My thoughts about the musician sound elaborate from the following concepts :

Sound and Internal Vibration

« In the first place, you should learn to know yourself : learn to be aware of everything which must be achieved before playing a sound. »

Robert Pichaureau, Introduction à la Leçon de trompette (Translated by Guy Robert)

Making The Sound Ripen

Many findings result from this approach, which was happily taught to me by Master Robert Pichaureau some years ago (1983-85) and is feeding my personal routine in a continuous way : practice and assimilation make concepts mature with time, so that they eventually become obvious.

Along these lines, this great teacher helped many musicians to unveil and (re-)build up their sound, enhancing these principles in a unified way for all types of instruments (he used to refer to The Inner Violin / Le violon intérieur of Dominique Hoppenot, extending the concept beyond the brass and woodwind players).

the sound of inner violin

Your best inner vibration is lived through and felt in consistency with your natural breathing, hence feeding your musical speech, which becomes spontaneous while getting more personal.

Here are Dominique Hoppenot‘s  words in Le violon intérieur , about the necessary feeling and experimenting :

« In order to express (your art), (…) you must exist within your body, you should have something to say, and be able to say it.« 

« What is described in a teaching speech as live and always renewed concepts easily becomes dogmatic when written down and you might take a risk in being satisfied by an intellectual understanding while only the lived experience matters.« 

« True knowledge develops only through analyzing and assimilating information according to your own personality, and “knowing“ necessarily requires the duty of personal experience.«

Dominique Hoppenot, Le violon intérieur (Translated by Guy Robert)

Your Mind Drives Your Art

Le Traité méthodique de pédagogie instrumentale, written by Michel Ricquier, also shows and explains the sound produced by the brass or the woodwind player. As a complement, the paramount role of mind for the art expression is developed in his book L’utilisation de vos ressources intérieures.

In the USA, Joe Allard was a notorious Master, as a clarinet and saxophone player, who educated several generations of musicians, following similar principles, from whom I shall mention excerpts consistent with my observations.

 « If you know how to play, if you understand your approach, then you have a good plan for your playing. You eliminate much of the fear of playing. There’s still concern because you want to play well, but you’re not afraid to blow.« 

Joe Allard : His Contributions to Saxophone Pedagogy and Performance, by Debra Jean McKim

David Liebman is one of his famous followers, who elaborated his ideas about the development of a personal saxophone sound.

« In truth, there are no rules, only concepts. In all honesty, it took me years to understand some of his directions. This was especially true for the all-important overtone exercises and their significance. It finally dawned on me during my twenties how much the tone of the great players evidenced ease of production, evenness of sound, a rich and deep sonority, and most of all, personal expressiveness. »

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

Great musicians of all styles demonstrate as many embodiments of personal sound.

Among the most significant ones to me, we can find Charlie Parker, Phil Woods, Cannonball Adderley, David Liebman, Eddie Daniels, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Clark Terry, Patrick Bartley, Pierrick Pédron, Jean-Charles Richard, Géraldine Laurent, Baptiste Herbin, Martin Fröst, Romain Guyot, Maurice André, Timofei Dokshizer, Guy Touvron…

Ringing Multiple Bells

These teachings are feeding my understanding, following several milestones selected in a personal fashion, describing my feelings (and relevant proprioceptions) stemming from a progressive assimilation of the Pichaureau method and complementary notions.

the instrument

The internal vibration flows from the musician’s body to his instrument which behaves as an amplifier : making one’s instrument sound good aims at optimizing its resonance.

the posture

Your body should be positioned so as to avoid unnecessary stresses by relaxing downwards, down to the ground, taking advantage of the verticality of the sound column.

breathing and air

The good sound builds up on the exhalation, which seamlessly extends the inhalation : your aim should be to pick it up, from your listening to your natural breathing.

the air column

You should figure out the air column, better named as « sound column », as deep as possible : it feeds up your internal vibration which is amplified by the instrument.

don’t blow it !

