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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The Soundwise Embouchure

The instrument of the woodwind player really appears to behave as his megaphone, thanks to his embouchure.

Get Your Mask Down !

Your mouth / mouthpiece / reed / ligature set defines your global embouchure : this configuration may vary between players, closely associating your morphology and the gear you use.

Your inner resonance propagates to the reed, which should easily vibrate, opposing a low resistance, hence a not too hard reed is recommended in order to be able to master the depth of the sound, shaped up at the bottom of the air column (Peter King had told me once how he had bee surprised to see that Cannonball Adderley was playing a really weak reed, when he substituted him in England in the 70’s).

This way, you define the best mouthpiece/reed combination for your sound control : this compromise depend on several factors, but you must know how to adjust it, mainly by selecting an appropriate reed, with your usual mouthpiece. And if you need a softer reed to ease out your playing, then you would be able to modulate your reed strength later on, bringing full balance and self-confidence : through your mentally visualizing that your emission remains centered on the sound source, you avoid unnecessary contractions above your diaphragm (which would be triggered by a harder reed), following the recommendations of Alfred Tomatis in The Ear And The Voice.

deep throat

« The objective for both the pharynx and the larynx is to keep the throat open and supple, avoiding closure by the constrictor muscles. The regulation of the pharynx under the organizing control of the ear consists of achieving what is famous in singing as the open throat with the help of the dilator muscles and the tongue.»

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

Think Your Sound, But Do Not Pinch It

The wind player sets up his vibrating attitude by rooting his sound column in his heels, and mentally pictures his embouchure at the sound source, down to the bottom of his diaphragm : then, letting the relaxation down, his inner vibration gently takes off on the « ah » vowel, to feed the instrument through his embouchure.

Dominique Hoppenot describes how the violon player lets his vibration propagate to the violon body through his clavicle.

« The most important of all is to listen to the sound that will come and not just to the sound already achieved. »

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

Une fois sa posture installée, l’instrumentiste amène naturellement son instrument en mains (et en bouche pour un soufflant) pour amplifier le son préparé à l’avance ; alors entre en jeu l’embouchure, souple et décontractée, et même oubliée, car son attention est concentrée sur la base de la colonne de son : là se réalise la liaison entre l’émetteur (le corps de l’instrumentiste) et l’amplificateur (le corps de l’instrument), dont la projection sonore est ensuite travaillée par les doigts, puis par la langue.

Once your posture is set up and stabilized, your hands naturally seize your instrument (entering your mouth if you are a wind player), to amplify the anticipated sound ; then your flexible and relaxed embouchure, which you actually forget, since you are focussed on the bottom of the sound column, comes into play : it links you, as the sender (the player’s body), to the amplifier (the instrument body). The projected sound gets then sculpted out by your fingers, and your tongue.

« The goal is to be as relax as possible in the embouchure area, so that the delicate mechanisms at the reed can be free to occur without exerting a strain on its vibrational capacity. By the time the air stream reaches the mouthpiece, the major portion of the work for a personal sound has already been completed.« 

David Liebman, Developing A Personal Saxophone Sound

When you let your mouthpiece come to your mouth, enjoyment also enters as an intruding momentum. The same way as when you take momentum to jump over an obstacle, boom ! there it goes, you are played by your instrument, so you should not play yourself, this is not a wordplay.

As little as your embouchure takes off, then you nail your mouthpiece pinch, without looking for it, playing means then sitting on the air, this is fantastic !

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

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The musician posture for his sound

The musician’s posture aims at easing his body and his instrument to merge together.

Your Body Gets In Line For Vibration

Visualize your roots and imagine them plunging into the ground, from the trunk of this virtual tree, represented by your air column – actually, your sound column. Here you are, straightened up (during your natural inhaling, your sound column gets aligned with your heels, making your pelvis slightly tilt to its equilibrium position), then let the central relaxation slide down to the ground, ending with your air column starting to vibrate thanks to your transvers abdominus muscle.

widen your voice by your posture

 Alfred Tomatis highlights this body preparation in The Ear And The Voice.

