Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Breathing naturally comes naturally

Published on January 24, 2009 in Mastery, Teaching and Technique. 2 Comments Tags: alexander technique, breath support, breathing, breathing cycle, breathing muscles, proper breath support, proper breathing, wind players.

The breathing cycle is a beautiful and complex mechanism, which when used consciously in a natural way, gives us immense control over our phrasing, tone, pitch control and dynamics. Used unnaturally, problems arise such as shortness of breath, excessive nerves, hyper-ventilation while playing, fatigue and the numerous symptoms of those misuses in our playing; erratic phrases, out of tune pitch and strident or hollow tone.

Breathing correctly, or naturally, comes naturally, if you let it happen without unnecessary interference. (Inhibiting unnecessary interference is the engine which drives the Alexander Technique.) Unfortunately, most wind players have interfered with the beautiful and natural inborn cycles of breathing muscles in their attempts to improve it or master it.

The link below takes you to an animation of a child respirating. Children use themselves naturally for the most part, until they are instructed to do something another way, when the pernicious issue of self-consciousness comes into play, often causing misuse which may never be corrected.

I recommend watching this cyclical animation of breathing for numerous cycles, breathing along with it to experience your own breathing cycle.

To begin the demonstration, click “start”, then, to get the animation going, click “next” several times to see each phase of breathing. After that it should continue automatically. Be sure to also click “show ribs”, which shows the beautiful elasticity of the rib cage expanding up and out, and contracting down and in. Notice how the top of the lungs and rib cage expand just as much as the bottom.

An unfortunate limitation of this animation is that it doesn’t shows the surrounding body moving along with the ribs and lungs.

Watching someone breathe naturally is really mesmerizing, as the torso expands and contracts, rises and falls, seemingly independent from the head and neck. The shoulders, resting on the rib cage, only rise and fall as a consequence of the rib cage doing so, not from their own effort. Novices learning to breath consciously often think the shoulders should “be raised” when breathing, which creates tension in the neck and distortion of the natural cycle.

Scalenus Neck Muscles

Scalenus Neck Muscles

To create inhalation, the diaphragm contracts, pulling down, creating negative space in the lungs, which then pull in air. As the same time, the ribs moves up and out (excursion) at the 24 (12 on each side) joints of the ribs along the spine, with the aid of the External Intercostal Muscles. The ribs also expand (excurse) at the cartilage tissue connecting the ribs to the sternum. Some of the neck muscles also help with inhalation, namely the scalene muscles of the neck, which connect to the top ribs and help them raise on inhalation.

post-shoulder-muscles1Do not confuse these neck muscles with the Trapezius, right near by. These are the muscles used when you shrug your shoulders. At times it seems helpful to use these shoulder muscles to pull a bigger breath, but these create more tension than inhalation.

On exhalation, the diaphragm is passive, the lungs are eager to spring back to their smaller shape, just as a balloon released pushes air out, and the ribs pull in and down with the aid of the Internal Intercostal Muscles. Under exertion or while speaking or laughing or singing or playing a wind instrument, various abdominal muscles are used to push the diaphragm up and the air.

These abdominal muscles are:

-Transverse - the main muscles that hold your body insides … inside
-Rectus - this is the “six pack” area
-External oblique - the left and right side “twisting” muscles
-Internal oblique - inner muscles that counterpart the externals to help with twisting

Instead of attempting to describe exactly how these muscles are used, which is not only difficult to verbalize, but also nearly impossible to enact consciously, it is better to turn to the instinctual use of these muscles, as in speaking or laughing. when the subtle use of abdominal muscles is observed, they may be seen to contribute to smooth exhalation with a “group effort”. Here again, the concept of “inhibition” so often mentioned in the Alexander Technique is critical. Observation of our “natural” patterns often creates other misuses and un-helpful effort.

