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The next info
is an excerpt from a.o. the books "SPEEL MEE MET FIEP" and "LISTEN, FEEL and THINK"
by Frits Leffef (They are protected by law and you are only allowed to
copy them from this Website and for private use only). |
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| Abdominal,
chest and forced chest breathing |
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The best way to breathe is by abdominal breathing. The principle of abdominal
breathing is in fact very simple: |
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Pull in the lower part of your belly.
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By doing so the bottom of the lungs will be first pushed in. In reaction to this
the muscles between the ribs will contract; thus the chest will become narrower
and the lungs are pushed in on the side. |
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The result is that your lungs become smaller, the air in them will be compressed
and thus pressed out: you are breathing out!
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| 2.
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Relax your belly muscles instantly.
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By doing so the bottom of the lungs will fall down and the
volume of the lungs suddenly becomes greater. Consequently the air
pressure in the lungs becomes lower than the air pressure outside of
the body; thus air will flow into the lungs.
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In reaction to this the muscles between the ribs will relax and now the incoming
air can push the ribs away from each other. In this way the lungs can increase
their volume on the side. This is breathing in!
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The working of the ribs as part of this entire process is called
chest breathing. Notice that it goes automatically. |
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When you ask somebody to take a deep breath, you will see in
most cases that he or she will do the opposite: they breathe in with
their belly pulled in, and their chest and shoulders pulled up; we
call this
forced chest breathing. |
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The
advantages of abdominal breathing |
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1.
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Abdominal breathing uses the full capacity of the lungs.
In forced chest breathing the belly is always flattened, and
therefore the bottom of the lungs is pushed in while breathing in;
thus you will have less air. The ribs can only be moved apart by
using great force. |
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| 2. |
In abdominal breathing the muscles from the lower part of the belly are used to
deliver breath pressure; the muscles in the chest are kept as relaxed as possible.
In doing so there will be no tension in the throat, you can easily prevent the
falsetto position, and breath will have the highest speed in the front of the
windpipe and the lower part of the inner mouth. These are the right conditions to
produce a good warm tone. |
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In forced chest breathing the muscles round the bronchi (the pipes that connect the
lungs with the windpipe) are used to deliver breath pressure. This causes muscle
stress and high blood pressure in the chest, shoulders, neck and head. The throat
will become narrow and tense, and will often go into falsetto position; a shrill
and nasal tone is the result. This effect will be reinforced by the fact that
breath will have the highest speed in the back of the windpipe and the upper
part of the inner mouth. |
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| 3. |
Abdominal breathing costs less energy because muscle power is only used for
breathing out. Forced chest breathing costs more energy because muscle power
is used for breathing out, as well as for breathing in. |
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| 4. |
There are many medical reasons why abdominal breathing is better than forced chest
breathing. An important one is the stress reducing effect of abdominal breathing. |
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Is it difficult to learn abdominal breathing? |
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In abdominal breathing it is necessary that you can smoothly pull in and relax
the lower muscles of the belly. If you are not capable to do this, try the
following exercise: |
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| 1.
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Lie down on your back with your hands firmly flat on the lower part of the belly,
just beneath your belly button (Not above it, because then you will push on your
stomach!). |
| 2. |
Breathe slowly in through your slightly opened mouth, while pressing your belly
upwards against your hands. When you feel that your belly has reached it utmost
position, you musthold your breath a short moment. After that you must pull your
belly in as fast as possible while breathing out. |
| 3. |
Repeat this exercise ten times, do that each day during a week, and you are able
to pull in and relax your belly muscles without the help of your hands. You will
get quicker results if you do the exercise in the evening, just before you go to
sleep. Both when you are in sitting or standing positition, it will help
you to relax the muscles when you get the feeling of "letting your
belly fall down". |
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When you play a wind instrument breathing in through the nose in principal trickers
forced chest breathing. Only very experienced players are able to do it right,
although it even cost them much concentration and energy to combine it with abdominal
breathing and to keep the throat open and relaxed. Therefore I strongly advise against
it.
