3:28 PM in Flow Breathing by David H. Thomas
This video is only partially helpful as a model for good breathing. As you can see, the ribs move up and out on inhale, and down and in on exhale. That’s helpful.
But this animation does not show the gathering of the spine on inhale, nor the lengthening of the spine on exhale. The spine must move with the breath. It is part of the breathing motions.
Skeleton Breathing Test from Daniel Tell on Vimeo.
3:33 PM in Flow Breathing, Practicing Tools and Techniques by David H. Thomas
Flow Breathing is Good Breathing
Image Credit
The story behind the Flow Breathing Technique.
During several points in my solo playing career I grappled with some uncomfortable issues regarding breath support.
In solo performances I occasionally suffered from over-breathing and hyper-ventilation. Concomitantly I often experienced a desperate need to breathe while playing a long phrase even though I had just breathed. Needless to say, either issue is not pleasant and certainly not constructive for playing a wind instrument!
Although I had theoretically gained all the necessary tools to breathe well from the Alexander Technique, I still had problems while playing.
It is difficult to translate good breathing into good breath support.
With extra free time during the slow summer season I was able to deeply explore the motions of breathing. While lying down in the Alexander Technique relaxation pose called Constructive Rest, the flowing cycle of breathing became more clear.
During these observations it also became apparent that the changes in direction, or “turns” in breathing are critical to improved breath control. (changes in direction from exhale to inhale and from inhale to exhale). The bottom of the exhale becomes a place of repose just before a natural inhale; the top of the inhale informs good control of a full breath of air.
Focusing on the changes in breath direction, its “turns” offers a useful tool toward subtle control of airflow.
Parallel to these observations of healthy breathing motions I also explored using “air attacks” to play clarinet, finding it helped to engage healthy supportive muscles. I also applied ideas inspired by an article on breath support by well known clarinet soloist Anthony (Tony) Pay.
Through the clarinet chat rooms called Clarinet BBoard, Tony Pay suggested I read some of his writing on the subject of “diaphragm support”, which reveled a fresh approach to the subject.
The gist of Tony’s approach is to breathe into the chest (a radical departure from traditional “gut” breathing), meanwhile bringing abdominal support up to meet the expanded lungs.
These ideas prompted me to explore maintaining an open lifted ribcage motion while playing. It afforded better control of the air. It also helped to relieve the occasional feeling of “gasping” for air and hyper-ventilation while playing.
I concluded that maintaining the openness of the ribcage better suited high level support while playing clarinet.
However, Mr. Pay’s description becomes vague at a critical point, leaving the reader to guess at the ultimate goal of his valuable suggestions. The connection between good natural breathing motions and good breath support remained elusive.
The breakthrough came very recently.
Focusing on the top turn of the breath (from inhale to exhale) while breathing deeply and naturally it became apparent that this point of “motion” in the breath is where good support begins.
By “floating” the air at the top of the inhale a player becomes familiar with a critical step to good breath support.
With the rib cage uplifted and expanded as such, I was able to make the leap to something similar to the control suggested by Tony Pay’s article, which I have published HERE if you wish to refer to it.
From this position of openness it is easy to engage the abdominal structures to control the breath’s release while maintaining the expansion of the chest cavity.
The end result is a detailed method to learn good breathing and also to apply the motions of good breathing to good breath control and support, which I call Flow Breathing.
The technique has been officially released in a 3 part series of guest posts on Marion Harrington’s Clarinet site. The links to all three posts are Part 1, Part 2 and – Part 3- Flow Breathing and a Path to Peak Mastery: Learning Constructive Rest and Beginner Flow Breathing Technique, which was just published today.
11:23 AM in Practicing Tools and Techniques, Technique, Tone by David H. Thomas
You'll be Warm after this Hellish Warmup!
I have begun to practice a daily warm up which goes as follows:
1- Sigh into the instrument with a soft embouchure, increasing the sigh speed and embouchure until an airy tone comes out. I start on a low C and go up the scale sighing out each note with lots of air, taking notice not to overtense any muscles. Each note speaks only for a few seconds before I run out of air. The purpose of this exercise is to engage deep and fast air to create and control tone.