You should not externalize your intended motion by willing to blow, in order to be able to drive downwards your internal vibration : by avoiding to actually blow out, you let your global resonance develop, without disturbing your sound with unnecessary stresses.

the sound source

From your diaphragm center, you visualize the starting point of your internal vibration as deep as you can, down to the heels : this will make your sound column grow up, spreading a fatter sound from your body to your instrument.

the embouchure

Your internal vibration propagates through the embouchure – which you should figure out as if it were located at the bottom of your sound column – producing then a sound resulting from the musician / instrument configuration : this requires also a good reactive gear.

fingers and tongue

Your fingers and tongue finally embody the tools of you wind player becoming a sound sculptor by customizing your expression carried on by your internal vibration.

a virtual trunk

Like the sportsman towering his performance by merging himself into his pelvis, you musician forget about your trunk for the benefit of your lower limbs, which then may appear as a new virtual trunk : it supports your vibrating body, echoing through the surrounding space.

highs and lows

Exploring the whole range of your instrument then becomes easier by keeping your sound column relaxed from the bottom, where your exhaling and inhaling naturally link up in the fat vibration : you can now master your legato playing over a large range, while feeling the grain of your sound.

the sensations

When you listen to your natural breathing and you absolutely do not push, then your relaxation flows down, bringing the enjoyment of your letting-go.

the convergence

As those many factors converge towards your vital center point, you may consider your body as unified behind your instrument, which receives its vibrating energy and makes it sound all around.

Selected References

The authors mentioned in these refences are feeding my thoughts on the mastering of internal vibration and provide numerous leads towards the full expression of your musical intent.

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Sound And Its Column

The musician’s inner vibration is the raw material of his very expression, which then comes out through his instrument.

Like Standing For The Ovation

The inner vibration of the windplayer expands in his air column, then gets amplified by his instrument, through his vocal cords and his embouchure.

« The idea is that the movements of the vocal cords be utilized for the artistic purposes of shaping a sound.  »

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

from the air column to the sound column

You can live through this slender inner space – rather named “column of sound“ by Alfred Tomatis in The Ear And The Voice – by relaxing your abdomen muscles, focussing on your natural exhaling process : that makes you forget about your embouchure while enhancing your verticality and the deep rooting of the air column, like a tree trunk which would be embodied by your lower limbs.

When focusing on relaxation flowing down your rear back, starting from the end of your natural (and non-forced) inhaling, your air column – or better, your sound column – must be felt as deep as possible, in order to reach its stable position, while you want to prononce « ah » as low as you can : then, you feel as if you were sitting on the radiating vibration, which then excites another column, a physical one this time, your cervical/vertebral spine.

«In correct emission, the larynx is lined up against the cervical spine which, excited by the vibrations transmitted to the larynx by the vocal cords, starts to sing of its own accord.

Under these circumstances, the larynx is excited exactly as the strings of a violin. It is the strings that vibrate and the violin that sings. When the posture of the singer is well aligned, his larynx excites the vertebral column just as if it were that little piece of wood inside the violin that is called the “soul“ of the violin. Its purpose is to carry sound from the anterior plate to the posterior plate.  We want to make a column of sound, resonant over and under the glottis, not a column of air, as myth would have it. »

« (…) But it is one thing to talk about a column of air with all the ideas that are usually associated to it : the push, the pressure, tension on the cords, etc.., but a column of sound is something altogether different.

The latter implies relaxation, a measured and tranquil expenditure, being on the lookout for tension, to reduce effort, to avoid pressure.»

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

strings, body and soul

The same process operates with a violin player, who plays his instrument ideally merged with his body : Dominique Hoppenot outlines this resonance-amplification sequence in Le violon intérieur.

Once installed, the air column is ready to “play“ the violinist’s body, as soon as the bow vibrates the string : this vibration gets enriched by the resonance of the violinist’s body, thanks to its transmission through the clavicle, then is amplified by the violin body.

« Thanks to its internal architecture, your body will cease to be an obstacle, behaving then as a true sounding board and as an amplifier of your faithful musical emotions, in the same way as for singers. »

« Such as your voice, your sound is the absolute musical support, the wire that carries the music and inspires emotion. Hence, it is as compelling to “position“ your sound as it is to position your voice. »

« To vibrate, it is necessary (…) at first to start from the idea of sound, not from the obsession of gesture. You should not vibrate to produce a “vibrato“ but to vibrate the sound through a deeply “felt“ pulsation. The good vibrato, able to convey your emotion, therefore picks up your natural vibration and amplifies it at your will.»