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| Stresskickers, having
with certainty a lot of trouble with the exercise mentioned above, must
practise also just after waking up. While breathing out they must close the mouth
slightly so they can hear the airflow.
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Super-stresskickers I also advise to practise before going to bed and just
after waking up. But they must open the mouth by pulling down the lower jaw. While
breathing out they must produce a weak humming sound, as low as possible, way yonder
from their throat (don not force it!). Please tell the rest of the family that you are
planning to do so (and maybe the neighbours also), for else they might get very
strange thoughts about you!
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Breathing and the Locomotory Nerve System |
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Under normal conditions the Automatic Locomotory Nerve System (ALNS) will regulate
automatically all muscle action needed to breathe. When you try abdominal breathing for the
first time, it means that you must unlearn forced chest breathing. This will be the biggest
problem because abdominal breathing is the opposite of forced chest breathing.
So you must learn to think the other way around! |
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In the beginning the ALNS will cause you to do it automatically wrong and you will often get a kind of
struggling feel in your brain, chest and belly. This is in fact a struggle between the Conscious Nerve
System (CNS) and the ALNS. So the problem by starting practising abdominal breathing is, that you must
re-program your ALNS in a drastic way. The best and quickest way to do this, is performing an action
pattern at a very low tempo while describing each detail of the action in your mind, and giving your
ALNS enough time to memorise it all. Thus the ideal way of practising abdominal breathing is playing
long notes followed by long rests, while memorising the next diagram: |
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SOUND = PULL IN BELLY = BREATHE OUT = WORK
SILENCE = BELLY OUT =
BREATHE IN = REST |
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The following exercise is a good example. Play it in an easy tempo (Moderato); use the first
count in the measures that only have rests in them to let your belly fall down. Use all
the remaining counts for slowly and quietly breathing in.
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It is very important to realise that you can only breathe in after you have relaxed your
belly. If you do this correctly you will feel the pressure of the incoming air at first behind your
belly button. After that, you must feel it going up, pressing under your shoulder blades and
making the chest wider on the sides. To make this possible: |
- turn the upper side of your pelvis backward
- slightly bend your back and shoulders
- do not let your upper arms rest against the side of your
chest; do not even hold them too close to the body, for this also causes tension in your throat and chest
muscles. Place them about 50 degrees sideways instead
- make yourself wider in the shoulders
- place the toes of your feet slightly outward and spread your legs a little bit;
in sitting position somewhat more otherwise your legs will press against your belly
preventing a free breath intake
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Never let the pressure come so high that you feel it under your breastbone or in the neck, because this induces
forced chest breathing. Thus don not pull up your chest and don not straighten your back; at the end of a breath
intake you must have the feeling that you have become shorter and wider, in stead of narrower and taller.
The audience will be deeply impressed by your presence! |
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The Automatic Locomotory Nerve System |
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Finally some important extra remarks about The Automatic Locomotory Nerve
System. The ALNS is a part of the brain that can automatically perform most of the muscle
actions, needed to move your body. In principal it has learned to perform an action when
you execute this action twice. But actions often consist of many sub-actions, all of which
must be executed twice. Beyond that it is not always easy to discover the sub-actions
which are involved. So in many cases learning takes more time. |
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The ALNS can perform many actions simultaneously, unless you switch it to its learning
position. In that position it can only learn 1 action and will perform the actions that
are already in its memory very uncertain. So it might happen that when you are
concentrated (with your CNS) to memorise the correct accidentals of a line of
music, you play the wrong rhythm which you just had studied.
Because of this you must make a difference between practising and playing. |
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Practising is analysing each aspect of a piece of music and showing it in your
most proper way to your ALNS (twice). |
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Playing is staring beyond the horizon and only singing the music in your
head (= relax totally, do not want to analyse and control). If you do so than
all the things that must occur with your instrument to play that music,
will be executed by your ALNS. This goes for the right fingering, embouchure
etc. and of course your breath control as well! |
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The greater your precision during practising is, and the deeper you can relax
while playing, the faster your progress will be with the greatest amount of
fun!
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