Posture vs. Body Alignment

So which is it?

Is it posture or body alignment?

I’d like to think it is a mixture of both.  But for the sake of this post, I’ll talk mainly about body alignment.  Posture, for me, always brings up visions of a military officer.  It makes me immediately feel stiff, tense and somewhat stressed.  It gives me the feeling of being upright, unnatural and serious.  For years, none of these mental images and perceptions made sense to me as a singer.  I did it, because I was told to.  But I didn’t know how it made sense and fit together with the idea of being relaxed as a singer.  So, with that in mind, the idea of replacing the word “posture” with “body alignment” was a breath (no pun intended) of fresh air to me.

So when we talk about body alignment, we are referring to the way we stand or the way our buoyant bodies move in place.  It’s the way we energize the voice while we are in an energized but stable position.

We begin with proper body alignment by standing against the wall with our heels, buttocks, shoulder blades and head touching the wall.  When we walk away from the wall, we have more awareness of where our head should be in relation to the body.  But this is the part where we relax the shoulders, breathe and allow our bodies to be relaxed but energized with our sternum high and our feet placed slightly apart with knees slightly bent.  We’ll talk more about the bent knees in a moment, but the point is this:  we want to stand tall, but never, ever stiff.  We want to be in a noble posture that emphasizes height but never tension.

After we find this tall, noble posture with the sternum high and shoulders relaxed back and down.  Oh…by the way…did I mention we don’t want HIGH shoulders when we sing?  I didn’t?  Well, anyway…we don’t want high shoulders.  And then, after all that…(are you still with me?) we want to make sure our back and hips are properly aligned and our feet are hips’ width apart with both knees slightly bent and one leg slightly more forward and bent than the other.

What is the point of all this?  Well, we want to have stability.  We want to be able to stand without falling over.  When our knees are straight and too close together or the body isn’t properly aligned, we run the risk of our knees locking and losing balance.  With nerves already in place during performance, our sense of balance is already threatened.  And if we are standing with our body properly aligned and our feet at a hips’ width apart with knees slightly bent, we are able to sing with balance and stability.

Now back to the high sternum.  When we raise our sternum (the bone in the center of our chest) toward the ceiling, we are physically encouraged to stand in a noble position.  This high, noble position allows our rib cage plenty of room to expand and our lungs to inhale to their full capacity.

So, this.  This is the body alignment we need and want as singers.  No stiffness.  No pretense.  No high shoulders.  But we do want high sternums.  Make sense?

Here’s a wonderful diagram of how the body should look when it is properly aligned.

Enjoy!