and then let our throat "totally" open (at the moment that we are full of air), which part of our body will control the air-NOT flow out of our lung...........

My Answer is: I still use my throat

Yes, more precisely your glottis. If you are an English speaker from the UK or you speak arabic, you use glottal stops in your language.
When playing the sax you should refrain from using your glottis to stop any airflow, this should be the business of your tongue (controling on/off the airflow).
Various muscles from your abdomen will also control the intensity of the airflow as you pointed out above (eg transversis), but not the diaphragm over which you have no control (unless you are an advanced yogi).

 

Could you be more precise about "glottal stops" ?

 

I'm afraid that you DO have control over your 'diaphragm'.
Open your mouth and throat very wide. Inhale until you can't take in any more air, and hold it.
Leave your tongue low in the back of your throat so that absolutely nothing is touching the back of your throat or soft palate. Stick it out and waggle it around if you want, but do not exhale.
If you are NOT EXHALING, you are in complete control of your 'diaphragm' and the abdominal muscles associated with respiration.

 

makes sense to me

 

I tried this 3 times and kept passing out

 

I hope there was someone with you that performed mouth to mouth.

 

Diagram:

 

The important thing to realise is that many people go through life just breathing into the top of their lungs, so the diaphragm does very little. All that happens is the top ribs expand.

The first thing to try with diaphragm breathing is to expand the lower ribs and abdomen, while making sure you don't expand the top ribs at all or (worse) raise your shoulders. Basically the air is passing through the top of your lungs but filling the bottom.

Don't expect this to become "natural" for a long time, it isn't.

The next stage is to try the "triple expansion" yoga type breathing.

Breath in with 3 stages:

1. lower (diaphragm/abdomen)
2. middle (mid-upper ribs front and back)
3. upper shoulder area

Hold briefly without closing throat - , it should be the abdomen muscles that stop the air from rushing out.

(ie without a "cough type action) and exhale in the same order

Again when fully exhaled keep your throat open, it should be the abdomen muscles that stop the air from rushing in.

 

Pete, I gotta disagree with you on this one. The Diaphragm completely controls breathing. When it contracts (as in the pic above), the air pressure in the lungs in lowered. Because the air pressure is higher outside, air comes into the lungs. When the diaphragm relaxes, the air pressure increases in the lungs so that it is greater than the air pressure outside, and air comes out. The diaphragm is the direct cause. All breathing is diaphragm breathing.

The diaphragm must be trained, as any muscle, to be strong, controlled and flexible.

 

Hak, you may well be right.

I often hear it said that most people cannot control the diaphragm, they control muscles in the abdomen which then exert an influence on the diaphragm.

In the end it boils down to the same thing for the end user I believe.

But I would dispute that all breathing is diaphragm breathing, in the way that the term has come into general useage. Very shallow top of the lung breathing may have no significant impact on the diaphragm, so maybe it's legit to call this non-diaphragm breathing.

As a pedadogical concept, diaphragm breathing is breathing into the lower part of the lung.

 

AhCheung, I was taught to be able to use either my tongue or my diaphragm to stop a note. For a short note, that's the difference between "dit" and "duh". In other words, both the tongue and diaphragm have a role to play, and sometimes only the diaprhagm.

Daniel, it is very important that you get this right. When musicians talk about "support the tone" or "diaphragmatic breathing", what we are saying is you use your abdominal muscles to control the air stream. You should not control the air stream with your glottis or your tongue, or your chest muscles, you must control it only with the diaphragm. By "control" I mean determine how fast or slow the air is being pushed out of your lungs.

I disagree (only a little) with Pete about natural vs. trained breathing. What we need to do is be conscious of what we normally do unconsciously. We must learn to be in complete control of the breathing apparatus nature has given us, and use it to our best advantage.

 

I disagree (only a little) with Pete about natural vs. trained breathing.

That's fine, I'm learning all the time from discussions like this.

One little anecdote though:

A fews years back I was the victim of some rather unpleasant attack, and was advised to get some counselling as people tend to do these days.

So I went to see this counsellor. In about the third week she asked me to relax and take a deep breath, which I did.

She then said: "I know your problem! You can't actually breathe properly. I watched you breathe in and your stomach expanded but your chest didn't."

"Did it?" said I, "I didn't realise, but if that's the case then thirty years of practising the saxophone, breath support and yoga breathing have paid off if I finally do that without thinking"

She wouldn't have any of that and it was all I could do to stop her referring me to a specialist to cure my "inapropriate breathing habits"

 

Sarastro, thanks for the great diagram.


We can certainly consciously control our diaphragm, and it is the muscle that does most of the work during breathing. We also have an "automatic" function that let us breathe without thinking about it. (Some people can even walk and chew gum while they breathe!)
Because we don't "feel" our diaphragm (no conscious propio-sensation), it feels like the abdominal muscles are doing the work, since these are the ones we can see and feel move.

If we train to breathe using our diaphragm (and as it expands downwards the abdomen will expand too to give space for the other organs) the automatic breathing will learn to breath in the same way. Pete's story is a great example of this.

 

Daniel,
There is a simple exersize that I have some of my beginning/intermediate students practice to help with breath support.

