Schuller: Breathing

from Gunther Schuller: Horn Technique

Inhaling should be done, especially at phrase beginnings, in a very relaxed yet lung-filling manner. The hasty, jerking breath tends to tighten neck, shoulder, and stomach muscles. 

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 to the breathing process a musicality specifically identified with the music being played. After a while, it gives the player an instinctive sense of timing in the several coordinated actions necessary prior to attacking a note, which will enable him almost to guarantee a note.

​The end of the inhaling process should be as closely connected as possible to the beginning of the breathing out of air. Both inhaling and exhaling should be thought of as a single uninterrupted act.

Hesitating between breathing in and expelling the air again serves no purpose other than to tighten various body muscles which should remain in a state of "relaxed tension" for free, natural playing. There is one exception, however. In the upper register, most players on an initial attack like to hesitate for the purpose of tightening the diaphragm into a strong supporting position. However, I wish to emphasize that this momentary hesitation is measured in fractions of a second, and is not long enough to choke back the air stream, unnecessarily tightening the neck and shoulder muscles.

At this point I must digress for a while to speak about the role of the 'diaphragm' in breathing. This term is bandied about a great deal, but in general many teachers and players still do not properly understand the nature and function of the diaphragm.

The diaphragm is a muscle which is situated in a horizontal position directly above the waist, and is shaped somewhat ike a shallow round tent. The '"dome" of this tent is flattened out when we inhale, thus allowing the lower lungs to fill with air. And like all muscles, the diaphragm muscle, once contracted or expanded, must return to its original position and natural degree of tension. It is this natural tendency of the diaphragm to contract, after having been expanded, that is the prime factor in achieving what we call "breath control". The diaphragm is the only muscle with which the release of air from the lungs can be controlled, since the diaphragm is the only major muscle touching the lower lungs. This is also why breathing by filling only the upper part of the lungs(chest breathing) is dangerous in horn playing. There are no muscles in the chest which can exert pressure on the lungs with relaxed control. Therefore the air issues from the lungs in an uncontrolled haphazard manner. 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 normal inhaling only the lower section of the lungs is filled. The diaphragm muscle (tangent to the lungs) and adjacent abdominal muscles are thus expanded. The natural contraction of these muscles applies gentle pressures on the lungs, thereby expelling the air. In horn playing, since largeamounts of air are necessary, all these processes are magnified.

1) The entire lungs (not just the lower part) are filled with air. However, at this point I must emphasize strongly that one of the prerequisites of correct breathing is that the lower part of the lungs is filled first. Otherwise "chest breathing" will result. I have found that the suggestion to breath along the bottom of the mouth (or tongue) helps students to fill the lower lungs first. Conversely, I have noticed that breathing along the roof of the mouth leads easily to chest breathing.

2) The diaphragm and abdominal muscles expand considerably more than in ordinary breathing, to the extent that one can feel expansion almost around the entire circle of the waist, including the back. This is what has led to the popular misconception that the 'diaphragm' is a circular ring-like muscle around the waist.

3) The entire process from the moment of inhaling to the expulsion of most of the air takes
correspondingly longer than in ordinary breathing.

I would also like to point out that the intake of air required for horn playing is so considerable, that this inhaling does (and should) become audible- -as when sucking in air. 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 from this, and should rather cultivate reasonably audible inhaling. As I have said, 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.

We have now inhaled and are ready to expel the air into the mouthpiece and horn. As in normal exhaling, the abdominal and diaphragm muscles will return to their original state of relaxed tension. For purposes of horn playing, however, an extra degree of control must be imposed. Different phrases will require different ways of expelling air, in large to small amounts and at slow to fast speeds. We can now really appreciate the importance of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, since they alone can control pressure on the lungs and, therefore, the amount and speed with which air is expelled. These muscles act as a kind of bellows. The return of the muscles to their normal positions can, in other words, be delayed or accelerated, thus affecting in a parallel manner the flow of air into the horn through lips and mouthpiece. At first, these muscles will be found to be weak, too weak at any rate to exercise absolute control over the flow of air. But over a period of months, with practice and conscious application of these muscles, they will gain in strength and control.

So far I have discussed only one aspect of the breathing out process. There is, however, another area which is part of the overall process of producing and controlling a horn tone. That is the control exercised upon the air stream by the embouchure. If the diaphragm is the motor and driving power in this process, the embouchure can be said to act as a rudder or steering device. It directs the air and controls the speed with which the air enters the mouthpiece. Both of these factors control the speed of vibration in the lips and the horn, and in turn the pitch and tone quality. If we think of the lungs as the source of air, the embouchure (and at a further stage the horn itself) represent not only the destination of the air but a wall of resistant and controlling pressure.

The principle involved is a very simple one: the flow of a steady unchanging stream of air fed by the source (the lungs) can be increased by closing the opening through which it issues (the embouchure), just as, in a stream, a sudden narrowing of the river bed will cause a relative acceleration in the flow of water.

As the lungs gradually empty, the stream of air thins out. To compensate for this loss of air, the diaphragm muscle has to increase its pressure on the lungs, so that the flow of air may be kept steady and undiminished. If it is not thus sustained, the tone will naturally decrease in volume and probably in pitch. This is why students (and even professionals) find the ends of long phrases harder to control than the middle. The degree of pressure exerted by the diaphragm and embouchure is dictated by the ear, which is presumably listening the sound as it is produced. The more sensitive the ear, the more demands it will place upon the diaphragm and embouchure.

The air stream, and in turn, the tone, are also controlled by another organ, the larynx, which functions as still another element in this four-way chain of pressure I am attempting to describe. The larynx (situated in the trachea) is used in horn playing almost to the degree that it is used in singing. And of all the points of control I have mentioned it is probably the most versatile. The larynx is a valve-like organ which at one extreme can shut off the air from the lungs completely, at another (when open) can let the air rush out entirely unrestrained, and can, of course, adopt all gradations between these two extremes. To illustrate its function briefly: in playing a loud sustained note the larynx must be wide open; on a very soft sustained note it must close sufficiently (again the ear is the final judge) to slow down the flow of air to the proper volume. The larynx's other important function is to end a note. This is achieved by closing this valve still further to the point where the air stream being allowed to pass is not sufficient to vibrate the lips and horn. This feeling can be easily practised by singing a sustained "ahh" syllable and gradually choking the sound off with the larynx. Obviously, the degree of abruptness with which a note is to be stopped can be easily controlled through a parallel abruptness in the closing of the larynx.

All four points of control (diaphragm pressure, larynx pressure, embouchure pressure, and the unalterable resistance
from the mouthpiece and the horn) function in a completely integrated inseparable manner, and only diligent and analyt-
practising will give the player the necessary control, assuming that he is not (as some players indeed are) a "natural' talent, to whom all these technical processes are already second nature.