Stop the insanity: Mary McDonald Klimek on the Estill approach to breathing
Mary McDonald Klimek, a speech-language pathologist and founding partner of Estill Voice International, has been such an integral part of Estill Voice Training that you'd be forgiven for thinking that's where her story began.
However, prior to meeting Jo Estill, the American singer, singing voice specialist and voice researcher who developed Estill Voice Training, Mary had been a classical soprano and voice teacher for almost twenty years - a career choice born from a passion for singing at a young age.
"I was bitten by the singing bug when I was still in my crib," she said. "I sang before I spoke and my first solo was at age four. Later, I became the little angel girl who learned to read the bass line so I could sneak in behind the organ and turn the pages for the postlude."
As Mary grew, so too did her interest in music. As a teen, Mary rallied her friends to join a community choir so they could do even more singing outside of school. They loved it so much that they would drive around town singing Mendlessohn’s Lift Thine Eyes in three parts at the top of their voices.
"Boy, were we a bunch of wild and crazy teenagers," she laughed.
In college, Mary chose to pursue a path that led her to become both an educator and a performer. Specialising as a soprano in early music, art song and contemporary classical, Mary joined the Cantata Singers in Boston and, as a chamber music fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, she worked with legendary mezzo soprano Jan Degaetani and lyric soprano Adele Addison.
“I had this rich musical background from singing in my choirs," said Mary. "But I say this without pride: after a three hour rehearsal, I often couldn’t speak. I was singing with a lot of inappropriate effort and a lot of it had to do with the way I was breathing.”
Despite meeting brilliant people along the way who pointed out aspects of her technique that were holding Mary back, the advice didn’t stick because no one could explain exactly how to correct what she was doing.
"I was involved in an opera scenes project once, for example, and was having a devil of a time with some high notes," said Mary. "The director asked if I would mind doing an experiment. He asked me to sing my aria while rolling on the floor with my arms above my head, just like a little kid rolling down a grassy hill. I thought it was a ridiculous idea, but agreed to do it anyway. How was I going to be able to sing when I couldn't hold my belly? What a fool I was! As I rolled and sang, I couldn’t hold on to my breath. I couldn’t do any of the things that I had been told to do by my voice teachers. I had to surrender to my physiology. It felt good and it sounded good! But I didn't know how to recreate this sensation elsewhere."
Enter Jo Estill, who Mary first met when she joined a workshop at Wellesley College in 1990. It didn't take long for Mary to realise that she was hooked.
“I had always been interested in both music and science," explained Mary. "And because my dad was a veterinarian, I also liked physiology. So, when I met Jo, it was like all of my interests in life suddenly came together in some kind of supernova. Gee whiz! Here was acoustics, physics, physiology and neuroanatomy eventually. It was like a dream come true. And the first morning of the course was all about breathing.”
In that initial workshop, Jo Estill put a chart on the wall showing different lung volumes (tidal breathing, resting expiratory level and exhalatory and inhalatory reserve) plus the muscles associated with each of the different lung volumes. For the first time, someone was actually explaining the natural elasticity of the lungs.
"It was like getting shoved through the looking glass," exclaimed Mary. "My first teacher told me to always sing with a firm abdominal wall. Later someone told me to spread my ribs and hold them there like a spinnaker. With my belly as stiff as a board or my ribs fixed in rib reserve, I was defying respiratory physiology and mechanics. I was working hard against my own body. No wonder I was tightening up and couldn’t talk after rehearsals.”
Following that first workshop, Mary eagerly attended as many Estill workshops and courses as she could. She soon became one of Jo Estill's early research subjects, taking part in several video endoscopic studies with Dr. Eiji Yanigasawa.
"Back then," Mary explained, "laryngoscopy was part of the 5-day course. A laryngoscopy is when a doctor passes a long, thin tube with a camera through your nose to see the larynx and the vocal folds from above. I remember sitting there with the tube through my nose looking up at my white, symmetrical vocal folds on the screen. Jo had told me that I had voluntary control over my vocal folds, so I couldn't resist putting her statement to the test while she chatted with the doctor nearby. Sure enough, it was clear that I could indeed open and close them at will. I thought to myself 'Damn, she was right! What else is she right about?'"
From those early days, the model developed into the Estill Voice Training system that we know today where thirteen Figures for Voice (specific vocal structures) are trained for conscious, isolated control and then combined in six distinct voice qualities.
One figure that you won't find among the thirteen Figures for Voice, however, is breathing. But why is there no figure for breathing?
"Because breathing is not a static thing," Mary said. "It varies with different activities. We breathe differently when we walk, run, sit or lie down. We breathe differently in different emotional states and breath behaviour varies with different voice qualities, different dynamics and where you are in your range. So, the clever solution is to let the breath free-vary and respond to what it meets on the way out. In the Estill Voice Model, we learn about the physiology and mechanics of respiration and pay close attention to the breath behaviour in all figures and voice qualities."
Most approaches to breathing, like the ones that Mary was originally taught, have us do the same thing all the time. There is no recognition that we are working in different voice qualities. As a speech-language pathologist specialising in the treatment of professional and performing voice users, Mary saw first hand how dangerous it can be when the breath becomes a static force.
"To drive this force through the larynx is very, very risky," she said. "Most people who injure themselves vocally "over breathe" and force too much breath through their larynx."
For those who feel a bit confused by the conflicting information out there about breathing, Mary has some sage advice.
"I often say 'everything you've ever heard about breathing is true - for someone, in some physical activity, in some voice quality, at some dynamic in some part of the range'. Breathing is a dynamic process. There are many ways of describing it and everyone will have different sensations. Just considering this will help voice users to take a step back and take a bigger perspective on breathing."
To help put this thinking into practice, Mary also uses a five-step exercise every day, both with students and herself. She calls it minimalist breathing.
"When you're doing the minimalist breathing exercise, don't breathe right away," said Mary. "Keep your mind out of it. There is no right or wrong. This is a chance to reset from all those things you have been told about breathing and just let your body take charge."
Mary said that the exercise reminds her of an American diet guru named Susan Powter whose early 1990s catchphrase was "Stop the insanity!"
"For me," said Mary, "this advice applies to breathing. Forget all the conflicting advice: stop the insanity! Stop the obsession. Stop the need to control every little second."
The exercise also reminds Mary of the view from her home in Maine, which overlooks a harbour.
"If I were sitting on one of those boats in their slips," she said, "I would feel a gentle rising and falling as if the water had its own "breath" that wasn't the waves or the tide. It's a great reminder to take a moment to enjoy breathing. Go to that place where the belly naturally rises and falls like we see in little babies. Let your body be a body!"
Join Mary at a complete Estill Level 1&2 course this October
Continue your journey to vocal empowerment with Mary McDonald Klimek EMCI ATP-SD and opera singer and voice teacher Stefan Holmström EMT and EMCI-C.
Saturday 26th October to Tuesday 29th October
1:00 pm to 8:00 pm UK time
Online (Zoom)
Estill Voice Training's Level 1&2 course is for anyone who would like to improve their singing or speaking voice - singers, actors, vocal coaches, drama instructors, speech-language pathologists and other vocal health professionals.
This course offers a clear understanding of the voice’s limitless possibilities, along with how to keep it vibrant and healthy.
Stefan Holmström is a professional opera singer and voice teacher who works with a diverse range of clients. He offers online and in-person vocal coaching and workshops from his studio in central Brighton in the UK. As an Estill Master Trainer (EMT), Stefan uses Estill Voice Training (EVT) as a baseline for safe and sustainable voice use.
Comments