2- Take a big breath, more like a yawn, and hold the air full, as if breathing in a bit more. I do not close the throat, as this defeats the purpose of exercising the “inhale” muscles. From this “lifted” position, I huff a note with an air attack. After each huff, I lift/inhale again. So each note only expels a bit of air, and the rib cage stays up and open. I use perhaps 3% of my air for each soft huff and immediately inhale/lift again. I do this up and down a scale, such as C. The purpose of this exercise is to a) learn about the inhale muscles in the upper torso and b) to learn how to exhale without collapsing the ribs and back down, a common problem for many players.
3- Turn on the evil decible meter (from Radio Shack), which I have named Jezebel, and proceed to (attempt to) play long tones, a) all pp b) with crescendo and diminuendo. The purpose of this is obvious- to learn about and gain absolute control over tone production and volume.
Though I have barely made a sound, this process fine tunes my support and tone control muscles to a great degree. It takes me at least a half hour to explore deeply and can gobble up more time. Today I did it for an hour.
10:29 PM in Teaching Music, Technique by David H. Thomas
I just responded to a question/problem with gasping for air, posted on the Clarinet Bboard on www.woodwind.org.
The problem:
To my knowledge, I have never had trouble with breath support or with air speed. I think my tone is decent and full, and I can play fff easily when required. … I have plenty of air to honk through my new toy…a bass clarinet.
Yet, on my soprano Bb, I often feel like I am gasping for breath. Or perhaps a better description is that I feel like I may take in too much air and it doesn’t all get used. It’s like when you hold your breath for a long time without exhaling.
Therefore, while it seems natural to refill the lungs at the end of a phrase, I feel the need to take an exhalation break as well, although there is often not time for this. When there are a few measures rest, I find myself breathing rather rapidly until I have the sense that I have gotten back into a regular breathing pattern. It worsens in solo performance, when the nerves kick in.
Is there such a thing as breathing too deeply before playing? Is there a way to get rid of extra air without sacrificing dynamics or tone? My deep breathing happens involuntarily, and when I consciously think about taking in less air, I start to feel oxygen-deprived, and require another deep breath. Am I just full of hot air?
My response:
After years of exploration into this problem, which I also suffered from, I have found the solution. It’s simple to describe, but can be tricky to enact.
The problem occurs not so much because you have too much air, but because your breathing apparatus literally goes into an anxious panic from being constricted and tight. If I may, I recommend you think about it as a problem of quality of air and exhale, rather than too much air. (of course, the previous advice not to over-inhale is absolutely valid)
There are two parts to the process of breathing and supporting with quality. 1- quality of inhale and 2- quality of exhale. Both are important, and related to each other.
1- The inhale should be a soft (quiet) but quick expansion of ribs and simultaneous dropping of diaphragm/gut. The shoulders go up, but only riding the ribs, which expand out in all directions. The gut “fills” as the diaphragm pushes down. Think of creating space for air, not sucking air in. This process allows your breathing muscles to stay soft and open.
Do not hold the air before playing. The inhale and exhale should be like going over the top of a roller coaster hill, just a change of direction, not stopping. This is key to prevent “clutching” of ribs.
One critical fact: The diaphragm can only pull down and create inhale. It is a one way muscle. It cannot “push” air out. The phrase “diaphragm support” is misleading and incorrect. The only action of the diaphragm during exhale is its strong tendency to return to resting position, going up. Keep this in mind!! However, the muscles around the abdomen DO help with exhales and can be supportive in controlling air release. Knowing what is what helps to better master the process.
2- The quality of exhale is equally important to attaining flexible support. When nerves kick in, your body tends to tighten, especially your neck and shoulders. The rib cage can go along with this tension, resulting in “constriction” instead of “support”.