One of the best analogies I have heard to date to indicate how the abdomen feels when properly supporting is from Robert Marcellus, who said it feels like there is a tire around your abdomen pushing in from all around. Nothing else should be involved, not your neck, not your back (except lower), not your legs, not your shoulders, not your jaw, not your tongue, not your throat.

An easy exercise to help observe our natural support abilities is to put your hands on the sides of your waist and say soft laughing “ha” sounds with a little gasp between each. Notice how the whole torso is involved without tensing. Now increase volume. Keep the “tire” image in your mind as you feel the various muscles around your abdomen work in tandem to exert the huffing “ha” sound.

I also had success with one student with the following exercise. From a standing position, release your knees as you bend at the waist. Put your forearms on your knees to support this stance as you relax your torso and back, letting your butt go out behind you as your head and back become parallel to the floor. Take slow deep breath, letting your butt relax away from your torso toward what ever is behind you, let’s say the wall. As your ribs round out and to the side, your head and neck remain relaxed, which allows the spine to “gather”. Let this expanding torso/gathering spine movement continue until you are gently full… then exhale, letting your a) butt continue relaxing away from you as your b) head moves the opposite way and your c) spine lengthens and your d) torso (combination abdomen and ribs) squeezes in. Your spine feels like a soft stretchy necklace of beads in the middle of a balloon. When the balloon expands around the springy bead necklace, the beads pull closer together. When the balloon contracts, the beads move farther apart.

The emphasis here is to notice the involvement of the butt area as it expands to accommodate the viscera being pushed down and out, and then how it becomes the “spring” point from which the team of abdominal muscles and rib muscles push the air up and out. After a few breaths like this, slowly begin to move to standing, letting your head come up and forward, keeping knees bent and butt moving away from your head. Keep awareness of the freedom of your butt!!

Enjoy breathing deeply! Don’t over think it. Just remember, breathing naturally really does come naturally. You don’t have to learn how to do it, just learn how to control it with out interfering with it.

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CSO is a Great Orchestra

Published on January 17, 2009 in Behind the Scenes, Columbus Cultural Politics, Musician's Life and columbus symphony orchestra. 5 Comments Tags: acoustics, columbus, columbus symphony, cso, david lockington, guest conductor, holst, junichi hirokami, music director, musicians, Ohio Theater, orchestral sound, rehearsal, rehearsals.

It’s hard to believe how good the CSO sounds, considering the beating we’ve taken the past year.

Tonight we had our first concert back in the Ohio Theater since last May, and we sounded incredible.

Last week we played Holst’s The Planets in Vets Memorial Auditorium, a cavernous hall with no stage shell, and we sounded darn good there.

During rehearsals at Vets, without the audience, we could hear just enough acoustical feedback from the hall to taper releases of chords together, something we have not been able to do, or had the acoustical security to accomplish to such high degree, in the Ohio Theater.

I was impressed how the orchestra brought together details of performance after so many months apart. With a near full capacity audience during the concert in Vets, the acoustics were drier, and a bit more difficult to hear across the stage, especially with no shell. But many of the rehearsal details stuck.

Tonight’s concert went even better, despite Ohio Theater’s overly booming stage acoustics. (think of trying to whisper an intimate poem to a lover in a crowded subway station)

The Ohio Theater stage is a literal “box”, since the proscenium of the historical 1920s movie theater is much too narrow to allow complex orchestral sounds to blossom from the stage to the audience. This causes two problems. First, the musicians must constantly filter the roar of all the excess sound on stage in order to play with depth and beauty, rather than “shouting” to be heard over each other. Secondly, since much of the sound remains on stage, bouncing around, the audience receives only a reduced portion of the music making from the stage.

But the orchestra sounded as good in the Ohio Theater as it has in years, even better!

At first I thought is was our guest conductor, David Lockington, who holds his own with a crisp ear and heartfelt, intuitive phrasing. But the reason we sounded good was due to more than Mr. Lockington’s care.

It wasn’t until after the concert that I realized the inspiration behind the orchestra’s crisp and unified style.