« The singers and wind players know for sure that they cannot get a decent sound emission without their breathing being positioned, without their famous “air column“.

They also know that they can neither phrase music, nor actually play it without knowing how to play their breathing with ease.»

Dominique Hoppenot, Le violon intérieur (Translated by Guy Robert)

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Your Sound And Your Instrument

The quality of your sound is ensured if your musician body and your instrument literally operate in tune, i.e. on the same wave length.

Merging Your Instrument With Your Body

The musical instrument, whether it uses wind, strings or skins, acts as an amplifier of the musician’s voice, driven by his inner vibration : to take advantage of this amplifier’s acoustics, the player aims at stimulating its resonance, and at merging with the vibration internal to his body.

“Your body is your real instrument.“

Robert Pichaureau, Expressions (Translated by Guy Robert)

“The horn is like a megaphone which amplifies the sound wave set up by the vocal cords and reed vibration. Air, even air lying still in the horn itself, becomes sound.”

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

The Whole Body Sings

As Alfred Tomatis describes it in The Ear And The Voice, the musician must make his body sing, hence vibrate, in order to feed his instrument and so that it sounds, again and again, and resonates.

your voice is your first instrument

Thanks to relaxation flowing down to your heels, you visualize your embouchure at the bottom of the sound column : it is revealed, at the very end of inhalation, as gently landing on the source of vibration, generating your inner sound which then spreads around, being amplified by your instrument.

“For a singer, virtuosity means neurological control of those parts of the body specialized in singing, as if it were a musical instrument. (…) Having learned to merge himself with his instrument, the great virtuoso can then become totally objective at will.”

“It is futile to try to sing if this self-image is not integrated through a singing instrument, a vocal instrument. (Adapted by Guy Robert)”

“A well-defined body image specific to the act of singing implies a well-organized mental attitude and finely tuned alignment, which will allow the entire body to resonate during singing.”

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice (Translated by Roberta Prada and Pierre Sollier)

Your Body Makes Your Instrument Sound

Speaking of windplayers, their sound obviously builds up from their vibrating air column – better named as sound column -, as Phil Woods tells us about his saxophone sound, during a Master Class at New York University : 

“You’ll find the center of that horn for your physionomy : the node, what makes it vibrate, you know, and when you find it, it’s there.”

Phil Woods, Master Class

the violin extends the body

The sound vibration remains at the core of playing any type of instrument, as Dominique Hoppenot shows it in her Inner Violin / Le violon intérieur.

From this point of view, you may devise the violin / saxophone analogy : the bow / air column excites the string / reed, the vibration of which is then amplified by the violin body / sax tube.

“(…) the violin player should feel the violin and the bow as an extension of his own body : they both appear as outgrown from him to the point where you expand your body scheme up to the instrument boundaries.”

“The violin and the bow then behave as revealers of your body sound and not as instruments creating music from scratch.”

“Virtuosity is enhanced by the absolute invariance of the violin against the body, of the bow extending the arm.”

“Your efforts are motivated by your expected improvement, which is not brought as a systematic reward from each practice session. It requires some period of time to mature and may come out when unexpected.”

Dominique Hoppenot, Le violon intérieur (Translated by Guy Robert)

Your Instrument In Your Head

As a music player, you should devote the necessary time to physically and mentally assimilate this process, aiming at unifying your instrument with your body.

“Many years of solitary introspection lead me to analyze and to understand the unconscious operations of our body, when we vibrate an instrument.”

Robert Pichaureau, Introduction à La leçon de trompette (Translated by Guy Robert)

Then, the sound to come should be mentally anticipated and devised by the windplayer, before he takes and brings his instrument to his mouth :

“(…) you should be aware of everything which must be achieved before playing a sound : here is the real work. To achieve this : refrain from holding the instrument in your hands.”

Robert Pichaureau, Introduction à La leçon de trompette (Translated by Guy Robert)

the piano mind

Concentrating on proprioceptive images drives your internal vibration to your instrument, giving life to your musical ideas over your natural breathing as if you would sing them : then your instrument amplifies and projects them around.