Keep your air free and flowing while playing. To practice keeping the air free when playing, try “sighing” through the instrument several times without playing. Relax everything as you exhale, with a little squeezing from the whole gut at the end. Keep neck, throat and chest “light”. Now play a few notes using the same sighing exhalation. Slow this exhale down carefully to the point where you can play a fairly long note. Ultimately, “support” is a delicate, slow “letting” release of air, not a severe pushing. Volume of sound is increased by quantity of air, not by constriction of ribs.
As you play, be aware of the possibility/feeling of a fresh inhale, as a reminder of the soft opening of the space in your lungs. This helps keep the ribs “alive” and tender, rather than constricted and closed. (I got this idea from Tony Pay’s article on support. See link below)
At some point, you may literally feel a soft squeezing around your heart, from your whole torso, all directions, top to bottom, as if your torso is gently enclosing the area around your heart. Don’t seek this out as a goal; it’s just a description of a feeling which lets you know your are on the right track.
The gist of my lecture is to monitor and prevent any “constriction” at any time, whether on quality of inhale or exhale.
I also strongly recommend that you refer to Tony Pay’s long, but extremely informative and thoughtful article on breath support. I have learned a great deal from considering his ideas. (as long as you don’t let your neck or rib cage constrict- have I said that enough times?)
“http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/04/000786.txt”
Best wishes with your breathing. I hope it improves for you. I know that awful feeling of gasping for air during a delicate place in a performance!!
David Thomas
2:55 AM in Musician's Life, Practicing Tools and Techniques, Repertoire by David H. Thomas
Podcast: Download
Hello all you lovable Jeanjean fans, all 3 of you- me, my clarinet and… well, maybe just 2. My cat doesn’t like Jeanjean much.
I am still committed to learning (hopefully mastering) all 18 etudes from Paul Jeanjean’s Book of 18 in the next year. I officially began this process Oct 1, even though I’ve dabbled with posting a few takes of JJ 1 the past few weeks.
There are 12 months and 18 etudes, so about 1.5 etudes per month, which, considering how difficult they are, should keep me out of trouble. (What am I getting myself into?)
In the next few days I will post a schedule of what I intend to accomplish every month. I will probably go in the etude order of the book, if for no other reason than to avoid the hassle of trying to decide what order to work on them.
So here’s another, much better take of JJ 1. (This time I wasn’t listening to other music on my phone pod) I hope that I haven’t numbed you to the beauty of this etude through so many snippets and takes. This version is more toward what I hope a final take might be like.
Jeanjean 1, 10/3/09
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The biggest challenge of this etude, beyond the obvious technical hurdles of legato over large leaps at soft dynamics, is the breathing. Though out my career I have had trouble with hyper-ventilating, and/or ending up with “bad air” after taking too many breaths. I have been working on this issue through the Alexander Technique for several years now, and I feel more and more confident about the quality of my breathing. But as you may know, old habits die hard, and the mis-used breathing habits I have set up over decades tend to return frighteningly easily.
In one recent Alexander Lesson with a reputable teacher from Ann Arbor, MI, Jane Heirich, she told my my ribs are “corseted”, and that she has seen numerous cases of wind players with the same issue. I believe this misuse comes from years of struggling to control the breath, while at the same time using the necessary muscular strength required to play the clarinet. The misuse occurs when isolating the breathing muscles around the ribs and overusing them without balancing the use of the whole “system” of breathing muscles, including the powerful various abdominal sets. It’s a tricky hurdle to keep the ribs free while exerting great pressure to play a fairly resistant instrument such as clarinet.
I have discussed breathing in several other posts, including:
The Structure and Movements of Breathing
Breathing Naturally Comes Naturally
The Cycle of Breathing (from my other blog)
As usual, I welcome comments, discussion, feedback.
Your local music lover,
David
6:18 PM in Teaching Music, Technique by David H. Thomas
I strongly recommend all wind players read The Structures and Movement of Breathing by Barbara Conable and James Jordan.
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.
12:31 AM in Teaching Music, Technique by David H. Thomas
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
Do 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.
To start connecting please log in first. You can also create an account.
