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 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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