As soon as your instrument seems forgotten, since you are relaxing yourself on your sound center (the location of which is felt from your appropriate body preparation), you feel as if you were directly plugged to your musical speech : you do not pay attention to the so-called technical problems, and become the actual master of your instrument. To really enjoy it, you should play soft and full tones in order to better drive the sound emission.

The full sensation of your sound requires some progression, beginning with a slow, soft and precise pattern : such a practicing indeed gives time to your vibrating sound to deploy and settle in your voice, enhancing your sensations flow from your belly bottom down to your heels. Then, keeping your sound source located as low as possible, makes you hold your optimal and fat vibration longer and longer. This way, you physically understand how your musical thought can drive your instrument.

{ Steinhausen on the psychic origin of technique : in 1905, several months after the appearance of Rudolf Maria Breithaupt‘s Die Natürliche Klaviertechnik, Dr. Friedrich Adolph Steinhausen’s Die Physiologische Fehler und Umgestaltung der Klaviertechnik (“The Physiological Misconceptions andReorganization of Piano Technique“) was published. }

Beginning practice starts with too much expenditure of force. The elimination of too much muscle action is the real basis for developing agility.

“While the mind is dominating and determining this goal, the whole arm is “the animated tool“, but always, only the tool.“

{ Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was the first to emphasize consistently the importance of mental factors in the pianist’s practical work. He presented his ideas in his edition of the Bach Well-Tempered Clavichord (1894). }

Busoni suggests that, until the musical meaning becomes clear, one should not touch the instrument. Because the demands of the keyboard tend to force one to forget about musical meaning, mental practicing away from the instrument plays an important part in the preparatory work.

“1/3 – When a stimulus creates excitation, the result is a discharge of impulses. Inhibition suppresses superfluous (or even harmful) excitation. The restraining, coordinating and protective role of inhibition is of utmost importance in the integrative activity of the central nervous system (…).

2/3 – Slow and extremely even playing is indispensable, not only for obtaining clear proprioceptive sensations but for strengthening the inhibitory process.

3/3 – For strengthening the inhibitory process, I recommend practicing pianissimo, extremely evenly, in slow as well as in faster tempos. The student should also be able to regulate both sudden and gradual increase or decrease in volume in any section of the composition and in any conceivable tempo. The ability to do this, plus the ability to slow down and to stop at any given moment, is the best proof of proper balance between excitatory and inhibitory processes.”

“When a pianist realizes a given musical idea, the tonal image, the auditory stimulation (conditional stimulus), must always precede the motor reaction (unconditional stimulus), in performance as well as in practicing.“

“The musical incentive has to be a signal provoking the motor activity. Otherwise the latter, the technique, can easily become an end in itself.“

“Each time an intricate passage is repeated, its execution demands a new adaptation, and so acquiring technique appears as adjustment. Repetition, instead of dull drilling, now becomes a trial solution, a trial always rationally prepared.“

“During one practice period, several conscious well-prepared repetitions of a troublesome spot in a piece can be sufficient. When we repeat that spot too many times, our attention is weakened and consequently distracted : unconscious repetition would probably obliterate the positive results we had achieved.“

“(…) the increase of tempo while studying a musical composition should proceed gradually, and this increase must often alternate with slow and very careful playing. The ability to play evenly and the ability to slow down at any point in a passage serve as criteria of precise and sufficient inhibition. (…) Deep legato practicing is extremely useful for strengthening weak nervous processes.“

“{ Josef Hofmann (1876-1957) }

“L’image sonore de la musique à venir doit se développer mentalement avant de s’exprimer par les mains.“ Alors, le “jeu “ ne devient que l’expression par ses mains de l’idée du pianiste.“

George Kochevitsky, The Art Of Piano Playing

Sax And Clarinet In Line With Your Body

More precisely, when the woodwind player lets his clarinet vibrate, after having stabilized his sound on the saxophone, he gets a better mastery from this approach, with respect to the somewhat different tension of the sound, considering the air column should develop the same way in a well centered and verticalized manner, in order to obtain the much sought-after playing ease.

Eddie Daniels (autre célèbre disciple de Joe Allard) explique à sa manière comment il se fait emporter par sa clarinette :

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The Sound Trunk

Where you realize you are perched on top of a virtual trunk.