After only two years of conducting us as Music Director, our beloved Junichi Hirokami has left his mark. The Columbus Symphony is several notches better than before his appointment as our musical leader.

We now play with more stable internal rhythm, better blending of colors and with more intimate phrasing because of Junich Hirokami’s influence.

Junichi Hirokami may not have spoken English very well. He may not have met the ego and image demands of the city’s elite. He may not have satisfied the masochistic tendencies of some musicians who feel that orchestra musicians need a tyrant to whip them into playing their best.

Junichi’s strategy was different from the start. He invited us, in a fun, lighthearted way, to believe in ourselves, to trust our musical instincts and our natural desire to improve, to play better and to enjoy what we do, no matter what political poison seeps into the well water.

Just think of where we could have gone if he had been invited to continue here! (If only all parties had been able to overcome the petty desire for revenge over unfortunate words, events which now appear tragically selfish compared to the music we could have made!)

The great paradox of making music is that it is, on the one hand, a critically difficult task, yet one which requires an optimistic and eager spirt in order to be accomplished to the highest level.

Not to worry, the musicians will carry forward the torch of high quality music making. Hopefully we won’t quickly forget the inspiration behind our step up in quality as an orchestra.

Tonight, the musicians of the Columbus Symphony showed that we have chosen to move to the next level of orchestral quality.

We don’t need anyone to understand what we do and what it’s worth, because we know as much, and much more.

And it shows.

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Emerson Meyers Clarinet Sonata

Published on January 14, 2009 in Performances, Programing and The Music. 6 Comments Tags: clarinet sonata, clarinetist, david thomas, emerson meyers, kennedy center, meyers, mouthpiece, national gallery of art, national symphony, peabody conservatory.

A few months ago I got an email, through the contact page of my blog, from a Steve Offutt, whom I had never heard of. Here’s the text.

I serendipitously met someone at the post office in Arlington, VA who shared your performance of the Emerson Meyers Clarinet Sonata with me. I liked it a lot–both the music and the performance. Sounds challenging, but I’d love to a take a shot at working some or all of it up. Do you have the music or know where I can get a copy?

I had not heard of Emerson Meyers or his Sonata, and so wrote back that he must be mistaken. He responded.

Thanks. I have a recording in which a David Thomas played with pianist Bonnie Kellert at a concert on May 4, 1986 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. I googled you, but your name is not exceptionally unusual (although how many high caliber clarinetists named David Thomas are there, I wonder?) Do you know of any other David Thomases who play clarinet who might have been the clarinetist at that concert? I’m attaching the third movement. At the end there is an announcer’s voice mentioning the name David Thomas.

I listened to the recording, and was impressed with the piece and the performance. I lived in Washington, DC in 1986, when it was performed at the National Gallery of Art concerts series. I soloed quite a bit around DC during that period, while playing Principal with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, whose schedule was not all that busy.

The playing in the recording is familiar, along with the warm up and the throat clearing before the performance began. The composer was the pianist with the National Symphony; the pianist, Bonnie Kellert, a graduate of Peabody Conservatory, which I attended from 1978-80. My teacher from Peabody, Sidney Forrest, probably knew both of them.

The pianist’s playing is impressive, and I hope I complimented her at the time. But my memory of the event has not fully returned.

I’m including the recording below for your listening enjoyment.

How strange and wonderful that this obscure but delightful piece, and a recording of that performance with me playing, would pop up 22 years later! I think it’s a great piece and should be published, if the parts can be located. I’m working on that.

The only information I have is from the announcer at the end of this recording, who states this Sonata for Clarinet and Piano was written in 1946 for his good friend Paul Garrett, and revised in 1958.

Meyers Sonata, Movt. 1

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Meyers Sonata, Movt. 2

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Meyers Sonata, Movt. 3

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I did a little digging about the man. Apparently, Emerson Meyers was quite a figure in the Washington area, known equally as pianist, teacher and composer. He also left literally a mountain of writings (14 cubic feet), a few pages of which are quoted and summarized HERE.

