Archive for the 'Technique' Category

Structures and Movement of Breathing

Published on March 11, 2009 in Teaching and Technique. 0 Comments Tags: alexander technique, barbara conable, breath support, breathing technique, choruses, wind players.

I strongly recommend all wind players read The Structures and Movement of Breathing by Barbara Conable and James Jordan.
Structure and Movements of Breathing
Though written as A Primer for Choirs and Choruses, it is invaluable as a guide to any wind player wanting to improve their breathing skills.

It is a concise book, which in a mere 40 or so pages of text and illustrations details the scientific structures and movements of breathing and also lists numerous experiential interpretations of the sensations of the critical process of breathing and support.

The text, often light in tone, manages to convey exacting descriptions of necessary knowledge to educate any performer or teacher without confusion or obfuscating language.

For example, the section on the mouth states:

…the frequent injunction to”breathe low” is confusing to young singers, not because low isn’t important- it is terribly important- but because the injunction undervalues and distracts from the equally important higher movement of ribs and diaphragm. Our lungs and diaphragms lie higher in our torsos than any other organs except our hearts, which snuggle between our lungs, just above our highly domed diaphragms. Students ask, “Should we breather high or low?” The answer is yes. We should breathe high, and we should breathe middle, and we should breathe low, across the whole natural range of breathing movement. Fine singing depends on movement choices throughout the entire torso.

Or, in a description differentiating between the Body Map (internal feeling) of the trachea and the esophagus:

The common and very destructive confusion concerning the location of the trachea and esophagus and the function of the pharyngeal muscles is often accompanied by a misunderstanding of sound, which is that sound is a substance, something that a singer may, for instance, “project.” Singers with substance fantasies are prone to use the food-moving apparatus to sing. Sound is not a substance; it is merely and purely vibration in air. Singers who comprehend this fact fully move air cleanly in and out through the trachea, using their intercostals and their diaphragms. The esophagus waits there behind the trachea for something good to eat after the rehearsal.

Though the book is based on the ideas of the Alexander Technique, there is no requirement of previous knowledge of the Technique to benefit from the lessons in it.

The illustrations by Tim Phelps are of high quality with just the right amount of helpful detail.

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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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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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Double Tonguing on Clarinet

Published on December 17, 2008 in Mastery and Technique. 6 Comments Tags: bassoon, beethoven symphony, bob spring, cleveland orchestra, double tongue, double tonguing, larry combs, marcellus, mendelssohn, midsummer nights dream, orchestral excerpts, paganini, perpetual motion, principal clarinetist, scherzo.

I’ve dabbled with double-tonguing for a number of years. (Is double dabbling acceptable?) It seems everyone but clarinetists do it. My sister is a flutist and learned double-tonguing early, as do all flutists. My woodwind colleagues in the orchestra, flute, oboe and bassoon, all double-tongue.

The accepted tradition says clarinetists just don’t double tongue. Since we keep our tongue quite high for voicing, double tonguing interferes with the air stream and changes the sound, especially in the clarion and altissimo registers. Only a few clarinet soloists, considered “freaks” of nature, can double tongue effectively.

Additionally, many recordings of famous orchestral excerpts, such as Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from the Midsummer Nights Dream or Beethoven Symphony # 4, last movement, suggest that it is acceptable to add slurs to troubling passages. Larry Combs, retired Principal Clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony, admitted he slurs over the sixteenth before the grace note in the Beethoven excerpt. In the Mendelssohn Scherzo recording by the Cleveland Orchestra, Marcellus adds a slur at the beginning of the two measure run starting on E.

Those are the ideas I grew up with and have found little reason to change. My single tongue is acceptably fast. I can tongue about 132 to the quarter for short bursts, maybe a bar or two, and at 126 for longer, functional tempos for most excerpts. (In college days, I wondered if I would ever tongue fast enough, being unable to do sixteenths faster than 112-116, but I had a breakthrough when I realized I tightened my tongue in attempts to tongue faster, hindering its natural speed)

I have noodled with double tonguing on the Beethoven 4th excerpt for a few years, but have never been able to use it in performance. My double tongue was too fast and uncontrolled for the “real” thing, where the tempo and dynamics make it difficult to control.

But recently I have heard more soloists in recordings who can double tongue effectively and without interfering with the sound. Kari Kriikku and Martin Frost come to mind. Bob Spring has made a name for himself with his ability to double tongue AND circular breathe in his recording of Paganini’s Perpetual Motion. I asked Bob about double tonguing a few years ago, and he gave me a printed copy of his routine and method. He also gave me one important piece of advice: keep your throat relaxed.