Mastering Your Perching Up

Merging yourself with your instrument makes you vertically work out your sound column, letting your relaxation rolling downwards ; then, the part of your body located above your diaphragm gets oblivious, while you can visualize the embouchure at the sound source, as your vital center in your belly bottom.

« You feel your upper body components to become lighter, as if they were freed from gravity, while you get invaded by an immovable, but not heavy, stability feeling in your abdomen. »

Michel Ricquier, L’utilisation des ressources intérieures – André Lysbeth, Revue mensuelle Yoga (Translated by Guy Robert)

{Grigori Kogan in his lectures and later (1958) in his small book U vrat masterslva (“At the Gates of Mastery“) put forward as psychological prerequisites of successful pianistic work three basic principles :

(1) The ability to hear inwardly the musical composition which has to be realized on the instrument — to hear it extremely clearly as a whole, as well as exact in all its details.

(2) The most passionate and persistently intense desire to realize that glowing musical image.

(3) The full concentration of one’s whole being on his task in everyday practice as well as on the concert stage.}

The psycho-technical school advocates the free and complete use of all parts of the pianist’s apparatus, beginning at the fingertips and including the torso. This technique is universal, or in other words, the really natural technique of coordination.

George Kochevitsky, The Art Of Piano Playing

get rooted

Hence, your real physiologic trunk fades out behind the sound column, while your pelvis and lower limbs appear now as a virtual tree trunk, the roots of which ensure your posture stability and propagate the vibrating sound.

Grass cannot grow without its roots. Same thing with your sound : if you don’t provide it with roots, it crashes down, it’s as simple as that.

You can hold on to this natural breathing only if you stay relaxed. For that, you need to stand grounded on your feet, well balanced around your center of gravity.

When seated, you should consciously feel your buttocks and your feet. Anyway, you must be grounded, then you can let your relaxation spread downwards.

Robert Pichaureau, A tous vents (Translated by Guy Robert)

« You feel as if you were changed into a statue. You hang to the ground and not to your trumpet.« 

Robert Pichaureau, Expressions favorites (Translated by Guy Robert)

The main idea consists in using gravity, instead of struggling with it, and in pulling power from the ground.

To achieve this, the musician should picture himself getting rooted like a tree : he then pushes downwards and the ground sends this input power back to him.

Marie-Christine Mathieu, Gestes et postures du musicien (Translated by Guy Robert)

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The Musician Sound Grows From His Breathing And Air

Driving your internal vibration with your natural breathing is key for your sound quality, and requires only a minimal air consumption.

Breathe, You Bet !

The inner motion propagating your vibration towards your instrument comes from your sound center, the location and feeling of which you get accustomed to through watching yourself naturally breathing : air naturally surrounds you and your body spontaneously ingests it during your inhaling, thanks to the spontaneous action of your diaphragm, released then by the muscles surrounding it.

“What happens in normal respiration ?”

“You have to take in a comfortable amount of air, no more. Then you distribute that air with minimum pressure, as if caressing the vocal cords. This excites the spinal column so that it starts to sing.”

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

“The trickiest idea to grasp is that the player must RELEASE his diaphragm during his inhaling… in other words, he should not control it, which would prevent it from freely operate by itself. To voluntarily act on this muscle, even thinking about it, would readily limit its operation.”

Dr Delphine Olivier-Bonfils, La respiration diaphragmatique – Article publié dans le Journal de l’Association française du Cor 2000 n° 78 (Translated by Guy Robert)

singing in the open air

To sum it up,

• wanting to take some air would trigger contractions altering the depth of the internal vibration (i.e. the sound spectrum) ;
• such contractions would subsequently disturb your column of sound : you would not be « sitting » in the air any more ;
• at the same time, more energy would be ill-advisedly consumed through those disturbing contractions, in order to develop your musical speech, down to your next inhaling :  your playing sequence would therefore last a shorter time and be less mastered than you would be able to do.
  

“Again, you are reminded that everything lies on the effort necessary to avoid stress.”

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice – (adapted by Guy Robert)

“Singing well brings about the rediscovery of true respiration, calm and unstressed, with a natural physiological rhythm. The diaphragm is liberated, autonomous, not locked in expansion.

