Klarinet Archive - Posting 000326.txt from 1994/02

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Now that Jeff Berman, he knows how to breathe!!
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 12:32:09 -0500

There is an apocryphl story about Yehudi Menuin. At 17 he could play
anything! So one day, another violinist asked him, "Yehudi, how do
you play such-and-such a passage so brilliantly? It is so very
difficult. How do you do it?"

And Menuin lifted up his fiddle, tucked it under his chin, and said,
"Well, I do it this way" and now that he had to think about it, he
couldn't play it any longer. It is sort of like asking the centipede
how s/he walks. It's too complicated to do. And the centipede fell on
its backside.

Now that Jeff Berman has told me how I breathe, I can't do it any longer.
All that muscle motion, abdomen flying, belly popping, ribs muscles going.
I am afraid to go to sleep because all this stuff requires management.
The minute my eyes close, I'll die of lack of oxygen.

Jeff: one question. No long answer. Is the diaphragm a muscle that can
be directly moved its owner; i.e., is conscious control over its movement
givento me directly? Your explanation was brilliant but I could not get
a simple yes/no answer to this question out of it.

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