Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-05-22 17:20
I'm going to leave aside what Allan writes for the moment, because I want to get across clearly what I'm concentrating on. I hope he won't take that amiss.
The thing I want to say is, whatever other influences there are, the abdominal/diaphragm opposition is fundamental, even if only in the sense that it's the first, and lowest. 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.
Robert has rightly got hold of the idea that if you flex your abdominal muscles -- as though someone small was going to punch you in the middle for fun, and you need to protect yourself:-) -- you can still breathe in. This actually feels very like yawning, and it's what I quite often do to begin a phrase.
Clarinetwife spoke of the opposition between diaphragm and abdominal muscles, saying that the latter "seem to flex to a different degree depending on how much air is taken in, and how deep or shallow the breath is." I want to suggest, on the contrary, that the flexion of the abdominal muscles is something that we can actually *choose*, rather than something that is determined by the breath.
Look at it like this: you flex your abdominal muscles to some small degree, and then breathe (yawn) in against that resistance. You are now prepared to play with minimal support.
Then, you flex your abdominal muscles to a greater degree, and breathe (yawn) in against that resistance. You are now prepared to play with significant support.
Finally, you flex your abdominal muscles really strongly, and breathe (yawn) in against *that* resistance. Notice that this requires quite hard work. You are now prepared to play with maximum support.
I hope the basic idea has been got across. I'll do the final and I think best bit of what I want to say before I go to Belgium (plane leaves at 8am, spit) tomorrow.
Tony
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