Certainly all these movements and gestures are equally muscular. But they respond to a set of muscles that are the antagonistic push muscles, the flexors.”

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

When you watch yourself breathing naturally, releasing your lower back rearwardly to avoid unnecessary tensions, you become aware of the connection of your body with the ground, embodied by your lower members, like a tree trunk linked to its roots.

“I used to consider the broad breathing process, coming without any pushing.”

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

Then, while relaxing down to the base of the sound column, you want to pronounce the « a » vowel, which gets your inner vibration take off from your heels, and you certainly do not push, consuming then as little air as possible and thus developing a rich sound spectrum.

“You should actually concentrate on your self letting-go”

“Such a correctly emitted sound rebalances breathing on a non-pushing mode.”

“Part of vocal training is learning to breathe so that the exhalation coordinates with the activity of the larynx. Once we acquire excellent listening, the mechanisms that regulate the larynx, pharynx, tongue, lips, etc…, must be implemented and the vocal apparatus must function perfectly.

When all that is mastered, singing indeed seems to be simply a matter of breathing.”

“With breathing exercises as with exercises for the larynx, you will need patience. Acquiring exceptional mastery over the breath is a long and serious learning process. You need to acquire ample, calm breathing. Never work over tension or fatigue. Short sessions through the day will yield better results than one long session.

Once the respiratory mechanism is well regulated, you have to integrate it with all the other proprioceptice sensations specific to singing.”

“With training, only the diaphragm takes part in respiration for singing. The thoracic muscles remain in relaxed extension so the ribs stay open and cannot exert too much pressure. In fact, it is not easy to consciously direct the movements of the diaphragm to retain the air and make it flow over the vocal cords without ever pushing. (…) The thorax, as expanded as possible and relatively immobile without being locked, assures phonation.

Everyone has a different way of describing this. Gigli told me that he let his belly “fall to the ground “ to breathe and maintained the same feeling as long as the breath steam lasted. That way, the abdominal muscles do not interfere with the diaphragm.”

“Singers must be taught to act judiciously on the exhalation.”

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

Awake Your Internal Sensations

Hence, the best air quality is provided by a perfectly relaxed abdomen until the sound smoothly takes off, springing out of the sound source and synchronized with your exhalation, as it is scientifically explained by Claudia Spahn, Bernhard Richter, Johannes Pöppe et Matthias Echternach in their Physiological Insights for Players of Wind Instruments : you can reach this configuration by focusing on your spontaneous inhaling process while avoiding any disturbing stress by letting it going down your back. Then, you feel your column of sound vertically rolling down from the diaphragm, as the air gently vibrates through your heels and the ground.

“This flexible system of controlled breathing is typically called breath support. The amount of emitted air is therefore controlled by a flexible coordination of simultaneously activated inhalation and exhalation muscles. ”

Claudia Spahn, Bernhard Richter, Johannes Pöppe et Matthias Echternach

let your letting-go fall down !

By letting his chest relaxation flow down to the sound source, the music player secures the continuity of the internal propagation from inhaling to exhaling ; his configuration then brings a strong support to the vibration carried on by the exhaling.

“Exhalation is primarily a passive activity during non-exerted breathing, since the diaphragm relaxes while gravitational and resetting forces of the chest and the lungs act as a spring during exhalation, which narrows the chest.”

“Exhalation must perform slowly and regularly in order to play a quiet ballad. ”

“If the chest is expanded, as with inhalation, exhalation automatically begins when the muscles relax and the air is exhaled without any significant muscular contraction.”

Claudia Spahn, Bernhard Richter, Johannes Pöppe et Matthias Echternach

Unification of your body results from this attitude, all feelings above your diaphragm being ignored, as Dominique Hoppenot explains it in Le violon intérieur.

“The division between the “upper“ and “lower“ parts of the body vanishes when it gets unified by the tilt of the pelvis.”

Dominique Hoppenot, Le violon intérieur (Translated by Guy Robert)

We can extend the analogy between the violin bow and the column of sound, as mentioned before, for the sound laying at its initial emission : the first push of the bow matches the column of sound beginning to vibrate, at the very moment when inhaling becomes exhaling, during the handover from the diaphragm to the transverse abdominus muscle.

