds together. As the note-break result in section 06 shows, high notes come when the strength of the breath and the force closing the vocal folds match. Parts 2–4 (breathing) and Parts 5 and 6 (the balance between the vocal folds and the diaphragm) cover this balance in detail.

Ambu bag breathing training and forced abdominal compression were carried out as experimental procedures reviewed by a research ethics board. Do not turn them into exercises to try on your own.

The lesson to watch with this part is Season 1, Episode 5, "Singing Technique." Its description gathers five things in one video: support (restrained exhaling), pitch, the three elements of sound (breath, vocal folds, resonance), vibrato and passaggio. Marking where these five appear in the series gives you the series map.

08.The 24 Parts and Where to Go Next

The next part is Part 2 · Understanding Phonation and the Role of Breath. Kim Hyuk Gun's voice and repertoire are in Kim Hyuk Gun's Voice: Three-Octave High Notes and Hard Rock Roots, and the path he has taken is in Kim Hyuk Gun: Official Profile and Name Guide. The full set of vocal lessons is on the 뮤토리 (Mutory) YouTube channel.