« You sing through your body.
Singing is one of the most efficient ways to shape our body. »

« (…) Before a sound is emitted, a primer should be fully elaborated, bringing its awareness of the “shaping“ of the body so that it can thereby acquire the postural pattern that suits it to become the instrument of singing. »

« (…) a clearly-defined body image, specific to the singing act, must be ingested into you. It implies that a mental attitude be psychologically organized, that in turn drives a posture, which itself responds to a physiological complex function capable of resonating to vocal stimulation. »

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

By linking the natural inhalation to the letting-go from the diaphragm down to the ground, the sound column gets unleashed down to the roots of the virtual trunk of this figured out tree : its verticality fosters the optimal resonance of the singer’s or musician’s body.

« We know that the vestibule processes the stimulation of every muscle in the body and sends the information to regulate upright posture, mobility and body movements. »

« (…) la posture d’écoute appelle une verticalité bien affirmée de la colonne vertébrale. »

« Impulses toward erect posture, muscle tone and movement create responses in the form of  information and stimulation emanating from the muscles, tendons, joints and even from the bones. This enormous excitation alone accounts for the increased tone that leads to movement, good balance and good posture. »

« The listening posture requires that the spinal column be well aligned and standing tall along its vertical axis following its natural curves.

When you are able to control while maintaining your listening posture, your body literally stretches up, aiming at a rather unusual verticality. (…) From this point, your pelvis begins to tilt forward while you stand and show a tendency to slightly bend the knees (…) »

« Your sacrum seems to settle such as you feel to sit comfortably on your own pelvis. (…) Your lower ribs are spaced at maximum, your diaphragm finds its greatest extension, and its amplitude range will thus be facilitated, your abdominal muscles will be stretched without excess, synergistically acting together with the diaphragm. You need not bend these muscles.

(…) thanks to the posture of listening and self-listening, and thanks to the global posture, the body will follow in order to deliver all proprioceptive sensations that govern verticality (…) »

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

Your Body Blends Into Your Instrument

« The problems affecting most saxophonists are often self-inflicted. By that, I mean unnecessary bodily tensions accumulate over time and become habitualized. This results in the player’s inability to relax enough to find a physically comfortable and aesthetically pleasing tone. »

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

your posture at the piano

If you are a standing-up player, your playing position should embody your actual rooting, making your vertical sound column deeply flow into the ground. In order to assess this verticality, you may picture yourself as being seated on your pelvis, centered on your sound source : so downward-packed, locked on your heels and forgetting about the upper part of your body, your vibration easily takes off.

Such an attitude is also relevant for the piano player, who can picture his virtual verticality down to his heels, while sitting on his stool, delving his feet into the ground.

In The Art Of Piano Playing, George Kochevitsky shows how the arms should be forgotten to free the player technique.

« (…) two other ideas occupied the representatives of the anatomic-physiological school : weight playing and relaxation (…) »

« { In 1905, Rudolf Maria Breithaupt (1873-1945) published Die Natürliche Klaviertechnik. } Breithaupt, a fervent proponent of this idea, proclaimed that the most important principle of technique was a loose and heavy arm (…) In the third edition of the same book he wrote that the ultimate ideal of artistic performance is predominance of the spirit over the body, liberation from the material, the overcoming of the pull of gravity : only a fine sense of balance is left from the latter… It goes without saying that in the cases of greatest speed the weight seems almost eliminated.« 

George Kochevitsky, The Art Of Piano Playing

the freed up violin

The musician’s inner vibration is transmitted to the instrument-amplifier from his body posture through the pianist’s fingers, through the embouchure of the woodwind player, through the lips of the trumpet player, through the clavicle (not embarrassed by a cushion inhibiting the vibration) of the violinist : this transmitter link must be as little constrained as possible, to free the optimal resonance of the instrument.

Dominique Hoppenot uses these words about the balance fundamentals :

« It is a pity to spend a life of toil and research ignoring that all difficulties with the sound, the disjointed hand, vibrato, hopped, staccato, etc… are nearing resolution as soon as the perfect balance of the body is achieved.»

« What matters is the overall balance of the body, the general feeling experienced within your body, and not an isolated gesture or detail, observed from the outside.»

« When the momentum and the opposition forces are fully developed, there can be no tightening and no exaggerated support, no more than voluntary effort to hold the instrument. »

Then your head and limbs should freely move :

« No motion of your head should go and pick up the violin as if it were an object outside the body ; it does come to your body without changing your posture for all that. »

« The purpose of consciously non-holding the instrument is to totally free the sensitivity of your fingers, which you feel as talking and “telling“ the music directly out of our mouth. »

« (…) you must always understand that every action involves your whole body, through its static as well as dynamic behavior. »

Your actual trunk becomes insensitive (without any move of your shoulders or of your thorax), and although you feel downward-packed, you get aware of your complementary zones, contributing to the sound production :

• your head, merged with the embouchure which is ideally visualized at the lowest level, down to your heels ;
• your upper limbs, ending and merging with the instrument itself ;
• your abdomen, like sucked up by the sound source (Hara) ;
• your lower limbs, becoming your actual roots, spreading the sound through the ground and space.

