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Inhalation is a big topic. Before turning to this installment of our series of articles of quotations from classic horn methods, I would like to point to a recent article by David Wilken. In “A Culture of Ignorance?” he points out clearly one thing we really have to develop more in our brass community; the skill of critical thinking. He divides his article into the following topic areas:
- Argument From Authority/The Myth of the Lone Genius
- Argument From Ignorance
- It’s All In Your Head/The Goal Is the Method
- The Natural Approach
- Anecdotal Evidence
- The Straw Man/False Dichotomy
While we as readers have to assume that the sources quoted below, published from the late 1950s into the 1970s, accurately reflect an element of the teaching of a master horn player/teacher, at the same time it is often not too hard to pick apart elements of these quotations. For sure there are statements made below that don’t line up with accurate physiology, but they at least must have felt that they worked as visualizations for a general reading audience. My hope is not to confuse readers but instead to present a bigger picture of not only the inhale but also of thinking critically about things they read and have been told.
He tries to explain it
One thing Farkas did in The Art of French Horn Playing was to try to explain breathing in a physiologically accurate manner. If he was successful is another question, but at least he recognized that it was hard to visualize how to breathe if you are imagining muscles doing impossible things.
There is a common misconception which claims the diaphragm to be a ring of muscle, like an automobile tire, all the way around the middle of the waist. No wonder so few singers use it correctly! The diaphragm is actually a strong, resilient muscle which lies horizontally across and through the body above the waist. It completely separates the heart and lungs from the organs lying below it.
The inhale is controlled in his view primarily by a combination of the diaphragm and chest expansion. His checklist: “…a deep breath is taken by simultaneously (1) contracting the diaphragm, (2) pushing the abdomen forward, and (3) expanding the ribs outward.” More on this checklist at the end of this article.
The inhale as it relates to attacks
Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique takes a very different general tactic in regards to the inhale. He is very concerned about the relationship of the inhale to the beginning of the phrase that follows.
Since a secure attack is one of the most difficult things to achieve on the horn, let me dwell for a moment on the inhaling and exhaling process which controls the success or failure of an attack. Inhaling should be done, especially at phrase beginnings, in a very relaxed yet lung-filling manner….
In general—and this is one of the most important factors in correct breathing—the taking in of air should always occur in time to the music being performed. This will insure relaxed inhaling, and will give the breathing process a musicality specifically identified with the music being played.
He also notes that in general in horn playing
… the process of inhaling and exhaling is actually a more or less intensified version of normal everyday breathing, which even the casual observer will note as a slight alternating in-and-out of the abdominal muscles. In horn playing these movements are larger and more intense. But beyond this intensification, it is well to remember that the basic procedure is exactly the same as in normal breathing.
In explaining this intensification Schuller notes that the lungs are filled from the bottom first (is that possible?) and that there is considerably more expansion than in ordinary breathing. He was not concerned with the noise of the inhale and actually encourages that it be audible.
Often students feel that this is wrong and try to inhibit this audible intake of air. It stands to reason that if the lungs are to be filled, and if the inhaling process is to take only a short moment, the ‘rush’ of air through the lips will produce a sound. Students should therefore not shrink for this, and should rather cultivate reasonably audible inhaling. …in actual playing, if the breathing is musically timed and not too jerky, it will not disrupt musical phrasing unduly. The breath will become a part of the music.
Deep, silent, rapid inhalation
Farkas returns to the topic of inhalation in The Art of Brass Playing. He recognizes that it is an extremely important part of the process of brass playing, one that students can miss.
Certainly proper and copious inhalation must precede successful blowing. Obviously, if the player does not first inhale a generous quantity of air, he cannot, a moment later, project a large sustained air-column. Childish as such an observation may seem, it is at this point in the breathing cycle that the student frequently fails. In my opinion, his shallow breathing is often due to his honest conviction that he is precisely emulating his teacher’s inhalation. The teacher should be aware of this tendency and be ready to correct it. For the advanced player and teacher can become so efficient and apparently casual with his deep, silent, extremely rapid inhalation that the observer gets the distinct impression that only a shallow breath was taken.
