Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-04 00:46
The book on your stomach is a way to learn what controlling the lower abdominal muscles feels like. It builds awareness, which is good as far as it goes. Aside from bouncing books onto the floor, my teachers used to push their fists into my abdominals and have me push against them as I played. Gigliotti even had me read (English) from a book - to demonstrate the effect on my voice and guard against throat tension which can be a reaction - while pushing out against his intruding fist. Americans, if not Europeans, are today too conscious of touching students (and its possible legal consequences) to do this anymore. But, again, it was nothing more than an awareness builder. Once you've learned to feel the muscular action involved in maintaining and controlling the air flow *without adding tension elsewhere,* it becomes a question of thinking about it as you play - anything, whether scales, long tones, etudes, concertos, it's the same process.
The instructors of every yoga class I've ever taken talked about the same kind of deep abdominal breathing. The point is mostly to take in a maximal amount of air to provide a rich source of oxygen and, in the case of wind instrument playing, to provide more internal resonance. But it isn't specifically a clarinet technique and it can be learned initially very quickly without a lot of protracted exercise.
So, what it comes down to is that once you know where your abdominals are and what it feels like to engage them in the breathing process, it becomes a matter of consciously using them. No special exercises. Long tones will not by themselves *make* you use abdominal support, nor will scales. You don't even need it all the time. It becomes a tool in improving tone, articulation response, legato connection and breath span anytime you need those to be optimal.
Karl
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The Clarinet BBoard
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