To see the full text of his lengthy obituary in the Washington Post from 1990, I had to buy access. Ah, technology; liberation, for a price! The brunt of that obit is at the following link- Emerson Meyers- Pianist, Techer, Composer- 1910-1990.

PS- Randy Foster emailed me with a few things he found. The “google books” listing above is sold at Amazon, and the whole thing is browsable on Amazon’s site. Here is the link to that. Check out page 306, where the whole program I played is listed!

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Clarinet Pushups

Published on January 12, 2009 in Mastery, Practicing and Technique. 2 Comments Tags: Clarinet, concerts, diane ackerman, hand position, mouthpiece, natural poise, practice session, rehearsals.

I have discovered that issues with the right hand position holding up the clarinet can deteriorate over time, causing serious problems if not corrected.

Such a problem occurred with me. When I reached out to turn a page with my right hand, I always felt a shocking pain shoot up through my forearm. I just ignored the symptom, which usually flared up during professional rehearsals and concerts, when I had little time to reflect on the cause.

Now that I am practicing more at home, I had to face the problem. I played around with it over several sessions. (I’ve noticed I use that phrase a lot, “played around with”. It reminds me of Diane Ackerman’s wonderful book, “Deep Play”, a lush and poetic exploration of the subject from a Darwinian point of view. Ultimately, play is how we best learn.)

It wasn’t until I was out for a walk one day that I noticed now my right hand never let go of the clarinet. I had tension continuously in that forearm. The epiphany was more physical than spiritual, but I suddenly felt my hand’s natural openness, each finger’s distance from the others, inhabiting its own muscular “space”.

It brought new meaning to my habitual suggestion to students to shake out their hands to find their natural poise. I’ve also told them their hands should feel like they are holding a large sponge ball. Now my hand felt joyously like it was holding a large ball, not quite basket ball size, but just big enough to call each digit out from the center of my hand into a poised fan shape.

I carried this openness into my next practice session, and found that my thumb collapsed from this ideal position under the weight of the clarinet.

I “played around” with that habitual issue, exaggerating the “openness” of my hand way beyond the position required by the keys. The muscles of my forearm were not weak at all, just lazy.

So I invented a little exercise, clarinet pushups, to remind my hand of its inherent openness. For those who wish to try this exercise, here it is.

While standing, hold the clarinet way out in front of your body, so your arms are extended. Level the instrument so the mouthpiece is slightly below the plane where your mouth is. Without bringing it to your lips, push up and toward your mouth with your thumb to bring the instrument up to your playing position, while keeping your arms extended. Repeat this “pushup” a dozen times or so.

Do not forget to mind your general stance, meaning your overall tension and balance. It’s useless to isolate the thumb while torturing other muscles. You should feel a little burn in the front of your right shoulder. The weight of the clarinet is not the sole responsibility of your thumb, or your shoulder, but is, with good “use”, transfered to your back where the real strength lies.

Don’t worry that your fingers and hand extend beyond the keys while doing this. Focus on the space between the fingers during this exercise, not the position of the hand.

Now, with your arms extended and open, as if you are about to give someone a hug, use your thumb and arms, in that order, to bring the instrument to your mouth to play. Never lose awareness of both hand’s openness.

Play a C scale two octaves, not worrying if you over shoot a few keys. Again, the point is to contract that open fan shape as little as possible.

If you, like many woodwind players, have suffered from discomfort in your right hand from holding the instrument, this exercise will help you become aware of, and perhaps resolve, those issues.

My right hand hand facility has improved, and I rarely have shocks up my arms when turning pages.

Happy Tooting!

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Thoughts on Perfection and Being Human

Published on January 6, 2009 in Mastery, Musician's Life, Orchestra Auditions, Performances and symphony management. 2 Comments Tags: alexander technique, audition, auditioning, chicago symphony, effortless mastery, facebook, kenny werner, maria callas, obsessive compulsive disorder, orchestral auditions, orchestral musician, playing music, principal tubist.

