 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Band Geekette
Date: 2008-07-11 05:54
It seems to me that whenever I encounter a problem in my playing (tone/response/etc.) a lot of the problem has to do with not having enough air support. Does this ring true for anyone else? A college professor told me that even his students have problems with this, and as soon as they use more support, their other problems seem to be fixed easier.
I have learned the right way to breathe with my diaphram, but sometimes my concentration slips and I find myself breathing too shallow. I have very good posture and have never really had problems "chest-breathing", but I was wondering if even sometimes the Pro players forget about having enough air support and have to re-focus.
This is one of the things I have been concentrating on strongly the last couple of months and I have noticed an over-all improvement.
-Sarah- ![[cool]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/cool.gif)
~ just keep playing~
Every person is a unique instrument and we all add our own beauty to the symphony of the world....*
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2008-07-11 11:25
I'd go along with this - to me breathing and support are absolutely the most fundamental part of playing.
Of course, I'm sure that it all becomes automatic with the greatest players (amongst whom I don't count myself!) so that they never have to think about it but, for the rest of us, if we can bear it mind and remind ourselves to concentrate on it from time to time, it can make a phenomenal difference.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2008-07-11 13:03
...However,
Breathing from the diaphragm (or shallow breathing) and support are not the same thing!
They are two separate steps that must be diligently mastered before you will never have to give it attention.
I don't mean to tantalize and then refuse explanation...but Tony Pay explained far better than I can:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=20&i=714&t=714
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-07-11 17:33
Practice breathing exercises every day. There are several breathing tools one can buy from the mail order stores, or local store perhaps. The only time I have to think about breathing is if I have a long passage to play and have to work at taking enough air to play it through. Practice makes perfect, in every aspect of playing an instrument. Once you begin doing it without thinking, you won't have to practice it all the time because it will be "natural". ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457
(Listen to a little Mozart, live recording)
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2008-07-12 00:31)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-07-11 20:32
You wrote:
>> It seems to me that whenever I encounter a problem in my playing (tone/response/etc.) a lot of the problem has to do with not having enough air support. Does this ring true for anyone else? A college professor told me that even his students have problems with this, and as soon as they use more support, their other problems seem to be fixed easier.>>
What I'd say is that WITHOUT a properly produced and adequate air-supply, it's impossible to play the clarinet well.
But as James points out, 'playing with a properly produced and adequate air-supply' doesn't equate to 'playing with support'. 'Support' is something more: a technique that all sufficiently advanced players use, but a technique that they nevertheless find difficult to explain -- for a very good reason.
I say that it's worth your while to understand why, because MOST people, eminent players included, produce handwavy nonsense in trying to explain the subject, even though they may put it into practice impeccably.
When you DO understand it, you'll see that you actually have a choice as to how much support you use in a given passage. Then, KNOWING that you have that choice, and how it may serve your playing, keeps you on track with the rest of it.
Read the thread James posted -- it twists and turns as various people struggle with an essentially simple idea -- and see if it helps.
(By the way, I should say that you can get the hang of what it's about in a few minutes; years of practice aren't required;-)
Tony
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Author: Band Geekette
Date: 2008-07-12 01:35
Thanks for that link! like someone else said, it's hard to wrap my mind around the different concepts. As I practice more I will study what I am doing and try to figure it out.
-Sarah-
~ just keep playing~
Every person is a unique instrument and we all add our own beauty to the symphony of the world....*
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-07-12 06:07
You wrote:
>> Thanks for that link! like someone else said, it's hard to wrap my mind around the different concepts. >>
Please come back with any queries you may have. What seems to be difficult for people is not the idea itself, but rather the combination of the idea and the way they've come to understand the subject up to now. So what you write may help someone else get round their own personal difficulty:-)
There is one bit of the explanation that I should have written better; namely, the bit that goes:
>> And I should say clearly that what counts as 'abdominal' here is any muscle that pushes on the contents of the abdomen to exert an upward pressure on the diaphragm (which may resist that pressure) and therefore pushes air out of the lungs. BTW, my own teacher thought that it was important to use the muscles of the back to blow. For me, that didn't work at all, though it did for him. He was just built differently, it turned out.>>
What I SHOULD have written was this:
"What I'm calling 'abdominal' here is the group of muscles that pushes on the contents of the abdomen to exert an upward pressure on the diaphragm (which may resist that pressure) and therefore pushes air out of the lungs. If you think about it, that means I'm INCLUDING back muscles in the term, 'abdominal'.
"That's because we blow by simultaneously flexing the muscles that bend our body (the ones we use in sit-ups) and the ones that straighten it (the ones at the back of our bodies that we use to stand up if we are bent forward from the waist). This simultaneous flexing has no bending effect on our body if it's upright; but it DOES squeeze our guts -- like the toothpaste in the tube -- exerting a net upwards force to push the air out of our lungs.
"The difficulty was that when my own teacher took a breath, he expanded both FORWARDS and BACKWARDS around his midriff prior to blowing out. I, on the other hand, expanded only forwards, and this made both of us think that I was doing something wrong.
"But we were just built differently, it turned out. The fact that we expanded differently in taking IN a breath made no difference to the fact that we used the same opposing sets of muscles to blow OUT."
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-07-13 15:51
Sarah wrote:
>> Thanks for that link!>>
I thought we'd gone into this further somewhere, and just found it at:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=255648&t=255596
Some of that discussion might illuminate the first link.
I also just read, again, Arnold Jacobs's supposedly definitive take on the matter, at:
http://www.clarinet-saxophone.asn.au/downloadabledocs/The%20Dynamics%20of%20Breathing.pdf
...., and was just as confused as I was the first time as to why it is so admired -- by Ken Shaw, for example. Perhaps he'd like to comment.
Of course, there is value in using language that goes AGAINST the habits of someone who is overtense -- and what a pity it is that the innocent technical term 'force' has the connotation of 'violence' in common usage -- but some students err in the opposite direction, surely, and need to be encouraged to spend more of their time being squirrels rather than being swans:-)
Still, I at least understand that, and agree with the exhortation not to pick technical matters apart to the point where you paralyse a student. But I find I can't see the point of much of the rest of it.
Tony
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