Of course, the other part about breath support is how you organize your body to connect that airflow with the vocal cords functioning.

 When we’re talking about breath support, regardless of the terminology we use the method that we use or our ideas about it, it’s always about how you control the airflow when you are singing.

Now, how you control that airflow is where the different opinions come in. Now, what worked best for me  was the ability to breathe in and inhale with the ribs, not only the ribs that are here (demonstrates) but also the higher ribs from the fifth rib and below, to be able to inhale opening the ribs to the sides, and then letting the ribs there to exhale (demonstrates).  Now, normally what would happen is you breathe in with your ribs expanding, and then when you exhale, the ribs come back to the initial position.

For me, what helped was to learn to inhale, using the inhaling muscles within the ribs (the external intercostals), and then keeping the inhaling muscles engaged when you are exhaling. And what that does is you are inhaling, you are expanding your ribs and the diaphragm has space. And then when you exhale, you are not helping the diaphragm. You are not bringing your ribs in and that makes the diaphragm have much more control over the airflow. As a result, the airflow is going to be more controlled and your vocal cords are going to be able to work in a more differentiated way. We want to do this for healthy and highly skilled singing.

 The benefits of breath support go well beyond holding notes for a long time. Yes, that is one of the main benefits, but it also allows you to, as I said before, have a very differentiated voice in which you have control of how you sound.