Klarinet Archive - Posting 000438.txt from 1997/05

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.net>
Subj: Re: Oxygen to the brain was Re: Pino book
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 20:59:14 -0400

Ed Lacy wrote:

>On Wed, 14 May 1997, Jacqueline Eastwood wrote:
>
>> Perhaps some of the pulmonary-type experts on the list can enlighten us.
>
>I wonder if I qualify as a "pulmonary-type expert?" I do breathe quite
>often, and nearly every day! ;-)
>
>What happens is something like this. If you are running short of oxygen,
>whether from not having enough air in your lungs or from having the lungs
>full of stale air, your body thinks you are going to suffocate. Then, a
>panic reaction sets in. This is the much discussed "fight or flight"
>syndrome. The pulse rate goes up, the blood pressure increases, blood is
>forced from the smaller blood vessels to the larger ones in order to feed
>the large muscles which may be needed in what the body expects is about to
>be a fight for survival (this accounts for the pale face sometimes seen in
>a person in a state of panic), and many other physiological reactions
>occur. I'm not a physician, so I can't describe all of them in detail.

[snip]

This is one of the problems.

The other big problem that is caused by breathing, is the disruption of
embouchure and fingers. When one takes a breath through the mouth, one
necessarily moves the embouchure. Therefore it must be reset before
playing again.

Making this change quickly, and coordinating the fingers with it, while not
getting tense in the process is a very tricky maneuver. I have found this
is a very difficult technique that comes very gradually to students over
many years. In fact, I know few professionals who have mastered it in a
particularly satisfying way (i.e. short space, little disruption to the
line, good breath taken).

This is another reason why circular breathing is so important. Circular
breathing is a technique that can be learned by anyone in a relatively
short amount of time (a few weeks to get started, a year to perfect), and
it obviates the need for the aforementioned technique in many instances.

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

   
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