« Our whole energy actually arises from our center of gravity : it is located at the level of the third lumbar vertebra, area that eastern people call “Hara”. »

« It is essential that the supporting muscles – especially those located in your back – fully play their part, freeing your arms ends from overload, providing them with the necessary independence and lightness and giving to your arms a flexibility unknown before. »

« (…) such a freedom is available only when technical problems are mastered, when you develop a full confidence in the result, and especially when the musical flow spreads through your body, without finding any obstacle by any constraint or unwanted tension. »

« For the artist, relaxation is an absolute necessity. »

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

Rooting Starts From The Pelvis

Going back to the woodwind player, his embouchure should be flexible enough so that the internal vibration fully propagates to the reed, while his instrument remains well-balanced on his well-grounded body.

« Your head and your body merge together.
Your feet push the ground, following your inhaling.« 

Robert Pichaureau, Expressions favorites (Translated by Guy Robert)

« The balance of the standing body builds up from the pelvis, not from the lower limbs.« 

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

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Your Sound Sensations

Mastering your expression leads you to enjoyment, all the more spontaneous as it results from a relaxation, rather than from a physical strike.

Have Fun !

Letting your internal opening spread downwards fosters your feelings, enhancing your self-confidence and ensuring your sound quality.

« Your thinking drives your will for sure, but since your will may cancel your desire, you cannot reach your balance without desire and you cannot succeed without enjoyment.

Yes, these are only sentences, but they depict the real life, it’s as simple as the art of being yourself, however you should not think in order to be yourself, this is the reason why we say that you should be self-confident.

You should feel as an artist, and develop an expressive relaxation, in other words, as Mrs Hoppenot states it in “Le violon intérieur“, tonicity in relaxation.»

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

« The less energy spent on technical production, the more available for creativity.

Being as relaxed as possible in playing allows the creative mind as well as the emotions to more easily come forth. »

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

« (…) the whole thing is about relaxation ; all of music for me is about relaxation : if you’re uptight when you’re playing, the music is uptight.

And if you’re totally in the zone where you’re just so cool, you’re having fun (…) »

Eddie Daniels, The Music of Eddie Daniels, Eddie on Standards – Warner Bros Music 0742B – PP 6031 – 2005

have confidence…

Speaking of which, George Kochevitsky analyzes in The Art Of Piano Playing the linking between the muscles synchronization and the quality of the musical output.

Stabilizing your mental images associated to your proprioceptions helps you to reproduce your body preparation at your will, hence reinforcing your self-confidence. Then, your body should remain ready to vibrate, from its prepared state, allowing you to picture your own image associated to the vibration laying and sounding : from that point on, your sensations develop, among them your being centered around your sound. That ensures the continuity of the tone, as if it were radiating from your heels.

Such an approach is indeed valid for any instrument, the piano among them, and has a direct impact on your live technique, coming out through your fingers, and combined with the tongue articulation of the wind player.

« { Ludwig Deppe (1828-1890) wrote that tone must be produced, not by finger stroke (…) but by coordinated action of all parts of the arm. }
Ludwig Deppe required her (Amy Fay, one of his pupils) to follow consciously the duration of each tone, to imagine the pitch and volume of the next one, and only then to transfer very carefully from that tone to the next.« 

« And until there is a connection between the inner musical imagination, the innervation of movement, muscular sensations, and careful and critical listening to the results, no form of movement is of practical value.« 

« So movements in piano practicing differ, sometimes considerably, from those in piano playing. In the first case we have to consider not only artistic purpose but physiological points as well.« 

« (…) the main materials for the building of piano technique are the proprioceptive sensations. Hence lack of clearness in these sensations from finger activity will inevitably result in indistinct finger technique.

