Klarinet Archive - Posting 000100.txt from 2000/12

From: "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Breathing, the Diaphragm and all that......
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 10:47:01 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: "redcedar" <redcedar@-----.au>
Subject: [kl] Breathing, the Diaphragm and all that......

> ...When I first started to learn the clarinet a few years back, I was
> lectured - or should I say, harangued? - on the sins of inadequate breath
> support and the importance of the diaphragm. Almost every lesson my
teacher
> would say - "breathe from HERE Mr O'Neile" - patting her stomach, and
> sometimes whacking mine to make the point. When I asked why, the response
> was inevitably the same - "you will never become a clarinettist unless you
> do", and on one memorable occasion she added - "you may as well chuck the
> clarinet out the window - now!" I eventually changed teachers. I read
> Stein, Pino, Brymer and many others on the subject, and now Leupold, and
the
> message has always been the same. I can't argue that I am not highly
> conscious of the point being made.
>
> Trouble is, I was a competitive still-water swimmer from my pre-teens into
> my early twenties, and in those days during coaching and training
sessions,
> the message was relentlessly drummed into me - breathe with the chest -
> in-and-out - don't lift the shoulders - don't swell your stomach, keep it
> flat. One lived in dread of the possibility of a loud and embarrassing
> shout from the coach - "stomach in O'Neile - you're looking like a
pregnant
> duck!"

Perhaps the need to be streamlined in swimming dominated the choice of
breathing method. Those areas that I am most familiar with (and swimming is
not one of them) choose the same type of deep breathing as clarinettists are
supposed to use.

The key issues are of course tone quality and endurance. If you achieve
these, then the method is not so important though you will probably continue
to be harangued by teachers and traditionalists upon occasion. As with most
fields, the traditional methods became so because they worked well for the
majority of people.

Dee Hays

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