{"id":2705,"date":"2025-02-11T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T13:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/?page_id=2705"},"modified":"2025-02-11T14:55:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T13:55:50","slug":"what-your-instrument-asks-of-you-breath-and-poise","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/?page_id=2705","title":{"rendered":"What your instrument asks of you: Breath and Poise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This course is about Breathing and Posture and how the interact in playing wind and brass instruments, and in singing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How you use your postural structures, your imagination, and your musicianship and craft in playing or singing, can create the best situations for excellent breathing! There are two reasons to breathe that you can explore to combine them in your playing to improve breathing.  Breathing is commanded by the need for oxygen, and the desire to say something with your music. We will work on the warm-ups and practice tactics in class, which are listed below. There are short readings, and links below to practice and learn more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guidelines for working and exploring:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Posture and breathing:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use your posture muscles in a springy way to lengthen and widen when breathing out, not stiffening or collapsing. The rib cage is attached to the spine, and the breastbone to the neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A wide visual field activates your postural muscles. Do not fix your eyes or attention through over-focus to one spot or detail. This stiffens the neck and the diaphragm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The diaphragm responds to the need for oxygen. This causes a reflex breath to occur. Take the breath you need; don\u2019t over inhale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The diaphragm likes an inner smile, which frees the neck and the diaphragm and improves resonance in the sound. Use it also on an out-breath to maintain freedom and spring in the ribs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How you lift and support your instrument affects your spine and ribs. As a singer, what you do with your arms also affects your breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musical Impulse and Craft of playing:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your breathing needs a calm frame of mind, so do a warm-up or lie down to create calm before beginning. Take frequent breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need to know your music and have discovered what it really is<\/em>, so that there are no surprises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explore what you want to say and how. Let the music lead your breath. Expand your work with Musical Impulse<\/em>: use your imagination in practice to widen and specify your musical message. Mental study works!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sort out your craft of playing. Instruct the fingers, lips and tongue, etc. to work independently from each other, yet together. For instance, don\u2019t let tension from the fingering (or saying the text) disturb the breathing, or tension in breathing affect the articulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reactions to musical aspects can also create tension. Thinking that something is \u201cfast\u201d or \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cdifficult\u201d are first reactions that need to be explored to find out what really is going on, so that tension is not carried on past the initial practice of a piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Variation keeps your system awake and alert. Try some new warm-ups and practice tactics!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readings:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasons to breathe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impulse<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mental study<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practice tactics:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half the effort: play or sing the same thing, using half the effort!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking backwards: This will be practiced in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instrument toss and throw: This film<\/a> shows violinists working on this.<\/em> We will do the variation for your instrument in class.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cleaning the house<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frames of attention:<\/a> Microcontact<\/a>s, The Whole Instrument<\/a>, The Whole Space<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary motion: Take a phrase, and let your hand go in the opposite direction to the pitches in the music. Your hand goes DOWN when the notes go up, and UP when the notes go down.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Variation makes perfect<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading the score<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternating silence with sound<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

STOP-GO-IMAGINE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music Walk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warm-ups:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standing:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space to breathe stretch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lifting Arms without lifting<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roll down on out breath, roll up to let breath come and then play with air you received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murray Chair stretch: to be explained in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head to wall for spinal awareness: to be explained in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arm wall hang<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tai chi moves:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

dishwasher stretch: to be explained in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

cat stretch: to be explained in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoga: <\/em>Warrior stretch: to be explained in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Floor:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lie down<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lie down with arms<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lie down with breath: Add whispered Ah through three arm stretches, then one in-breath on the fourth arm stretch<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dart Procedures:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mermaid: to be explained in class<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progressive head lift: Lying on your stomach with use of eyes look forward and up, push with hands arch back, then go to \u201cchild position\u201d yoga<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

This course is about Breathing and Posture and how the interact in playing wind and brass instruments, and in singing.<\/p>\n

How you use your postural structures, your imagination, and . . .
→ Read more: What your instrument asks of you: Breath and Poise<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":27,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2705","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2710,"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2705\/revisions\/2710"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianshealth.hku.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}