In the current world of perfectionist auditions and recording quality performance standards, I doubt that Maria Callas would have been much more than a talented wannabe. Her tone was too bright, her vibrato too wobbly. What a tragedy, that musicians such as that are probably being overlooked.

Will Roesch, a tuba student, wrote me a note on Facebook, inquiring about the pros and cons of perfectionism in the music world. He wrote:

I was wondering if you could offer some words of wisdom.

To be blunt I have obsessive compulsive disorder, so I’ve always struggled with the ideas of perfection, order, symmetry, and so forth. Unfortunately, even within the comforting realm of music it’s managed to manifest itself. I’ve been given a few perspectives on orchestral playing. One teacher insists perfection is the only gateway to an orchestral job; the Principal Tubist of the Chicago Symphony instilled in me there is no such thing as perfection. He told me you can only do your best, and the true mark of an orchestral musician is improving from the last audition/performance/etc.

The perfection thing is ground into me every week; and I know for a normal person it would be stressful, but for someone like me with OCD, it becomes overwhelming.

So how do you do it? Do you put unrealistic demands on yourself in an attempt to reach a specific goal, or is perfection really the goal for which I should be striving?

When I’m playing, if I start to think about the mechanics of what I’m doing, I inevitably make a mistake, but I’ve noticed when I think of something out of body or just get lost in the moment entirely, things seem to go fine. I like to think of my tuba as a dusty, forgotten leviathan that never gets the spot light, and when the time comes, it’s the one singing the song to show what beauty it has to offer, not me.

I have posted my response below. I will add to this over the next few days. I also welcome conversations about these ideas in the comments.

Will- Thanks for the intriguing explorations and questions about the various philosophies of playing music. You really got me thinking.

Since I began studying the Alexander Technique, I’ve attempted to hone the answers to such questions, both for myself and my students. We performers embody such a paradox by attempting to perfect the expression of seemingly “other-worldly” music with all too human bodies.

I think it was Van Cliburn who said something to the effect of “Music offers enough to fill a lifetime, but one life is not enough to do music justice.” Music may or may not be perfectible, but it is always improvable, and certainly worth the trouble.

So, how then do we approach such a difficult and elusive goal? The answer is both philosophical and practical.

We forever strive toward perfection by setting our sights on the heavenly goal of the perfect performance, all the while seeking the most efficient path physically. (I am reminded of Kenny Werner’s book, Effortless Mastery)

The second part of that phrase is the real key. The great performers practice not so much to perfect a piece of music, but to render performing it effortless. Ironically, perfection is all the more attainable when we get out of our own way.

Yet, our “efforts” toward “effortlessness” can become a problem in itself. Your frustration with the choice between “thinking about the mechanics” and simply “letting it happen” is symptomatic of that problem. You have the right idea in striving to let it happen in an “out of body” sort of way, but that won’t help you if you happen to be hindered by one or more physical misuses.

In that case, you need to allow yourself to step back, as many steps as necessary, possibly back to simply standing or sitting without playing, in order to find your way toward the most efficient and “effortless” use of your self, by which you can move beyond one particular limitation and on to the next. And so on and so on. Backward until you arrive at a place where forward is truly possible, then forward until you find another habit of misuse, all the while remembering that our real goal is not physical ease, but the music itself.

Think of traversing a huge river gorge in a jungle to photograph a beautiful, rare orchid. You can see the other side just a few hundred feet away, but the depth of the gap is insurmountably deep. How do you get there? You cannot just jump; wish as you may to be able to fly. You must weave your way meticulously down one face of the gorge, through many unknown and possibly endless obstacles; then cross the river, which may be a problem in itself, then scale the other side, before arriving just a few hundred feet from where you were. You must take care not to injure yourself along the way, so attention to efficient solutions to the myriad challenges is critical along the way.

