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Re: Support

Author: Alseg
Date: 2005-05-22 03:32

OK....I operate on the chest, and can provide some insight.

First, Let me thank Maestro Pay for his insight and thank him for many enjoyable hours listening to his Crusel (done on a rudimentary C clarinet no less) and for aiming his attention onto what I consider lesson one in good playing.

Now for what little I can add:

It is not enough to consider **only** the diaphragm when discussing the muscles of respiration. There is another set of muscles, commonly refered to as "accessory muscles of respiration" which can contract or relax as a group or separately to provide resistance. These include the intercostal muscles (those morsels between the spare ribs on the bar-b-cue), the abdominal muscles (the six-pack that body-builders display), the muscles that raise the clavicle (shrug your shoulders to see what I mean) etc.

Inward contraction of the abdominal muscles in forced exhalation can be offset by chest wall muscles, creating a resistance. If these are properly coordinated, the air stream will be steady in its flow even while the lungs are naturally deflating as the diaphragm relaxes*......creating....guess what...SUPPORT! Add to this any glottic and intra-oral changes in capacitance and...voila.....a non-wavering steady stream of whatever flow (volume of sound) is desired.

*The NATURAL tendency of the chest wall is to expand. The natural tendency of the lung is to deflate. These forces are measurable and come into play in diseases such as emphysema and lung collapse (trauma or other factors)

The tendency of the chest wall to expand is GREATER than that of the lung to deflate.....this is why I can leave a chest tube catheter (about 1 cm diameter) unclamped, and the resultant lung collapse is only 20%.

Ref: any basic textbook of physiology.

Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-

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Tony Pay

2005-05-21 14:58