Klarinet Archive - Posting 000237.txt from 1994/02

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Michael Favreau's explanation of vibrato
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 00:20:59 -0500

Michael, that was very clear and lucid. And I thank you for being
patient with me.

Is it possible that when you say "who,who,who" very rapidly on
one instrument or "ho,ho,ho" very rapdily on another, it is the
stomach that is pushing up against the diaphragm that causes its
motion?

I like your explanation because it begins to shed light on how a
muscle (over which I think we have little conscious control) is
capable of being moved at will; that is to say, we don't move it
directly; instead we move it indirectly by bouncing the stomach
off of it.

I don't teach but once I did have a student who asked me how to
breathe and I went crazy trying to understand how I did it. So I
asked a colleague to who told me to watch how a baby breathes when
it is lying in its crib. I watched me infant (at the time) son
and saw that when he breathed his chest did not move. His stomach
moved. So I lay down on the floor and breathed and the same thing
happened to me. In fact, I was unable to make my chest move when
I was breathing as long as I was lying on my back. And I realized
that that is what I was doing at some subconscious level when I
was sitting up and playing.

And from that I concluded that the lungs expanded, pushed against
the diaphragm, and it, in turn, pushed against the stomach which
was able to pop out because the abdomen has no bony structure to
prevent it from moving in and out. What you are describing is
something like that in reverse.

If we can control the walls of the abdomen and push them in against
the stomach itself, that organ than pushes against the diaphragm,
which, in turn again, pushes against the lungs and this causes the
a change of pressure which has ramifications when the air comes out
of the mouth.

Is this what you are saying? If it is, then I now understand the
process. If it is not, then I am missing something. And what
I am missing has to do with my assertion that we have no conscious
control over the movement of the diaphragm.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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