Vocalist.org archive


<
From:  Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...>
Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...>
Date:  Thu Oct 18, 2001  1:28 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Forgetting how to breathe


On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Kevin Hollis wrote:

> I feel that I've worked too hard at breathing over the last 6 months and
> want to figure out how to 'let breathing happen' rather than thinking about
> every breath. Apart from taking Yoga/Tai-Chi classes can someone suggest
> excersizes for taking my brain somewhere else while I breathe ?


Interestingly, working on fast Handel coloratura pieces has helped me make
major progress in this regard. The only way to do the coloratura right is
to make the brain do all the work musically, but just allow the coloratura
to happen physically. Because of the speed of the pieces, I find there is
no TIME to think about the breaths, or to collapse the posture, etc. As a
result, things work exactly as they are supposed to - the breaths just go
in when I allow the sound to stop. As a result, I find that - as the
much-disputed William Shakespeare (the OTHER one) described - my throat is
not tired at all, but my breath muscles get a major workout, only because
they remain CONSTANTLY ACTIVE from beginning to end of the pieces. Right
now, I'm torturing them with "Furibondo il spento" from PARTENOPE.

The other thing that helped me a lot on slower pieces is to
stop thinking about how I take the breath in, and instead start focusing
on how I allow the sound to taper off at the ends of phrases - a delicate
balance between trying to "muscle" out that last bit of breath to sustain
the sound/vibration to the very end, and totally "collapsing" (i.e., just
shutting the breath down suddenly). The thing is to simply allow the
breath to taper off gradually by gradually allowing the support to
"release" - which, surprise surprise, creates a vacuum which is
immediately filled as soon as the sound/vibrations stop.

Yes, of course there are still some "difficult" phrases that I still
prepare for by "tanking up" (silently) beforehand. But I'm finding that
these phrases are fewer and farther between. I'm also finding that "less
is more" - and that feeling constantly "full of breath" is NOT always the
ideal approach. When you finally reach a point where you're just allowing
the breath in (instead of consciously drawing it in), you'll find that
your body naturally allows in only as much as it actually needs to sing
the next phrase - no more. I also find that it's becoming less and less
conscious - the inhalation truly is "just happening", much to my great
surprise and delight. I continue to be amazed by the fact that this
actually works!

But I will say that I've been working hard for this Zen process (this
non-effort) to work, with my teacher, for a year and a half - and it's
only now that it is indeed working much more of the time than it isn't.

KM
===
On Neil Shicoff - http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
On yours truly - http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html

+-------------------------------------------------------+
| For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that |
| appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. |
| - James 4:14 |
+-------------------------------------------------------+


emusic.com