Klarinet Archive - Posting 000749.txt from 2000/11

From: "andy laszlo" <andylaszlo2@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Feedback please. Article: Breathing/Relaxation
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 18:01:48 -0500

The article identified the problem as muscular tension.
I got a pianist friend who is very aware of this so I guess it can affect
any musician and not just clarinetists. For a long time I had a big problem
with this. When I started playing I taught myself initially. Could not
understand why the more I practiced the less my instrument sounded like what
a clarinet is "supposed" to sound like. This went on for about a year and I
gave up for a while. Now I play sometimes with a pianist. His girlfriend
does not play anything but she noticed something about my playing. When I am
playing from a score my playing sounds up-tight. Other times I just muck
about and doodle with the tune without "trying" to play anything in
particular. She says this sounds better. The point is this: When I am
messing about I got a closer interaction with the instrument. Exploring what
me and the instrument are capable off, not worried about what something is
"supposed" to sound like. When I am following a score it is a battle against
slow fingers and a fat tongue to play what it says. What I want is to have
the same feeling when playing from a score as I have when I am just "mucking
about". I try and keep in mind to play with the instrument and not fight
againt it.

>From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
>Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
>To: klarinet@-----.org
>Subject: [kl] Feedback please. Article: Breathing/Relaxation.
>Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 08:38:40 EST
>
>Neil Leupold wrote,
> >I received an email question recently from somebody who was having
> >difficulty sustaining breath support while playing.
>[snip]
> >The primary reason that most clarinetists never reach their
> >full technical potential on the instrument is that they never devel-
> >op the ability to invoke and sustain physical relaxation on command.
> >If you can develop the ability to relax your muscles and allow them to
> >*remain* relaxed while you play, all other difficulties (embouchure,
> >air, tongue, fingers, etc.) become much easier to resolve and refine.
> >With the presence of physical tension, you will never reach the point
> >where playing the clarinet is effortless. It is my philosophy that
> >all players should strive for the point where playing the clarinet
> >is a relaxing, effortless activity. You will meet very few clarinet
> >players who claim to have achieved this -- even among profession-
> >als.
>
>As an amatuer, I haven't achieved it and probably never will. I'm
>skeptical
>that "playing the clarinet is effortless" for even the top players, but
>it's
>interesting to watch their faces and see exactly where the points of stress
>and relaxation occur. The player I'm most often able to observe up close
>is
>Stanley Drucker, on the New York Philharmonic TV broadcasts.
>
>Drucker is sometimes described as having "no embouchure" (someone, not
>Neil,
>used that term on this list a few months ago) -- a bit of hyperbole,
>surely.
>Drucker folds his lower lip under more than most professional clarinetists,
>it seems to me, and consequently he "points" his chin less obviously, but
>he
>hasn't got "no embouchure." (If you want to see "no embouchure," look at a
>nine-year-old beginner.) I notice that the muscles around his mouth stay
>quite tight when he plays -- not *stressed* in the negative sense of
>"stress
>and strain," but *firm*, especially at the corners of his mouth. No air
>leaks there, and the taut muscles give him fine control of pressure on the
>reed. But look at his face from the nose up: The muscles around his eyes
>and forehead remain relaxed -- no squint, no furrowed brow, even when he's
>playing fiendish fast notes or stratospheric altissimo. His face expresses
>intelligent *interest* -- he's alert, playing attention, but he looks calm.
>That's a pattern of stress and relaxation I've seen in other fine wind
>players, too. They know *where* to put the muscle power and they don't
>waste
>energy on tightening up things that don't need to be tightened.
>
>Watching Drucker made me think more about my own embouchure. I watched
>myself play in the mirror and realized my whole face was tightening up.
>Paying attention to my breathing, I realized I'd taken the "breathe from
>the
>diaphragm" concept too far to the extreme as well, and was tensing far more
>of my body than I needed to put to work in order to fill my lungs. In
>fact,
>the extra expense of energy probably made my breathing *less* efficient, by
>draining off power to muscles I don't need for playing the clarinet. I
>won't
>claim I've corrected these problems -- I frequently catch myself in the act
>of playing in a state of general body tension, particularly if I imagine
>anybody listening to me. At least now that I know I'm doing it, I can work
>on improving.
>
>Neil, IMHO you opened up an interesting line of discussion here. I'm
>curious
>to see what other people think. I can't put any of this stuff into
>practice
>at the moment, alas -- too busy watching a swirl of starlings in the sky on
>Tuesday, tripped over my own inattention and took a classic, sprawling,
>arms-and-legs-every-whichway header, straight out of a screwball comedy,
>except I had a concrete sidewalk instead of a mattress to land on! Didn't
>break anything, but bruised my ribs pretty badly. It feels as if I pulled
>just about every muscle in the left side of my body. Taking a deep breath
>hurts like hell, so I'm laying off practice until I heal up a little.
>
>Lelia
>
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