Is the orchid worth all that? The only way you can answer is that you enjoyed the process of getting there (I know. Huge cliché) the challenge as well as the journey. Dreaming of the orchid along the journey helps, and it may even offer critical creative inspiration, but patience and perseverance are the real tools. Obsessing over the goal is counter productive. If you lose sleep or hurt yourself, how does that help? (Yet many musicians grow up feeding on self-destructive habits) Suppose you never quite make it? What have you gained along the way?

Seeking to attain the highest goal is vital to our motivation, but it cannot destroy our joy in the seeking, otherwise our efforts are philosophically and spiritually fruitless.

There are too many bitter musicians out there who only sought the orchid and got lost along the way.

(To give a very real example of what I just described, the process of typing my answer to your inquiries could have easily become an issue of misuse in itself, as I slouched in front of the computer typing, compulsively goal oriented instead of process oriented.)

Incidentally, I am still misusing myself in front of the computer as I type this, right after having a great, body expanding yoga class!!

I would like to add that auditions are, in my opinion, tainted by an unrealistic perfectionist culture which has permeated their practice over the past two decades. A great player takes chances. A perfect player rarely does, if ever. I can understand (without condoning) such a cookie cutter benchmark if the position is in a section. But for a principal position, I would much rather an extremely high quality player who pushes the limit a bit each time he/she plays, striving for the ever elusive beauty of the music.

I believe that any phrase can be played a number of ways, some more effective than others, but different versions of which can reach out to the listener with a slightly different version beauty. If that were not the case, then there would be only one version of every piece sold on CD.

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Breath Support, a Singer’s Words

Published on January 2, 2009 in Musician's Life. 2 Comments Tags: alexander technique, breath support, breathing, caruso, pavarotti, singer.

I always meet interesting people during vacation visits to my father. While visiting him in S.C. over Christmas, he took me to the golf driving range so he could hit a few balls to enjoy the mild weather.

We had a bite to eat at the public snack bar. Several folks knew him, not surprising considering how much time he spends there. During lunch, one fellow, a retired business man in his 70’s, sat down to chat. I had not met him before then.

He seemed excited to publicize his upcoming singing performance of a Verdi aria, one which I had not heard of, at a recital of various artists. I had no knowledge of his abilities, and assumed he was an amateur who took up singing after retirement. Apparently this recital was for talented and professional singers, so my interest was piqued.

When asked how he got into singing, he told us how at age 18, after indepth interviews to guide him in career choices, he was advised to pursue either a singing or acting career, both of which his father summarily nixed. Sadly, there was some bitterness in this recounting, an opportunity and a passion dismissed and missed. (I feel fortunate my father did not make the same decision for me)

He continued, telling us how, while in his early 40’s, a professional singer inadvertently heard a few notes of him singing at the end of a tape recording, and had encouraged him to study professionally; and how, once he learned to support correctly, he discovered that he was more naturally inclined to be a tenor rather than a baritone, as his new teacher had predicted.

Since I have been thinking a lot about support recently, I asked him how he described good support. Without hesitation he said with a chuckle, “Think of trying to push down from your gut as if you are sitting on the toilet trying to “go”, and then push up from there. That’s how Caruso described it! Push down from below and up from there.”

I can’t imagine a better way to put it. I had heard of pushing down as if trying to “go”, but had not heard the critical part about pushing up from the torso.

From my knowledge of the Alexander Technique, I know that the spine lengthens as the air is expelled, so the torso feel itself going up, as the gut muscles from the pelvic floor girdle to create the necessary push from as deep as possible.

I think singers, especially tenors, are the best examples of great support in action. They require the most effective support to hit the high notes. Pavarotti was a clear demonstration of that when he hit his high notes. They sounded low and full, even though they were way up at the top of his voice. Now that’s great breath support!

Unfortunately, I had to leave S.C. before his recital experience. I hope his performance went well.

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