South West Alexander Technique
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Don’t Panic! Or Why wind players do not need to ‘Take a Breath’ Most
of us are taught, as beginner wind players, to take a Big Breath before we
start to play. If we are not told
specifically to breathe in, we see our teachers and other players whom we
respect starting with a sudden big gasp just before playing the first note,
and so learn that this is the way to play.
This gasp is not usually audible, although it can sometimes be heard
even with very good players. From
there, every time there is space for a breath, the player sucks in as much
air as possible in order to have the maximum amount for the next phrase. How
often does it happen when you play that the further into a piece you get, the
less air you seem to take in with each breath, the fewer notes you can play
until another gasp is needed, and, as your mind fills with the panic of
impending suffocation, your fingers disgrace you by disowning any connection
with you, your recorder or the music they used to play so competently? This
disaster is only discussed in the broadest of terms as ‘nerves’, and players
wish fervently but without confidence that it will not happen to them next
time. In
reality, the problem is traceable to specific actions and is usually
avoidable. It is
self-induced panic! The
first big breath sets up a chain of physical changes – a sequence triggered
automatically when you are suddenly confronted with strange and possibly
dangerous situations. This is
breathing to deal with emergencies, to set your heart beating faster and your
adrenalin increasing. It is there to
help you deal with sudden shocks, such as meeting a smiling crocodile as you
turn a corner. You have the resources
to attack it or run (depending on your wisdom): theses resources are provided
by the gasp that came unwittingly when you first saw the crocodile. Other
symptoms of the gasp pattern include pulling your head back and down into
your shoulders, and hunching your shoulders to protect the back of your
neck. Dryness of the mouth, heavy
sweating, greatly tensed abdominal and chest muscles and feelings of nausea
are also noticeable effects of this ‘startle pattern’. Your body, having no way of knowing if the
gasp you have taken signifies danger or not, will set every mechanism in
motion for fighting or fleeing, whether you are in an emergency or not. As there is no one to fight at most
concerts and the only place to run to is off-stage, it seems ridiculous to
use this means of breathing for playing a wind instrument. If
you start a piece with this gasp and then continue to breathe in this manner
throughout the music, you will trigger this sequence of changes and end up
experiencing emergency on emergency, a racing heart and more adrenalin than
your body knows what to do with. At
the end of your playing (if you get that far) you find a corner and collapse
with embarrassment at your efforts and an overdose of self-induced
shock. All this on account of playing
a piece of music you love on an instrument you love. There wasn’t even a crocodile in the audience! Can
anything be done to help you, or do you resign yourself to being a player who
rarely performs, with the excuse, ’My technique, or my body, wasn’t quite up
to my musical desires’? The simple
solution, the one over which every player has control, is to avoid taking
that first breath: just use the air in your lungs for playing. All that is necessary to play any wind
instrument is to move air between your lungs, your instrument and the room
you are in. As
long as you are alive you will have air in your lungs. Only 20% of the air in your lungs is
breathed out with each breath, to be replaced during the next in-breath. The other 80% remains inside you: there is
always air in your lungs for playing with.
Air is breathed in and out quite unconsciously and without any
interference every few seconds during your life. It seems important to use this easy and
involuntary bodily function in music-making, for if it is an easy and natural
occurrence it will make for easy and natural music. Think
for a moment about how you breathe when talking with a friend. Do you stop to take a breath before you
answer a question? Do you fill your
lungs to bursting before interjecting?
Do you gasp or fix your rib-cage before greeting someone? In most circumstances you wouldn’t even
think about how you breathe: usually you would let your body look after the
concurrent needs of keeping you alive and speaking, and you would devote your
attention to the company of your friends.
Why not try the same when playing?
You can devote your attention to the company of your pipe and the tune
to be played (which are friends of yours) and let your body look after the
breath. If
you decide to break the Big Breath Habit at the start of a piece, and to play
only with what is already in your lungs, you will require great
perseverance. It will involve great
awareness and great strength of purpose to stop playing when you know you’ve taken THAT breath, to wait a moment to
remember what you are trying out, and then to start again when your lungs
have filled again of their own accord.
It is as important to stop and correct a mistake like this during
practice as it is important to stop, gather your wits and correct any mistake
in reading, fingering or articulation. As
any performer waits for the right time before starting to play (for silence
in the audience, stillness or ‘the moment’), so can the performer wait until
her lungs are full before starting to blow.
No-one will be bored waiting for the music to sound. The very act of having someone on stage has
started the music and there is no necessity for it to sound earlier through
urgency. Wait another moment, using
courage and calmness to let the air come in as it has all your life, and then
... play! By deciding to wait and let
it happen, you can develop all the poise of your favourite
players. Sucking
to gain an extra quantity of air does not increase lung capacity: rather it
tightens neck and throat muscles, and usually stiffens the rib-cage as well,
thereby restricting your breath control.
If the phrase is so long that you need to break it into parts to play
without forcing your breathing in any way, then
break it up. There is no prize for
playing longer phrases than any other players, only for true musicality. Use the amount of air you have to shape the
music as an expression of yourself, not to outdo other players. The
dilemma that now faces the diligent player is how to maintain this new
control throughout the movement, sonata or entire programme. Having avoided putting yourself into a
panic by not gulping air before starting a piece, can you continue to avoid
giving yourself a shock each time you need a breath? The
solution of course is to allow the air to come in as it will. If you have managed not to become rigid in
your thoughts and your musculature as you play, then as you open your mouth
for the next breath, air will rush in.
This is automatically triggered by signals from your brain about the
comparative air pressures inside and outside your lungs. Any rigidity or tension will reduce the
effectiveness of this response and thus the intake of air, giving you less
for playing the next phrase. If
you are a player of many years’ bad breathing habits, you will find this last
stage is the hardest to manage. It is
relatively easy to wait at the start of a piece for your lungs to fill before
commencing to play, but as the music continues there doesn’t seem to be the
time to wait. The next phrase demands
to be played; in order to comply with these demands, old habits of gasping
for air return and suddenly you are back where you started. In
order to change these habits, musical demands often have to be ignored. When it is time to breathe, you need to
stop and wait for the air to come in (as it must do), even if this takes some
seconds. The next musical phrase is
still waiting for you when you have the air.
If you are used to phrases following immediately after one another,
this waiting is very hard. It requires
a new thought about music as well as a new thought about breathing. However, as this is being tried out in the
privacy of your own practice, there is no one but yourself to complain about
the interruptions to the music’s flow. There
is a need to stop and wait, as mind and body need to remember to ‘not take a
breath’, which is new, and to resist the temptation to drag air in, which is
the easy way of old habits. Gradually
it takes less time between phrases to allow this to happen, as the clutches
of the old manner weaken and the new pattern becomes established. One
day you will find that allowing the air to flow into your lungs takes no
longer than sucking air in. You will
feel greater space in the gaps where you breathe, and the music will appear
less rushed. Other rewards for
achieving this include a greater sense of freedom in the music for you as
listener; a lack of the ugly gasps, grunts and related noises associated with
the tight throat and other tensions involved in the effort previously made to
get air in; a reduction in panic and a consequent greater pleasure in
playing; and a lack of exhaustion at the end of a performance. Instead of ‘taking a breath’, you have
learned to let the breath ‘take itself’, and will probably congratulate
yourself by playing more often and with more enjoyment. A
longer version of this article was first published in The Recorder, |
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