Klarinet Archive - Posting 000768.txt from 2000/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Article: Breathing and Support
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 06:05:45 -0500

On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 03:30:08 EST, Knaphet@-----.com said:

> Tony, I will promptly read the article...so if what I have to say now
> becomes redundant, my apologies. I will keep it short.

No worries. It's probably best dealt with in bits, anyway.

> I will try to restrict my comments to what I personally think is
> practical toward playing. In knowing that the diaphragm does not have
> sensory nerves, but is controlled willfully is helpful. I think the
> part that you disagree with is that we would be stuck without opposing
> muscles, i.e. without a tricep, it is not true that our bicep would be
> forced to stay continually flexed.

Yes, that's right. And the crucial thing is to understand the interplay
between diaphragm and abdominal muscles. We *can*, of course, aware
directly of the flexion in the abdominal muscles, which is something
that perhaps I should have said for clarity of exposition.

> (I think Neil was just aiming for a good "That would suck" joke, which
> I thought was pretty funny.)

Could be;-)

> What remains as a question to me, and one which Keith Underwood didn't
> ever answer directly is whether you aid the "blow" with other muscles
> consciously or if you let the diaphragm's process of relaxing and the
> weight of your body dispel the air. What ways of thinking about the
> "blow" bring about the best results?

You choose the amount of 'blow', which in my terminology translates to
'degree of flexion of abdominal muscles' *so as to be appropriate to the
musical effect you want*.

I'll go into all this in more detail in another longer post, because the
general idea amounts to putting Neil's crusade about 'relaxation' into a
more inclusive and realistic musical context. But for now, and just
related to the breathing: if the upward force of the abdominal muscles
is F, and the downward force of the diaphragm flexion is f (and f could
be zero, of course), then the net upward force is (F - f).

If we increase both F and f by the same amount, there's no immediate
effect on the output tone, because (F - f) stays the same; but we are
playing with 'more support'. (A decrease would correspond to less
support.) And *that* affects how quickly and easily, or how slowly and
gently, we may change the dynamic of the output tone, and so affects the
character of the music, even though within the normal range of support
it doesn't affect just the one steady tone itself.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Oh, I couldn't afford a whole new brain.

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