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Open/closed throat and diaphragm breathing

19K views 23 replies 18 participants last post by  Oric Muso 
#1 ·
From another thread
Yes a cough seems to involve the diaphragm, but it also closes the throat. I use a the example of a cough to demonstrate a closed throat, which some people use to start and stop a note instead of what I think is the "correct" (ahem) technique of keep the throat open (as in yawning), and using articulation of the tongue to stop and start the note - given that there is a pressurised column of air up from the lungs unrestricted at the throat.
Starting a new thread on this as I am very interested to see how different people approach the teaching/learning of diaphragm breathing and open throat.

To demonstrate diaphragm muscles at work I prefer to get students to do some serious heavy panting (no sniggering at the back of the class please).

It's like a cough a I guess but without the closing of the throat.

Does any of this make sense?
 
#2 ·
Thinking about it, I would say that the diaphragm and throat are completely seperate disciplines that are related. Sort of like correct technique vs. playing scales. Both work with each other, but both have to be taught on their own. If that makes any sense.

In terms of breathing, I think that the common mistake that students make is that they inhale just to fill up their lungs. Of course this causes an incorrect airstream as well as shortness of breath. To correct this, the coughing analogy is useful.

Embouchure, throat, and tongue position all goes along with voicing. This is a little trickier to teach, but I think it's obvious when a student is voicing incorrectly. The few times I have taught other saxophonists, I usually correct their embouchure first. If the notes still sound "pinched" off, I'll discuss tongue position and how to have an open throat. Then I'll make them play long tones throughout the normal range in order to re enforce the concept.

Well...I hope that makes at least a little sense. It's early, and I still haven't had my coffee.
 
#3 · (Edited)
An easy way to demonstrate or experience diaphragm breathing is to lie flat on one's back on the floor and breath. In that position diaphragm breathing seems to occur very naturally, with the easy rise and fall of the abdomen and the desired lack of tension in the chest, shoulder and neck muscles. Lungs fill from bottom up and the expansion of the rib cage is driven by the filling of the lungs rather than by tensing the upper body muscles. By becoming more aware of breathing in this manner, the student has some reference point, and he/she can then work toward maintaining that kind of breathing into upright postures.

Regards, Ruth
 
#4 ·
That reminds me of yoga. Yoga breathing stresses filling the lower lungs, not expanding the upper lungs first. Students who have had yoga classes should get this quickly. That would be mostly adult students, I'd think.
 
#16 ·
In fact, I referred to that method, the complete breath, earlier in another thread. :
Something I recently learned, and helped me quite substantially, is the complete breath practiced by Yogi :

http://www.shout.net/~jmh/clinic/science_of_breath/ch08.htm

From the same book, there are some exercises to develop that breathing technique and help develop and/or maintain a strong and healthy breathing :

http://www.shout.net/~jmh/clinic/science_of_breath/summary.htm

It's quite a read, but my personal experience with it was positive.
Basically it comes down to filling your lungs completely, first the bottom, then the top (as if you would fill them with water instead of air). By speeding up the process, you can inhale a huge amount of air very quick, use the full capacity of your lungs, and still maintain a good breath support.

I like the explenation they give there, and the exercises proved very valuable to me, not only to get a better control over my breathing, but also to help me relax before a performance while "stretching" and "warming up" my breathing muscles.
 
#5 ·
Breathing
-Start with the rib cage high and the shoulders relaxed
-Place both hand on the sides of the waist just above the hips
-While inhaling imagine inflating an inner tube between your hands

Open Throat
-Sing "Ahh" on the lowest note you can sing
-Do just the first part of a yawn before the swallow reflex takes over
-Say "Haup" as you inhale

Breath Support
-Tear an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper in half and hold it up to a mirror or window
-Release the paper as you start to blow and see how long you can keep the paper in place with the airstream
-Open a phone book to the center and see how many pages you can turn with the air on just one breath

John
 
#6 ·
Holding your hand close to your mouth:
1. Blow hot air for open throat - Make sure that the mouth is wide open.
2. Blow cold air for closed throat - Although this can easily be disputed as you can blow cold air with an open throat, it seems quite natural to close the throat for cold air.

