Learning to pray through breath and music

Learning to pray through breath and music

Karie Charlton offers a reflection on embodied faith, music and mindful breathing.

BY KARIE CHARLTON
PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 16, 2025

“Singing well is praying twice”

“Singing well is praying twice” is a quote often attributed to Saint Augustine, but he never said it directly. Instead, his sermon on singing psalms connects singing “a new song” with joy and love. In that writing, Augustine explains that there is a difference between singing and embodying the song, just as there is a difference between saying we love God and acting in our love of God. Singing God’s praises must connect with our breath and body to produce a pleasing sound, but it is all the more beautiful if the words we sing connect with the life we live. In other words, singing prayers is one thing but singing prayers that you believe and live out — that is praying twice.

Faith shaped through music

Music is tied to my faith. Growing up in Pittsburgh, my music teachers were either Catholic or Presbyterian, and my catalogue of musical prayers that shaped my faith is a mix of both. I studied church music at a Baptist college and had a church music internship in a Methodist church; my faith developed along with my repertoire. Before becoming a pastor, I taught music at a Catholic school. After my students could perform the song technically, I heard myself use some version of Augustine’s quote in my own teaching too, “sing it like you believe it.” I knew that I could teach the music, but it was up to my students as performers to connect the text to their own spirituality and bring the audience with them.

I was fortunate that in my teaching context I was permitted and encouraged to share my faith with my students. Being one of the few teachers who were not Catholic, I found that the students were often a little more intrigued by what I said and willing to ask questions that they knew I might answer differently than their religion teachers. The music room was a safe space to express religious thought that they would be more nervous to express in other contexts.

By incorporating faith with the music lesson, I noticed a difference in the music. If I or a student expressed a personal connection with a certain lyric or idea, the sound quality was different when we sang it again. Together, we sounded better, more resonant in a way that is difficult to quantify. My faith is forever different because of the teachers, students and fellow choristers that poured their faith out for me. And I hope I did the same for them.

I often wonder if I would teach singing differently now, and the answer is yes. I still believe that singing well is praying twice, and I now know that breathing well is another way to pray twice. When I was nervous, my college voice teacher would advise me to remember my breathing. At the time it felt like advice to remember the basics or to start a performance the way I would prepare to start a voice lesson. What I know now that I didn’t then, was how similar breathing for singing is to mindfulness practices and centering prayer practices. The way we breath for singing is the way we breath to ground ourselves and to prepare to enter silence.

How breath work strengthens prayer and spiritual practice

I’ve heard both musicians and spiritual directors use the term box breathing as a way to describe the techniques they teach. The basics include standing or sitting in a way that is comfortable and supports the body, then inhaling for four counts, holding that breath for four counts, and exhaling. As a musician, the focus was on strengthening intercostal muscles to support diaphragmatic breathing which allows vocalists to sing long passages in a single breath and achieve bel canto (beautiful singing).

As someone studying spiritual practices, the focus of box breathing is on being in the present moment and clearing the mind and heart to be open to the presence of God. While centering prayer encourages meditators to return to a sacred word as a way of achieving stillness, other teachers suggest returning to your very breath. Learning these techniques from a variety of musicians and spiritual directors has allowed me to formulate and reformulate breathing that guides my devotion in prayer and song.

Singing, breathing and living out faith

Using breath to prepare for silence (or sound) focuses my mind on the present moment, relaxes my body, and centers my connection with the presence of God. Singing my prayers enhances the sound and my daily living as a person of faith. Like Fred Pratt Green wrote in his hymn, “When in Our Music God is Glorified,” I have found that making music brings me to a more profound worship.