Klarinet Archive - Posting 000252.txt from 1997/03

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.NET>
Subj: Re: Breathing on the clarinet (and wind instruments in general)
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 23:30:16 -0500

Bill Fogle wrote:

>Jonathan,
>
>You wrote the following (a while ago) in response to a message about
>Baermann Studies and breathing (the original message follows your comments).
>I never did see your comment and I confess I've been waiting to read what
>you meant. If you have any time, could you explain what you meant? I'm at:
>bill.fogle@-----. Your words follow:
>---------------------------------------------------
>
>I have found in my teaching and playing that exactly the opposite is true.
>Namely, wind players, in general, breathe far too often and this is the
>cause of many of their technical and musical problems.
>
>One of my general instructions when coaching wind players is "don't breathe!"
>
>On the other hand, with string players I always encourage them to breathe
>with the music.
>
>More on this later...
>-------------------
>Jonathan Cohler
>cohler@-----.net
>

Bill,

Sorry for taking so long to respond on this.

A couple of points that I have discovered in many years of teaching and
playing.

(1) People make more technical mistakes before, after and
near breathing points than at other points.

(2) An individual can usually last for nearly twice as long
as he or she thinks.

(3) Circular breathing is an essential skill that all clarinetists
can and should learn.

Point number (2) was taught to me by Pasquale Cardillo when I was in the
10th grade and struggling to figure out good breathing places in music.
More often than not the right answer was, "don't breathe, play the whole
phrase in one breath."

Of course, at the time, I thought I could only get through about half of
the phrase. With an attitude adjustment, and a bit of judicious breath
control, however, Mr. Cardillo taught me that it was possible to
comfortably make it through most phrases on a single breath.

This of course relates to efficiency of your setup (and is another reason
why the hard/close setups are not as good as soft/open setups). Any white
noise you have in your sound is waisted air. Furthermore, you can save
lots of air by backing off of the dynamic in parts of a phrase. A phrase
that is marked forte should not be equally loud from beginning to end. In
fact, if it was it would sound very boring.

It also relates to using just the right amount of pressure on the reed (not
too much, not too little) to get the most sound from the least air. If you
have a good setup, you should be able to a clear sound at a niente dynamic
while moving almost no air.

By the way, every student who has ever said to me "I can't play that whole
phrase in one breath" was indeed playing that phrase in one breath five
minutes later. The mind is a wonderful thing.

***********************************************************

Point number (1) is a natural result of the fact that as we run out of
breath, there is a natural tendency for muscles to tense up. This tension
can cause all kinds of problems and mistakes.

The key here is to isolate the tension to your stomach muscles that are
pushing the air out of your lungs. Avoid tension in the neck, head, face,
mouth, eyebrows, etc...

Also, when one takes a breath through the mouth, one must reset the
embouchure and restart the flow of air. Both of which are very disruptive
activities, especially around technical passages.

Therefore, not breathing is a better option whenever possible. The best
places for breaths are in rests (hence the name).

********************************************

That brings us to point number (3). By circular breathing in those phrases
which absolutely cannot be sustained in a single breath we eliminate all of
the technical problems caused by breathing while staying true to the
musical line.

Circular breathing not only allows us to play the music as the composer
wanted it, it also allows us to relax in passages where we would otherwise
be getting tense due to lack of oxygen.

********************************************

I hope this clarifies a bit of what I referred to in my previous message.

------------------------
Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net