The sound of the piano, violin, cello, double bass, and many other instruments is amplified by a soundboard. If you remove the soundboard, you’ll hardly hear anything. But what about the flute? If we rely solely on the instrument itself, compared to the piano, we do have a problem…
We ourselves are an important part of our instrument. Posture has a direct effect on the sound, either positively or negatively. The larger we make our ‘soundboard’, the more beautiful the sound. A big challenge is often maintaining an open ribcage and disconnecting the ribcage from the abdomen within one breath.
Many people breathe shallowly and high. They often use only, or mainly, the ribcage to breathe. As wind players, we learn early on to breathe by engaging and releasing the abdomen (of course, simplifying it a bit). What we also need to learn is to disconnect the ribs from the abdomen. If the ribcage still collapses during playing, it affects the sound. The collapsing can be so subtle that you (almost) don’t notice it yourself. So, it’s useful to keep checking this in yourself.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Check if your ribs lift during inhalation. If the ribs lift, they are likely to collapse again during blowing. Using the ribs in breathing can be very useful, but be aware of how you use them. Let’s save the discussion of rib usage for another blog and focus only on the basics of breathing and blowing for now.
2. Disconnect the ribs from the abdomen during inhalation and blowing. Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen. Try to breathe and blow while moving your abdomen in and out without the ribs moving. Imagine breathing beneath the ribs.
3. I recently came across a fun exercise that I’d like to share with you. Stand on one leg and sway the other leg forward and backward. Now, take a calm breath and move your leg forward and backward three times within one breath. Repeat this on an exhalation. Then, switch to the other leg. Pay attention to keeping your breath low. Do this a few times.
Now, stand on both legs. Slowly move your shoulders up and down three times. Do your shoulder blades return to the same point on your back each time? Now, perform this shoulder movement during an inhalation. Breathe in slowly and move your shoulders up and down three times. Do this on an exhalation as well. You might notice that during inhalation, your shoulders tend to rise a bit higher. If that’s the case, it means you have too much tension in your chest. Try to completely relax your shoulders as you let them drop again. Keep going with the inhalation or exhalation.
For four years, I often heard during my studies that I still slouched a bit while blowing. Eventually, it frustrated me a lot, and I thought my teacher had gone crazy. Later on, I realized that he had been right all along…