It works great for kids and I've been using it for over 20 years.

Breath awareness takes time and I don't try to fill students up with too many particulars. Listen for sound. Do you like it? I work hard to get them to leave the lesson with having achieved a nice open tone on a low "F" and high "A", they are my two favourite notes.

Once they can make a nice tone and can hear the difference between their old tone and a more relaxed open tone, then we start on the particulars of breathing. I keep it slow and steady, and always keep the focus on their opinion of sound. I also encourage students of the necessity to listen to enough sax players and find one that they love. One is enough. I have a huge CD collection and have a great beginner’s compilation. Funny thing is, most of my students seem to love Art Pepper. He must have a sound that isn't intimidating. Sweet and identifiable. On the other hand Earl Bostic is like watching Michael Jordan. "I'll never be able to do that!"

Anyway, thanks for the thread. Don't ever get a chance to yack about this stuff.
 
#12 ·
Holding your hand close to your mouth:
1. Blow hot air for open throat - Make sure that the mouth is wide open.
2. Blow cold air for closed throat - Although this can easily be disputed as you can blow cold air with an open throat, it seems quite natural to close the throat for cold air.
I'm confused by this. If I open my mouth wide i can blow hot air but I'm having a hard time keeping my mouth wide open and blowing cold air. i can sort of do it if I move my tongue to speed up the air stream but not with just my throat.
 
#7 ·
#9 ·
Pete,
I'm not an anatomy expert by any means, but my understanding of the diaphragm is that the flexing of the muscle is what initiates inhilation, and that the muscle is relaxing during exhalation. So that would seem to indicate that the diaphragm is not involved in coughing.

I would say that coughing is a combination of the intercostal and abdominal muscles contracting while the throat is closed. Then the sudden opening of the throat causes the explosive effect of the cough.

By the way, when I studied with Jim Riggs, he didn't talk about voicing in the same terms that Donald Sinta apparently does, but Riggs would get students to feel the action of opening and closing the throat by having the student do a quiet cough. Then he would refer to the "cough muscle" when he wanted the student to do something with the throat.

Edit to add:

Out of curiosity, I just did a quick search and came up with this general info from This Wikipedia article.

Function:

The diaphragm is crucial for breathing and respiration. During inhalation, the diaphragm contracts, thus enlarging the thoracic cavity (the external intercostal muscles also participate in this enlargement). This reduces intra-thoracic pressure: in other words, enlarging the cavity creates suction that draws air into the lungs. When the diaphragm relaxes, air is exhaled by elastic recoil of the lung and the tissues lining the thoracic cavity in conjunction with the abdominal muscles which act as an antagonist paired with the diaphragm's contraction.

It is not responsible for all the breathing related to voice, a common misconception espoused by many teachers but few great singers. One has more control over the abdominals and intercostals than the actual diaphragm, which has relatively few proprioceptive nerve endings. By training proper posture and balance in the rest of the body, the diaphragm naturally strengthens and works in concert with surrounding structures rather than in isolation.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Pete,
I'm not an anatomy expert by any means,
Me neither !

but my understanding of the diaphragm is that the flexing of the muscle is what initiates inhilation, and that the muscle is relaxing during exhalation. So that would seem to indicate that the diaphragm is not involved in coughing.
I am under the impression that most teachers use the phrase diaphragm breathing to mean any kind of breathing into (and of course more imprtantly for us) out of the lower part of the lungs, but that the diaphragm is actually something we rarely actually (or conciously) control and so we teach students to breathe into the stomach - which is not possible of course, but by extending the abdomen in inhaling and pulling it in with the muscles quite firm or tensed when exhaling, it is the easiest way to visualise the process and get the point across.

When coughing I think most people do tense the abdomen, so it can demonstrate quite well part of the process (as long as you don't extend the analogy to include the closed throat, which I think was the whole point of my first post)
 
#11 ·
In terms of breathing/air, the challenge with my students is more about the inhalation and getting a full breath than exhalation. I find that if the students can really fill up, then they have more air to work with and their support (and consequently tone) improves "automatically".