The player must receive a clear proprioceptive sensation from each movement, sensation which does not coalesce with the sensation from the next movement, and is not suppressed by it. »

George Kochevitsky, The Art Of Piano Playing

Finding Your Optimal Position

That being understood, you quietly settle your internal configuration, then you, as a wind player (you are still not supposed to blow !), drive your instrument to your mouth : at the same time, capturing your diaphragm positioning at the very end of your natural inhaling, you let that sensation flow backwards, starting or keeping your stable vibrating on your exhaling. You end up sitting on your voice sound propagating from the ground through your feet, then in the surrounding space – as Alfred Tomatis shows it in The Ear And The Voice.

your vibrating aura

The internal vibration of your body, surging out of the sound column, feeds your singing, which is then amplified by your instrument.

Being concentrated on the source of your internal song eliminates unnecessary tensions and fosters the link with your musical intent : you feel like filling up the space with your ​​voice.

« The body literally vibrates with song and harmony. (…) The act of singing permits us to open a dialog with space so that we become flooded by its vibrations and merge with it, acoustically speaking.« 

« The interactions between the singer’s physical body and the acoustic environment create a proprioceptive image of the body, and they structure a sensory-motor experience of the surrounding space in a perpetual dialog.« 

« A professional singer with a great technique causes us to breathe fully, our pharynx opens, our larynx moves without tightening. The articulation is supple, passing from one syllable to another without breaking the melodic line, without losing intensity, and we are transported.« 

« Teaching voice relies on subjective sensations that can only be described in words. (…) We have to make our sensations conscious so that they can be reproduced at will and associated to the corresponding muscular response.« 

« Singing requires mastery over yourself to attain maximum sound output with minimum muscular effort.« 

« Your sensations will be confined to the organs involved in singing. It sends acoustic stimulation to every part of the body, encouraging it to adopt certain postures. It helps to straighten the trunk, for instance, which helps it to resist the pull of gravity, thus increasing the charging effect on the brain.« 

« When singing is well executed, it triggers a wealth of internal sensations that make the body into a vibrating instrument.« 

Alfred Tomatis, L’oreille et la voix – (Translated by Guy Robert)

Your absolute non-pushing (since you do not blow !), combined with the vertical sensation generated from your Hara, lets your vibration spread from your heels, in the same fashion as does the one from Dominique Hoppenot‘s Inner Violin.

playing for pleasure

Your aim is to re-produce at your will the rewarding feeling of inner vibration, by quickly retrieving the relevant attitude : your body configuration is then assessed by your  self-confidence coming with the stability of the sound source, which is just waiting to be revealed and instantly revived, to be next amplified by the instrument.

« The most constructive motivation in the conquest of the instrument is the enjoyment motivation (…)« 

« Our approach aims at developing an intimate and acute awareness of what you feel from a gesture or several combined gestures, until you can retrieve them and perform them exactly without any doubt, from a mere instantaneous mental evocation of the revealed sensation.« 

« Sensations can only arise from shaping our desires, hence by creating associated mental images (…)« 

« The appropriate feeling corresponds to a well-being suited to everyone, adapted to the prior mental image (…)« 

« (…) the feeling of “your self“ (…) leads you to experience the vertical axis, the mobility in space, the balance of opposing forces, the centering in “Hara“ (…) The contact feelings are generated from a keen awareness of your rooting to the ground, from the quality of your fingers presence on the bow and on the violin (…) Other feelings develop later during the playing itself ; they result from an already very elaborate achievement : a precise gesture, the feeling of “playing on yourself“, of “letting go“ and “laissez faire“ linked to the extreme vigilance of perception and listening (…)« 

« (…) we are forced to consider that a performance is felt only through the pleasure of “vibration“.« 

« He who has found his voice, that is to say his sound, no longer has to search it nor to fear its failure because it actually is. He just needs to call it without ever forcing it, to let it come and “let it go“ according to music, its master !« 

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

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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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The Sound Springs From Its Source

Mastering your internal vibration progressively makes you precisely localize its source.

Spreading Pleasure

You should internally visualize the source of your sound at the bottom center point of your diaphragm, down to your heels and even beneath : this is the Japanese Hara or the Chinese Tan Tsienn, representing the location of universal energy, or of your original breath. This inner process is unveiled in George Kochevitsky‘s Art Of Piano Playing.

down to the roots

Concentrating on the source of vibration, you can imagine it is located as deep as possible in the ground. Then, you let the vibrating sound flow around, and do not push it outwards so that it keeps its fullness while resonating in the instrument.

Avoiding any unnecessary stresses, the wind player, or the pianist as well, can imagine and picture his vibration spreading in the ground.