Lay on the floor with your knees up. Place a VERY heavy book on your stomach.
Breath in through your mouth slowly and make the book rise. Do not just stick out your gut muscles to make it move. Use only your breathing.
Hold it there for the count of 5. Then exhale very slowly, again through our mouth, and lower the book.
Sometimes I have them close their eyes and concentrate on what their body is doing.
A few minutes a day doing this and you'll understand 'breath control'

 

Hi thanks.

This is a good exercise. Actually I had learnt this exercise, but my teacher ask me NOT to lower the book.
I found it is true in the first half of the exhale (NOT to lower the book),
but after some air exhaled, and the inside air pressure in my lung decrease, I found it more naturally to lower the book. I need to relax my "diaphragm" muscle to push the "rest" of the air totally out (and the result is LOWER the book.)

Am I right on this point?

 

Daniel: at least Pete Thomas is using unconsciously "diaphragm breathing" (I'd prefer abdominal breathing b/c all breathing involves diaphragm action) when he breathes everyday... like a baby! (very good 1st post above Pete, thanks).
Interesting discussion above. Those still convinced they can feel their diaphragm should line up for medical research IMO (which has so far proven we have no sensory perception about this quasi-automatic muscle... rightly so! I want to sleep, not to feel my diaphragm contracting all the time I inhale!).

BAck to the initial question....Daniel, your problem seemed to be one of using your throat (or glottis) to affect/stop airflow. Hopefully now you are concentrating on using your abdominal muscles and your tongue to do so.... and unlearning the use of your glottis to control your blowing (another misleading choice in English = breath support! should be blowing support, whoever translated it from Italian singers should have been more precise...).

About glottal stops... I am no real linguist but it is known that UK speakers use them... "a lot". For instance they would a glottal stop in lieu of the final [t] in "a lot"! And in Arabic the glottis is used to produce a phonem (call it a consonant to simplify).

Hmmm, now, if I tell you "open your throat!" what do you do?....
Do you relax like when you sing "Ah"... ie you shouldn't do much, just being conscious of NOT straining your throat.... or do you lower your hyoid bone (Adam's apple) as if you'd like to imitate a "gangster's voice" (think the Sopranos)?
(no worries, that's a rhethorical question... or is it?) It's a bit like the abdominal breathing question... do we need to learn to open our throats, because stress and bad habits led us to close it? (Well at least it's a key learning in Alexander Technique, so it might not be as rhethorical as it seems)... Have fun!

 

Pete, your therapist was an idiot.
Unfortunately, not all psychologists have to study physiology, or anything else.

You'd do better talking to a barman at your local pub.

Stick with the yoga.

 

Pete, your therapist was an idiot.
Unfortunately, not all psychologists have to study physiology, or anything else.

No, she wasn't a shrink, just a counsellor. I did go to psychiatrist once, and all he did was tell me I didn't need a psychiatrist. He didn't give me discount though.

 

Daniel,

while looking for other stuff I just found this article from researchers a bit more South from Hong Kong!!
interesting findings
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/SaxTract.html

and a stunning discovery about the glottis. They argue that most players have it almost closed!

 

Thanks for your info.
we cannot use science to play music, but during we make music, we still restrict by "science rule".

Water is always flow from upper level to lower level............ same as Air............... air always flow from higher pressure side to lower pressure side...

When our lung is full of air, the inside air pressure is higher than outside, so, by nature, it will flow out from our lung through our throat to outside............
when our lung is leak of air, the inside air-pressure may be lower than outside, so, by nature, we need to make effort to push the rest of our air outside.... (we experience this when we need to hold a long-note when we are almost out of air from our lung. don't we?)

When our throat or glottis, or our tongue, totally opens, the air will just flow out from our lung (I refer to the moment that our lung are full of air)
....... it is physics............

So, I still believe, as the researchers doc in your link above,

" a stunning discovery about the glottis. They argue that most players have it almost closed! "

 

Pete, since we're dealing with the throat and not the tush. wouldn't the sound be more 'burpy' rather than 'farty'?

 

Good point, but I was using the bellows vs balloon analogy, which is more like a squeaky fart.

However the analogy is very much an exaggeration, because playing with a closed throat won't actually fart or burp of course, but I think this gets the point across.

 

Could we really possible to make our lung system analogy to a bellows rather than a balloon?

 

Definitely. I think it's much more like a bellows, which uses muscle power to open and close, as opposed to a balloon which is expanded by blowing into it. Nobody blows into your lungs to expand them, you do it by muscles expanding the lungs, causing air to go in (or there would be a vacuum).

I realise the analogy is not perfect, it should probably be more like a slightly elastic bellows, because once your lungs are very full, the first bit of blowing out is done by the muscles relaxing from an expanded state (maybe a bit balloon like?), but then the muscles take over to squeeze the last bit of air out.

When you practice long notes, this end part is the most important IMO. As it comes to the end of the note, you often have a lot more air inside. Instead of being lazy, try to use these last bits, but you will find it harder to do so without wavering or getting a hiccuppy sound in there). But it's by keeping an open throat and very solid controlled abdominal muscles that you can continue the note that much longer, right up until the end when your lungs are completely empty.

 

how do we close our throat?
Or what do you mean by close throat......?
(BTW, I believe I knew what is open throat !!!!)

I believe there must be more than one way to close our throat (for a beginner player)...

EDIT: I asked because I want to know the "wrong" things, and avoid them.