“To hasten the awareness of your back muscles and integrate them quicker into your instrumental action, it is recommended to “imagine“ them, to develop their role, to locate them, to play them at will (…)”

“One who knows how to terminate a sound is sure of being able to resume it.”

“Breathing (…) involves the entire trunk, from the nose to the anus, in a complex and admirable muscular synergy that appears as a huge wave which rises and falls down along the trunk, without border demarcation between the “upper“ and “lower“ parts of the body.”

“Inhaling then consists of an active tension of the diaphragm, together with a relaxation of the abdominal and pelvic muscles, while exhaling develops as an active tension of those same abdominal muscles pushing up the then-relaxed diaphragm.”

Dominique Hoppenot, Le violon intérieur (Translated by Guy Robert)

your sound flows from your whole body

Then, the conscious motion reaches to the seamless laying of the sound (triggerring the vocal cords vibration) during the exhaling phase. This relies on the action of this specific transverse abdominus muscle, as singled out by Marie-Christine Mathieu : to maintain your sound quality, you must still want to sing a low « a » vowel, in order to feel its action flowing inwards and downwards, although it makes the diaphragm slowly raise, appearing as a seeming paradox only.

“The transverse abdominus is really the main muscle antagonistic to the diaphragm. It comes into play to quickly and powerfully expel the air, when the diaphragm relaxation – rather inefficient then – cannot achieve it any more.”

Marie-Christine Mathieu, Gestes et postures du musicien (Translated by Guy Robert)

When you run out of available air, releasing that transverse abdominus leads to a new spontaneous inhaling through the natural down-run of the diaphragm in your back, pulling down the lungs bottom to inflate them : keeping the feeling of your sound source under your sternum will insure that your deep sound extends through your next exhaling.

“A true person breathes through his heels.“

Robert Pichaureau, Expressions favorites (Translated by Guy Robert)

“You must relax when completing your inhaling, doing so, your instrument is naturally played.”

“The floating ribs get raised, which we name the costo-abdominal-diaphragmatic breathing. We should even say “diaphragmatic-costo-abdominal“ breathing, since inhaling is generated by the diaphragm.”

“Whether you play or you sing, the diaphragm raises, you don’t care about it, but it does go up. Relaxing carries inhaling, you don’t have to inhale, the diaphragm works that out. Release everything ! Don’t take any air in ! Thank you, and here it goes again and now…music comes in, not air.”

Robert Pichaureau, La respiration (Translated by Guy Robert)

“The diaphragm operation determines the freedom of the aerial ways which proves vital to the technical operation of a wind instrument.”

“For singers and wind players, the breathing maximum does not mean the technical optimum.”

“The diaphragm mobility around the floating ribs and the jaw flexibility both determine the pharynx opening, the free air flow, hence the sound magnitude and its spectral richness together with its emission comfort.”

Dr Delphine Olivier-Bonfils, La respiration diaphragmatique – Article publié dans le Journal de l’Association française du Cor 2000 n° 78 (Translated by Guy Robert)

“Air should flow down while you inhale and certainly should not go up for the exhaling phase, but to the opposite, it should keep flowing down. Whichever way it runs out, you should consider that it does not flow back up to exit through your mouth, but it keeps flowing down during your low exhaling and your vertical pushing.”

Michel Ricquier, Traité de pédagogie instrumentale (Translated by Guy Robert)

“Thinking about the breath causes restriction, by forcing muscles to act counter to natural principles… Just focusing on the musical result you want will dictate how you’re going to use your air. ”

Joe Allard

David Liebman  remembers these words from Joe Allard (of Quebec ancestry, and whose first clarinet teacher Gaston Hamelin was French), the teacher master who made him discover his sound mastery :

“Joe Allard would say (in perfect French of course) : “Jouer, c’est respirer, il n’y a pas de différence.””

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

And George Kochevistsky shows that knowing how to manage your vibration source means a minimal physical effort for your sound production :

“The execution of a complex movement requires not only precise timing regulation but also involvement of the least muscle work needed for any given action. This is achieved by localizing the excitatory process.”

George Kochevistsky, The Art Of Piano Playing

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