« { 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 successfulpianistic 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 most thoughtful and advanced musicians (…) insisted that “the technical training from the ‘outside’ must be replaced by technical training from the ‘inside’. “

Grigori Kogan called this third main trend in the theory of piano playing the psychotechnical school.»

« Hugo Riemann (1849-1919) wrote :

It is impossible to develop velocity otherwise than through exercise of the telegraphic apparatus from brain to muscles. The process from within-outward cannot be replaced by anything.“

George Kochevitsky, The Art Of Piano Playing

From this point down, your back muscles extend the inhalation process towards exhalation, converging from the diaphragm to the transverse abdominus muscle, and the sound column enters into vibration along its whole height, feeding the vocal cords, as  Alfred Tomatis shows it in The Ear And The Voice.

customizing your sound

The real singer or instrumentist triggers his inner vibration on the « ah » vowel – mentally visualized at his heels level – thanks to his down-flowing relaxation extending his natural inhaling : he should then maintain this tension-free feeling, regardless to the pitch height, thereby ensuring an homogeneous radiating sound, through the whole tessiture of his intrument.

You can then appreciate your personal tone.

« Because of this activation and the special ability of the skeleton to transmit sounds, the control adopted by the bony voice is direct, conserves energy and maintains the integrity of the full spectrum of sound.

This production has nothing in common with ordinary vocal emission, even if that emission sounds easy. This degree of control is difficult, if not impossible, when we use only air conduction. Bone filters for higher sounds at the expense of lows, making sounds that are particularly rich and dense.

(…) It is easy to see the advantages of an emission that is easily controlled and rich in high frequencies. It has a propensity to align the spine. This in turn facilitates emission, releasing progressively more energy.

If [the sound] is not going to come from the mouth or nose, where will it come from ? You make it with the whole body through the excitation of the spinal column and the contact between the larynx and the cervical vertebrae.

Bone conduction has a special timber, rich, heady and colorful. It has an ethereal quality and seems to come from outside the body. It literally awakens the environment with a smooth, vibrant and dense sonority. It carries with ease.

What is more, when you have it nailed, this sound can be quickly modulated over the entire vocal range without costing you any effort.»

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

center yourself to better focus

On her side, Dominique Hoppenot shows us how your downward letting-go sets free your internal vibration control.

The player knows how to observe himself breathing lower and deeper in order to pick up his sound at its source, at the very end of his natural inhaling : to achieve this, he internalizes his feeling at the bottom-point of the diaphragm and lets it propagate down to his heels.

The relaxation flows down to the effortless vibration starting with full grain and fat : this is sound laying.

«As for a singer, the violinist sound comes from inside. Your job is actually to free your sound, the sound that you virtually have, that is to say your voice.

There is nothing to search elsewhere than inside yourself.« 

« (…) you can never escape the inner searching of your sound, the “deep dive“, as the only process able to reveal your sound asa demonstration of your “being“.« 

« Il faut concevoir son émission comme si elle libérait une conception sonore latente, déjà intériorisée, un son pouvant en quelque sorte se propager dans l’espace sans le secours de l’archet.« 

« You must understand your emission as if it freed a latent sound, already internalized, a sound which can somehow spread in space without the aid of the bow.« 

« You should know how to wait until the last second before landing smoothly. (…) When you start a sound, you must precisely know how to stop it in every imaginable way.« 

« (…) seating and concentrating in your Hara are meant to radiate as much energy as possible to give maximum musical power to your tactile ends.« 

« The virtual center of this process – which is the true breathing center – is thus in the middle of the belly, and not at all in the chest containing the lungs (which are nonetheless the real physiological location of the breathing function !…).

Concentrating is primarily going back to the center of the body and settling there, instead of being played by divergent and opposing forces.

Hara, from Eastern people, and especially the Japanese, is the crucial point of our body. Located at the lumbosacral junction, it coincides with our center of gravity. Hara is not a specific organ that could be located anatomically, but it is the physical area where our strength is concentrated, where our stability is anchored.

Being positioned means to settle in one’s Hara, together with one’s center, as the concentrum point.»

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

Concentrate on your diaphragm : you can feel it abasing itself while inhaling and pressing down on your viscera, then flexibly raising back up while you expire. You should unveil this focal point of your breathing, but how can you locate it ? Just feel the precise point where the pressure generated by the lowering-down diaphragm converges.