During the ‘08-’09 Season of the Columbus Symphony, we played Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, for what seems like the 50th time in the past ten years. The conductor wanted a brisk tempo in the tricky first movement, with its alternating sixteenth passages in 6/8 time, and which begin after a sixteenth rest.

Since all the woodwinds played the lick together, I hated having to add slurs to keep up, and was barely able to get the notes in at that tempo without a slur or two. So I hunkered down the day before the performance and tried to double tongue the lick. It’s in the low register, and so is not too dicey.

The problem was that it begins on a sixteenth upbeat, meaning you have to begin on a “Goh”, or shift the whole lick over a sixteenth, making the offbeat quite accented. I tried both, with uneven results in either case. To be clear, even the double tonguing flutes, oboes and bassoons had trouble with these same issues.

During the performance I made it through, by the skin of my teeth, or my tongue. It was not a recording quality event, to say the least! But I managed to use a crude form of double tonguing in a performance for the first time! Since then, I have persisted in chipping away at the issues around double tonguing in my regular practice sessions.

Following Bob Spring’s advice, I focused on the throat and air, not the tongue. I had heard that the consonants “T-K” are inappropriate for clarinet use, since they close off the air, so I use “D-G”.

I wasn’t particularly disciplined about the practice. I just kept at it, playing around (I emphasize the “playfulness” of the process) with lots of single note repetitions in the low register, moving to changing notes. At first I didn’t use a metronome, wanting to focus on air and throat, and not tempo or rhythm. Then I added metronome to steady the technique.

I gradually moved up to the clarion register, keeping focus on a soft throat. I found that if I kept the air speed fast (or better yet, “falling” fast, which is less tense), it helped me maintain an “un-collapsed” voicing during the guttural “goh” sound.

Another colleague, Steve Secan, Principal Oboist of the Columbus Symphony, mentioned the importance of the vowel sound in addition to the consonant. I use “Doh-Goh”, to help keep air flow fast and throat and soft palette loose. Also keep the consonants very light and tongue relaxed. Let it flop in the air, like a flag flapping in the wind. The flag has no muscles to tense. Let your tongue be like the flag in a brisk breeze.

After 6 months, I can double tongue fairly comfortably up to a clarion “C”, though it’s not perfect yet up there, and still difficult to play soft dynamics.

I emphasize the importance of keeping the air speed moving quickly, and keeping the throat, jaw and soft palette uninvolved. It is a common tendency to tighten the throat, jaw, tongue and everything else when attempting a new technique. Worry less about quality of sound and more about quality of air, and you will progress quickly.

The Saint-Saens excerpt would be a piece of cake now. I hope we perform it again soon, even though we’ve played it way too much already.

I strongly recommend all serious clarinet students begin their exploration of this vital technique early in their studies. I believe it is becoming standard practice for any competitive clarinetist. Don’t wait to motivate until you have lost an audition because you didn’t learn double tonguing!

Before publishing this article, I did a quick search for double tonguing articles on the web, and I found one by David Pino on Woodwind.org. He describes a double tonguing technique of flapping the tongue back and forth, or up and down in Pino’s suggestion, using the word “tuttle” as the basis for the articulation. (It’s like slapping the reed up and down with the tongue) I and my colleague Robert Woody Jones have used this style occasionally in loud tutti passages such as in parts of Strauss, Don Juan, where the woodwinds have extremely fast triplets on single notes. Pino goes on to use this style for triple tonguing as well.

I’ll have to play around with this style of double tonguing. My first attempts just now created a hollow sound, since the tongue needs to stay flat to implement it. But it may come in handy with a little refining.

I also found this article by Clark Fobes called “Synthetic Speed”, in which he suggests mixing double and single tonguing. Clark details the double tonguing technique and his hybrid variant in impressive detail.

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Jeanjean, Étude 2

Published on October 10, 2008 in Clarinet, Mastery, Performances, Technique, The Music and YouTube Perfromances. 8 Comments Tags: clarinetist, etude, jeanjean, orchestral repertoire, paul jeanjean.

The book of 18 Études, by early 20th century French clarinetist Paul Jeanjean, has always been in my repertoire. I began studying these while in high school, continuing through the first two years of college, discontinuing my study of them when I transfered to Northwestern, where the emphasis was on orchestral repertoire, not solo performing. Though the move ended up being a productive one for me, as it helped me get the orchestral job which carried me through my career, I never gave up on learning all 18 Jeanjean études someday.