After suggesting exercises to improve the inhale he concludes “All the foregoing could perhaps be summed up by calling our brass playing inhalation a sort of a huge, silent, rapid gasp—the kind of gasp caused by the reaction of stepping suddenly into an ice-cold shower on a hot day”
More tips
In A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing Milan Yancich simply notes that “Asking a student to yawn is a good way to demonstrate how to take a breath for an attack.”
In the addendum to Essentials of Brass Playing Fred Fox does not suggest this as a correct type of inhale but he does note it in the context of a discussion of the rim contact point.
To further emphasize the importance of the non-moving contact point of upper lip and mouthpiece, try the following experiment: Pick a note and play a series of eighth notes on it, but between each note drop the lower jaw and remove the lower lip completely from the mouthpiece. This will generate a lot of ridiculous lower jaw movement, yet despite all of this excessive movement, you will find that you can continue hitting the note with amazing accuracy! …If, upon trying the experiment, you too find an amazing consistency, it should pinpoint the need of keeping a perfect, unmoving contact between the upper lip and the mouthpiece in all registers.
I do not suggest the extreme dropping of the lower jaw as a habitual way of breathing.
This type of breathing it is worth noting again has actually had advocates in the horn world. The idea is that “guppy breathing” opens up the mouth and throat for free inhalation of air. I am very hesitant to call it wrong, but Fox was not a fan clearly.
Airflow discipline
Harry Berv has a bit different take on breathing in A Creative Approach to the French Horn. He is concerned with good airflow and discipline in breathing practice. As to the inhale
I long ago discovered that, when inhaling through the mouth, you must channel the air so that it flows in towards the bottom of the mouth, not the roof. You will find that the lungs become filled more directly and completely.
One larger question is do you fill the lungs full on the inhale or intentionally inhale to less than full? Berv comes down on the side of not being overly full of air when performing.
Filling the lungs with an excessive amount of air will greatly hamper the evenness of the airflow. If the lungs were not filled quite to capacity, however, you will have greater ease and security in performance. …(It’s much the same as with eating habits: If you gorge yourself with too much food you feel very uncomfortable, but if you leave the table feeling as though you could eat a little more, you will feel much better.)
Visualizations, and diplomacy
I have said elsewhere one of the nice things about our horn community is that we tend to not attack each other. If you read between the lines in the above quotes for sure some of these teachers really did not agree with each other. Even without reading between lines I hope that readers caught for example that you can’t actually fill your lungs from the bottom first and you can’t channel air through the bottom of your mouth; those are visualizations only.
Digging a little deeper, I think underlying the discussions in these older texts of not being over-full of air is a male-centered approach; horn players with smaller lungs will need to use their full capacity much better and more consistently than a tall player with large lungs. Adding on to the checklist from Farkas quoted early in this article, for sure the shoulders should rise as a part of full expansion of the lungs. More modern resources recognize this, especially in the low brass world; if you are thinking they should not rise you are actually not using all of the full, natural lung capacity available to you.
What really happens with an inhale
For those wishing to dig even deeper, go to 13:35 in the video below to see MRI images of Sarah Willis breathing a large breath. It is really worth 3 minutes of your time to see accurately how things actually expand (literally in every direction) in breathing.
Going back to the quotes to conclude, I wish, in a way, that they had explained their position better in relation to the other methods out there. But they may not have been in a position to really comment on the other approaches and again there has always been more of a diplomatic element to what we say about other horn teachers. All the more reason to develop your critical thinking as you think over the big picture of not only the inhale but all you do.
The Hornmasters series has been generally following through topics in the order presented in The Art of French Horn Playing. Thus, when we return the next article will get into the exhale and the points of resistance, two of the most difficult topics in the book and topics that many subsequent authors attempted to explain differently with varying degrees of success.
Continue in Hornmasters Series
