Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-11-22 17:04
I have morphed my answer on this in the last year.
I agree mostly with the "AIR, AIR, AIR" response. It must feel (in your gut region) as if you are pushing, pushing, pushing all the time. So yes, the feel you have when you are playing a double, double forte (in your gut region) is how it should feel.......ALL THE TIME.
What needs to happen is a STEADY stream of air for every note. This is what the ear perceives as a wonderful tone. Listening to Larry Combs live when I was student, I couldn't help but feel that this sound was as impossibly beautiful as it was unattainable for me (maybe still is). But once you hit the correct methodology, you instantly (and I mean INSTANTLY) know that you are on the right path.
So what is actually happening is that for every other note softer that double, double forte; you are engaging your diaphragm and your abdominal muscles in opposition (isometrically, one pulling on the other). The trick here is that we don't really "feel" the diaphragm much at all. It is a huge bell shaped muscle that works ALL THE TIME. We feel the abdominals because we DON'T use these muscles all the time. So in a soft, pianissimo passage you will FEEL as if you are working harder because your brain will say (rightly by the way), "How can I be working so hard when so little air is being pushed through the horn?" And the answer is that the diaphragm is WORKING (again, we won't really feel it) to "take in a breath" while your abdominals are WORKING to push the air out. This opposition is necessary to have CONTROL over the steadiness of this small amount of air (but it will FEEL as if you are PUSHING, PUSHING, PUSHING).
When the air column is NOT steady (what's the opposite of steady?) the sound becomes weaker and less attractive.
................Paul Aviles
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