(…) at about 5 cm under your ombilic and 7 to 10 cm inside your belly.

Michel Ricquier, Traité méthodique de pédagogie instrumentale – André Van Lysebeth, Revue mensuelle Yoga (Translated by Guy Robert)

« When you have found this center point out, just keep your body weight concentrated there.« 

Michel Ricquier, L’utilisation de vos ressources intérieures dans votre activité instrumentale – André Van Lysebeth, Revue mensuelle Yoga (Translated by Guy Robert)

« You should feel and watch the point where inhaling becomes exhaling, realizing that you do not actually work your inhaling out. Visualizing this process is the whole point.« 

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

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A Deep Sound In The Highs

The broad breathing allows the sound column to vibrate homogeneously over the whole tessiture.

Upper And Lower

The low pitch vibration spreads in the ground and in space from your posture stabilized on your roots, as if you were sitting on the sound source. 

You develop this fat and vibrating sound from practicing the overtones control, as recommended by Joe Allard and by David Liebman.

You can quietly play upper notes in the pitch range, reaching the higher register and the related overtones, still driving this low vibration, and above all, without modifying anything between your embouchure and your diaphragm : any unwanted alteration of the sound must be avoided by letting loose and relaxing down to your breathing center point, even reaching down to your heels !

Doing so, the high register sound can be kept rich and homogeneous by extending the downwards feeling to your roots : keep thinking low in the highs !

This way, and counter to some misconceptions, carefully dismissed by Alfred Tomatis in The Ear And The Voice, (see the sound source), you ensure the sound fullness by maintaining this body configuration of your air column and of your embouchure throughout the whole range : among other benefits, this brings a gratifying comfort feeling and allows easier playing legato and articulation between distant notes of the tessiture.

« Musically, you go up and down, but physically you must always go down. The pitfall is that a sound may look nice but not be a good one. »

Robert Pichaureau, Expressions favorites (Translated by Guy Robert)

« Thanks to the work achieved (low and fat breathing, vertical pushing), you can now play much more backwards, so you can avoid playing your way up when you hit high notes.

(…) You are going to learn how to feel down in order to better go up. (…) But you should obviously never go back up !

Always pack down and vertically push down. »

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

« Low note articulation and tone production are two of the subtle challenges confronting saxophonists, as is the opposite problem of the tendency to go sharp in the high register. A saxophonist should not sound like he has a different tone for each register. The overtone matching process may go on for years. »

David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound

vibrate effortlessly

Anticipating the vibration of the sound column fosters your verticality and brings a rich and consistent voice throughout the tessiture, amplified by your instrument : the invariance of this body attitude ensures an easy emission of lower and higher notes as well.

« Laryngeal vibrations form fundamental tones, while the harmonic shower of sparks associated with the fundamentals, rich in higher frequencies and reinforcing the initial sound considerably, depends on the skeleton. »

« There are many advantages to the activation of this bony resonance. The energy that is dispensed is extremely important. Ample, warm, dense sounds are made with minimum effort.

It takes some work to get the feeling of ascending the scale without expending any energy at all. You have to learn to differentiate between the kind of energy that seems necessary to rise in pitch, and tension in the larynx.

It is easy to confuse going up in pitch, with its attendant naturally increasing intensity, with the need to employ effort, which is entirely unrelated. The intensity of sound comes from avoiding any pushing, so that the larynx is free to drop slightly lower. (…) the sensation of support will shift lower in the body at the same time.»

Alfred Tomatis, The Ear And The Voice

listen to your enjoyment

The homogeneity of the sound material to be sculpted makes the whole pitch range available to your fingers’ work (combined with your tongue) : on this ground, the musician’s personal speech takes advantage of the spectral richness of the overtones of his internal vibration, hovering over the difficulties related to low or high notes.

« The player who genuinely listens, that is to say, listens to both what he wants to play and what he played, is confident to master its sound (…)»

« Once you found your wide, colorful and relaxed sound, which may go unscathed from the most extreme fortissimo to the most intimate pianissimo, and able to carry all the richest emotions of the human soul into these extreme shades, then you have found yourself, which leads you to an unrivaled joy (…)»

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

During that process, as Robert Pichaureau used to say, “You should behave like a statue ! “ and “Mastering your internal vibration is a treat“. This way, you realize how practicing your instrument brings you enjoyment and self-confidence.

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