A few years ago I started a project to perform them all, over a period of time. (I doubt anyone wants to hear solo clarinet études for an hour and a half) One of the first ones I tackled was #2, which has eluded me for years with its sea of notes in the second part. The awkward technical passages, built on augmented triads, forced me to revisit hand position, finger accuracy, quality of air (to create flowing legato) and steadiness, both physical and mental. The hardest part of this étude is staying free while playing the blur of notes in the second part (second video)

For the record, I recorded this with a Canon Power Shot camera, not intended for long video recordings. I had to record this étude in two parts because the whole 4 minute work wouldn’t record seamlessly on my Canon. I intend to get a better recorder soon.

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Eerie Silence in Columbus

Published on June 5, 2008 in Behind the Scenes, Clarinet, Columbus Cultural Politics, Technique, columbus symphony orchestra, symphony board and symphony management. 1 Comment Tags: audition, Columbus city council, columbus dispatch, columbus partnership, Governor Strickland, greater columbus arts council, having a bad dream, Mayor Coleman, minneapolis mn, music director, orchestra hall, silence.

I feel like I’m in a bad dream, and that I’ll wake up tomorrow to make music for Columbus, as I and my colleagues have done for decades.

Minnesota Orchestra HallA friend just returned from an audition trip to Minneapolis, MN. She described the area around the Orchestra Hall as intensely marketed toward the symphony: a huge poster of their Music Director, Osmo Vänskä, Symphony Restaurants, Symphony Apartments. The whole area boasts of and features the symphony.

Here in Columbus, the silence is eerie from those who should know better: our Symphony Board, our Columbus City Council, our Mayor Coleman, our Greater Columbus Arts Council, our Governor Strickland, the Columbus Partnership, the Dispatch “Ohio’s Greatest Newspaper”, and those whose job it is to do what has been done in Minneapolis, make their orchestra everyone’s orchestra.

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Organic Rhythm

Published on December 29, 2006 in Mastery and Technique. 10 Comments Tags: chamber groups, chamber music, interpretation, metronome, oboist, phrasing, rehearsal, rhythm, rubato, string quartet, woodwind quintet.

I used to play in a woodwind quintet, the wind equivalent of a string quartet. It was a pretty decent group made up of successful freelancers from around town in Washington, DC.

During one rehearsal, we had trouble playing some passages together. The oboist complained we needed to practice with a metronome. I countered with the idea that we needed to feel the rhythm together, regardless of the metronome. We were both right. Metronomes help, but “live” rhythm is rarely ever metronomic. Like tuning, “scientific” correctness is not necessarily what sounds best. She never conceded my point.

I know a lot of musicians like her. Their goal is to play more or less like a machine: perfectly in tune with a tuner and in rhythm with the metronome. But music played like that puts me to sleep. Why have humans play at all when a computer program would be more efficient?

Great musicians can play a phrase of music with incredible rhythmic accuracy, and yet never quite match up with a metronome. Great chamber groups and even whole orchestras can do the same. It’s obviously a lot harder for the latter, but with years of experience and trust among players, a larger group can be free and stay together rhythmically.

One form of freedom is called “rubato”, which means “to steal or borrow” time from one part of the phrase to add to another. The total sum of time is the same as the metronomic phrase, but with much greater freedom. That kind of phrasing says keeps the listener interested with its unpredictable freedom. The player can then emphasize the natural tension and relaxation and explore the infinite possibilities with each repeated phrase or section of music.

Played by a great artist, a fairly conservative phrase of music, which may sound completely rhythmic to the listener, will still have subtle freedom. The allure of a great performance is how it floats and flirts with with stodgy rhythm without committing to any predictability.

In the case of chamber music, each player still has the freedom of a soloist, but has to interact conversationally with the other players.

A good orchestra will have a rigorous system of trust and hierarchy, starting with the conductors interpretation and freedom, trickling down through the various leaders of each section and on down to the lower ranks. Unfortunately, this means the lower ranks do have have much freedom at all, and have to be content following their leaders. But even in this case, each player has the responsibility to commit wholeheartedly to recreating the freedom and direction of phrasing set up by the conductor.

Knowing what rhythmic freedom to take and where to take it is the sign of a master musician. It can only be taught to a degree. The rest is experience, talent and intuition.

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