Klarinet Archive - Posting 000527.txt from 2000/02

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Flexibility/Relaxation and the Diaphragm
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 09:06:16 -0500

--- klar-ANN-ette H Satterfield <klarann@-----.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 10:42:41 -0500 alevin@-----. Levin)
> writes:

> > Flexibility is only a prerequisite component. Good breathing is at
> > least as important. (My wife teaches voice and voice therapy. She
> > was surprised to learn that wind players - in general - must breathe
> > exactly as good singers who wish to preserve their voices.)

> Also i strongly agree here. but i think not-extra-tense is a prerequi-
> site to good breathing. then good breathing aids the readiness.

Neil's opinion:

I think these thoughts are dancing around the main point, which I per-
ceive to be: proper breathing is the most important fundamental skill
that a clarinet player can master. It doesn't happen overnight, but
it is a prerequisite to optimum functionality of all other physical
mechanisms involved in playing the clarinet. It is via a well-devel-
oped use of the diaphragm that a player is able to achieve consummate
relaxation, followed by consummate technical mastery of the instrument.

The goal of the developing player is to achieve a conditioned state of
physical relaxation while playing, where no voluntary muscle in the en-
tire body carries any degree of involuntary tension. I may be getting
a little purist here, but I'll go out on a limb and say that even the
principal players in our country's major orchestras are not playing at
their full potential -- depite their obvious level of accomplishment --
if they are not able, on command, to consciously invoke physical relax-
ation when they perform. Other people have other techniques -- yoga,
Alexander, drugs, whatever -- but for myself and many of the finer play-
ers I've known, being able to achieve this on-call physical relaxation
starts with the diaphragm.

In simple terms, the "arrival" point is when there is only one place
in the entire body that carries any degree of tension while playing:
the diaphragm. All other voluntary muscles involved in tone produc-
tion and manipulation are in a steady state of relaxation, 100% of
their functionality available to perform at peak efficiency. And
those muscles that are *not* directly involved in tone production
and manipulation -- the quadriceps, the pectorals, the shoulders,
etc. -- are *also* free of tension while playing. This latter
point is especially important, because residual tension in the
legs or arms or shoulders travels as well to those muscles needed
to play the clarinet: the tongue, the whole network of intertwined
muscles in the face, the fingers, the throat. Thus, it is vital
that a technique be used which can deal with tension in all of
these areas simultaneously, and reliably.

We've all been harped on by our teachers: "Breathe from the diaphragm!
Support from the diaphragm!" That muscular, membranous separator be-
tween the abdomen and the chest is partially responsible for the fact
that we can walk around all day without having to consciously think,
"Okay, breathe in. Right, now breathe out. In again. And now out."
And so on. It's an involuntary muscle, but we adapt it for voluntary
use when we play the clarinet. In effect, its functionality is re-
versed for clarinet playing, because we must compel it to remain ex-
panded, when its autonomic function is to contract as soon as it has
reached a certain point of expansion. If you hyperflex any muscle
in your body -- a quadricep, one of your biceps -- it is possible
while doing this to consciously release tension that might be pre-
sent in any of the other muscles. The diaphram is important in this
respect because it is the only muscle where that type of deliberate
manipulation is beneficial to playing the clarinet. But rather than
hold it in an artificially contracted state, its benefit arises from
holding it in a consciously *expanded* state. The potential effect
on tension throughout the rest of the body is the same. The addi-
tional function, of course, is to force air out of the lungs, which
is what it does all day long when you're not thinking about it.

By manipulating the diaphragm to stay expanded against your brain's
autonomic wishes, you pick up another handy ability beyond drawing
tension out of your muscles: you acquire control over when, and how
quickly, the air in your lungs is propelled out of your body. It
also determines how much air you take in with a given inhalation.
In order to fully capitalize on this fact, it is critical that the
lungs be expanded with air at the same rate that the diaphragm is
being expanded downward and outward. This is why your teacher keeps
telling you to expand and support from the diaphragm. If part of your
breathing technique involves inhaling from the chest before your dia-
phragm has fully expanded, you sacrifice the total volume that your
lungs are capable of containing, because the diaphragm is already
partially expanded before air pours into your lungs, and the bottom
portion of your lungs does not fill with air.

Being able to fully utilize the volume capacity of your lungs suggests
another, somewhat common sense, benefit. We all know intuitively what
it is. Our friends, colleagues, parents, supervisors, etc. have all
said it to us at one point or another in our lives, especially when
we were particularly upset, excited, or agitated in some manner, "Calm
down! Take a deep breath!" There are few things that can induce ten-
sion more quickly than being short of oxygen, for obvious reasons.
Ironically, our brain doesn't observe any difference between suffo-
cation vs. running out of air during that pesky long passage in Rach-
maninov Symphony No. 2 (and sometimes *we* don't see the difference
either -- it certainly *feels* the same!). In both cases, the brain
sounds "red alert" and the panic reflex takes effect. So...taking
two gut-stretching lungfulls of air also sends a fresh load of oxy-
genated blood to the brain, effectively saying, "Relaaaax, my brain.
Plenty 'o oxygen coming in. Nothing to worry about..." See? The
brain makes no more distinction about why the oxygen is coming in
than it does about why you might not be getting as much as it thinks
is necessary to continue functioning. The effect is the same: phys-
ical tension is released when oxygenated blood is received.

If you're getting the impression that a lot of playing the clarinet
involves messing around with the way our body was originally wired
to function, that's where I'm going with this little extemporaneous
dissertation. Mind you, these are just my thoughts, based on obser-
vations I've made about my own body over the last 20 years of play-
ing the clarinet. There are bound to be differing opinions and con-
cepts on the matter. For myself, I discovered that using the dia-
phragm to its full beneficial effect -- enabling the release of
muscular tension, enabling full and conscious control of when and
how much air is released from the lungs, and enabling the brain to
release additional tension via the influx of oxygenated blood --
cleared the way for all other areas and elements of my technique
to be developed to their fullest possible potential. I was able
to walk into any rehearsal or performance situation with the un-
shakable knowledge that I could consciously invoke physical relax-
ation and perform at my best every time. Tension is a player's
worst enemy. It inhibits our freedom to perform at any given mo-
ment, and stunts the rate at which we grow technically on the in-
strument in the long run. And for clarinetists (and vocalists,
flutists, oboists, bassoonists, and all the other wind instrument-
alists) our best friend in these situations is the diaphragm.

Know your diaphragm. Love your diaphragm. Use your diaphragm,
and reap the benefits of both peak performance and accelerated
musical growth through the elimination of physical tension.

-- Neil the long-winded
(pun fully intended)
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