As for your initial post about open throat, I tell my students to yawn. It opens the throat and allows for deep inhalation.

Because of my feeble understanding of the actual function of the diaphragm, I don't use the term "diaphragm breathing" and don't discuss the diaphragm at all. In my schooling I was told that the diaphragm is completely involuntary, which is not completely accurate, but it got me away from thinking about or talking about the diaphragm.

I talk to my students about "letting your belly out" meaning to relax the abdominal muscles. The image I use is that by letting your belly out, you're getting your "guts" out of the way and making "room" for your lungs to expand downward as well as outward and upward. I also sometimes have the student lie down to show the natural tendency to do "belly breathing" in that position.

Apologies for the slight thread derailment...
 
#13 ·
In terms of breathing/air, the challenge with my students is more about the inhalation and getting a full breath than exhalation. I find that if the students can really fill up, then they have more air to work with and their support (and consequently tone) improves "automatically".
Yes, definitely, BUT (and this is a big one), being able to sustain pressure as your lungs get empty is the biggest issue, otherwise you have to keep refilling the lungs when they get half empty.
As for your initial post about open throat, I tell my students to yawn. It opens the throat and allows for deep inhalation.
I generally use the yawn or pant analogy
Because of my feeble understanding of the actual function of the diaphragm, I don't use the term "diaphragm breathing" and don't discuss the diaphragm at all.
I also think this is fine. It's to thoink of the belly or abdomen breathing, even though that isn't actually happening
 
#14 ·
I've actually been doing a lot of reading and research on breathing and tone production recently so this a fun thread to read. The conclusion I'm coming to is that the easiest, most efficient way to produce sound with the saxophone is simply to sigh into it.

When we breathe normally, our throat is already open. Thankfully, it is not in a naturally closed position. So why not just keep this the same when we're playing the saxophone? All we need to do in order to produce a relaxed, supported, controlled sound is simply to inhale fully, from the bottom up, allowing the viscera to be pushed down and out (diaphragm expansion) and our lungs to fill up. In doing this, the shoulders will rise slightly, but only as a natural reaction of the lungs being filled fully. Now that the body is at an uneven state, we simply return back to equilibrium by releasing the air in the form of a sigh. For a ppp dynamic level we simply breathe vapor into the instrument. While for a fff it's more of a energetic release. The key to keeping it controlled is to release the air at the rate that the instrument will accept it. Obviously this changes as to what horn you're playing. Tenor accepts more air than alto etc...

Essentially though, nothing should become tensed. If one thing becomes tense then your sound will come out closed. Really whatever method that achieves a good sound is the right one. The sighing method seems to work best for me. I also have done a lot of research recently and have become very interested in the anatomy of the whole thing. Great thread.
 
#15 ·
very interesting, I know I need to improve my breath control and that I use my throat while I shouldn't. This is painfully evident when I try to play my baritone while it is less noticeable when I play shorter horns. I also noticed that that affects my tone and I really have to work on this. I noticed that, although I can breathe using my diaphragm, if I breathe very deeply it, this automatically closes my throat somewhat, if I breathe in to a less than full capacity it tends to be easier to breathe out with a open throat.
 
#21 ·
I guess my adam's apple rises with the pitch like when singing. It's probably a psychological thing. I've been playing the sax for 27 years and my tone always sounded thin to me, even with big chamber mpcs. Recently I realized that when I bring my adams apple down, my tone gets more dark components and is more resonant - it sounds more like a tenor sax. I think forcing leads to tension and again to a smaller sound.
 
#22 ·
Right you are. Saxophone needs to have a low larynx. In fact, operatic singers work to keep their larynx low regardless of the pitch.
 
#23 ·
One of the things I like about this forum, you can learn about different techniques for the mechanics of playing. Another exercise for breath support- A number of years ago, my teacher stuck his fist in my gut and told me to push against it with my stomach when I played. For the next week I played long tones and made a conscious effort with my abdomen and it really helped me with breath support. I use the same technique with my son.
 
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