- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
Recently a great, extended question came in related to playing mechanics and all the contradictory information out there. The reader wrote,
… I’m finding myself frustrated in hearing musicians of all types talk about breathing and body mechanics, as the responses are different or outright contradictory.
If I did what I was told and what I’ve read, I’d be more akin to a schizophrenic, than a musician! I would have to:
* raise my shoulders, but not raise them at all
* extend my belly, but not move it in or out
* tense the muscles in my abdomen, but remain relaxed
* sit up, but not so much that it limits movement
* focus on my lip aperture, which is really important, but also not think about it, because it isn’t (?!)
* Just sigh into the instrument, but also blow hard enough to get a full tone, and use ~more air~
* breathe through my chest, my back, or my belly button, but not more than one of those
Contradictions
Breaking this down, a simple answer would be that about half of the info has to be incorrect and a percentage was presented only as a visualization rather than real mechanics. But this is a huge topic worthy of more of a look. In the University of Horn Matters pedagogy course some of these elements are discussed, in various places. The following are my quick takes on these topics.
On raising the shoulders
The shoulders do go up! Part of the answer on this relates to this question — where are your lungs? They are behind your rib cage and extend up into your shoulder blades. So of course, there is some movement in the shoulders, your lungs are up there and to get air in things move! But they should not move artificially, just as part of the natural movement associated with filling your lungs.
The video way at the bottom of this article explains it better than my words. It is worth a watch.
Movement of the belly
This also moves, it is not a problem. When you fill your lungs the viscera below the diaphragm is displaced. This should also be clear from that video.
Tension in the abdomen
The choices in the question as posed were tense or relaxed, and the answer is yes. Both, in balance, speaking generally. There has to be some tension, it relates to the topic of “support,” but not more tense than is needed.
Tension will also vary by range and dynamic. For what it is worth, while the topic used to come up in lessons more, I rarely ever talk about tension in the abdomen these days. It is almost never a problem I see as an issue and why make a student worry about something that is not a problem? Most people seem to find the balance of things naturally in this area.
On sitting up
On this my suggestion is to sit up, but don’t artificially sit up. Your seated posture should be closely related to your natural standing posture. When standing you can also artificially extend and get more upright, that is not the position you want to be in standing or seated. I also always allow my back to touch the back of the chair. Don’t slouch, but be comfortable, not artificially upright.
I think the advice in this article from Tuckwell really is quite good:
Lip aperture
Our next topic is the aperture. This is another one I don’t actually talk about much in my teaching these days. I used to in the past. At some point I realized as a teacher that they way I had thought about aperture as a student was not very correct or helpful to talk about. I tended to think you could make it small from the corners, but really you can’t do that, it is more like the upper lip presses down more.
On this topic, if you want to explore it more, I highly recommend this pair of articles. First, I present a series of quotes from the William C. Robinson book:
Then, not long after I posted that, Robinson wrote me a very nice note and explained how his thinking on the topic had changed over the years. This is really worth reading.
Visualize a Visualization
The final portions of the question that came in have to do with sighing into the horn or blowing into the horn, and about inhaling through your belly button or whatever.
To the latter first, there is not (yet) a blow hole in the top of our head, you do in fact breath primarily through the corners when you are playing and that is what you have to practice. I mean, the visualization of breathing through the back might help some people I suppose, but for me I need more concrete thinking based on the actual mechanics.
Important concept: Airflow/pressure changes with range and dynamic
The sighing into the horn thing comes up with some players/teachers. It is incorrect, you do have to manage and control the air more than that. Obviously! Sighing into the horn is just not how breathing works.
This would be a good moment to look a bit deeper at this. There is a concept that was expounded by Arnold Jacobs that if you measure the intraoral air pressure of for example a trumpet, a horn, and a trombone playing the same actual pitch that the measured air pressure will be the same. More recent research has shown this to be overly simplistic, it is more complicated than that, but the general idea that higher notes (and higher brass instruments) require more air compression is correct. This is why the “sigh into the horn” concept some horn teachers expound is really incorrect. If you would like a deeper dive into this topic, this recent article on the Wilktone site (and the following comments there) will provide a lot more information.
For purposes of answering the question that came in though, if you are getting a good sound the breathing is probably OK, don’t overthink it. Just take large breaths and play with a good sound.
Finally, the “more air” comment came up in the question. This is a standard, low brass talking point. To my mind the answer is use plenty of air but also just the amount required. This is counterintuitive, but reality is you actually expend more air in the low range than you do in the high range. High range air is pressurized more with less actual flow through the horn. Again, don’t overthink it, use plenty of air but not so much that you get tense resisting excessive air.
Thinking changes over time
As mentioned earlier, on some topics my thinking has changed over the years. For example, while never a big fan of long tones, the longer I teach the less I think they are beneficial to progress on the horn — I tend to think they stiffen you up more than strengthen you. You would be better off playing melodic things that transition over varied ranges (and if you are stiff, the solution is pedal tones and rest).
With that in mind, some of the advice that the reader was given is to my mind wrong, but years ago I might have also said similar things to a student. Seek out the experienced teacher, especially one with good problem-solving skills, and they can help you work out the contradictions and lead to better playing results.
