 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Genevieve
Date: 2014-09-04 02:19
Hi everybody!
I'm in the middle of my second week back at University after taking a year off due to some things that happened. While I was away I did not play much but am now taking regular weekly lessons again. My instructor says I have not lost much after playing so little, which is very good news!
Before I left, my instructor was more focused on improving my tone and breath support. Previous teachers were more technically focused and did not touch much on this. Even before my hiatus when I played much more than now, long tone exercises made me feel light headed and I wasn't able to hold out long notes or phrases for very long without having to stop and take a breath. I've had pretty debilitating anxiety issues for as long as I can remember. As a result, tension in my abdomen and lungs has become automatic. Is there any way to reverse this so that I can relax and be able to take in full breaths? What are some other ways to bypass this and increase lung capacity (please no yoga, I'm not comfortable with it;) )?
Post Edited (2014-09-04 02:33)
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2014-09-04 03:37
I played at a high school music camp this past summer, and this year's clinician (Brian Bowman, a euphonium player, who oddly enough started on clarinet as a kid) had some good pieces of advice for wind instrument players, which have helped me a lot.
He suggested breathing in as though yawning, with a wide open throat and without shrugging your shoulders, to take in the entire lungs' worth of air. He emphasized that if you put your hands around your midsection, just below your ribcage, you should be able to feel expansion forward in your stomach and backwards in your back. If you notice yourself shrugging your shoulders, and/or you don't feel expansion around your midsection, it means you're not breathing in to your fullest capacity, and you're probably just taking in a small gasp of air.
(The next time you yawn for real, notice how relaxed you are, and how much your midsection expands.)
He also suggested taking longer breaths whenever possible (3+ second inhalation) in order to train yourself to breathe in to your fullest capacity, rather than just quickly gulping in half your lungs' worth. Obviously you can't take a 3+ second breath every time; it's more of a practice strategy than a practical thing to do.
As for expanding lung capacity, he recommended taking a full breath as described before, then "sipping" in more and more little breaths of air until you've reached your absolute greatest capacity, then releasing the air and repeating. He called it the "drowning man exercise." I guess it trains you to take in just a little more air every time.
Post Edited (2014-09-04 03:43)
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