Arnold Jacobs' Clinic Notes
Arnold Jacobs, retired Tuba Chicago Symphony
Concepts Part 1
Air vs. Wind
- Pressure-Bad
- Wind-Good
- Quantity not Pressure
- If air quantity is low, embouchure will shut down to save it.
- "Hah" vs. "SSSSSSS"
- Slow speed is soft
- Fast speed is loud.
- Think beauty of tone not amount of air.
Three ways to breathe
- Isometric(no air--motion only)
- Pelvic motion
- Bellows (BEST)
Air is specialized in exhalation , not inhalation.
- Keep latter simple. Former is controlling wind and air.
Wind-Song
"Two shades of Gray" not black and white.
Warming up
- Make the first sound wonderful.
- Never lower musical standards.
- Slow warm-ups test quality of of sound.
- Professional players never cool off.
- Do not prepare to play. Play.
90% Music-10% Fuel
- AIR is fuel.
- Normal has great quantity and speed.
- Forced begins to fade quickly.
- Asthmatic requires much force with little volume.
- Downward pressure on bow is analogous to air pressure; speed of bow is analogous to fast-moving bow.
Playing is like Rolls Royce
ISSUE Statements not Questions
- It is not important to play perfectly, tell a story
- Keep thoughts childlike--80% song
- Thoughts of body--childlike.
- Thoughts of music--adult.
Memorize SOUND, not FEELING.
- Control the note, not the body.
Great music, NOT range and velocity.
Tone as a ball on a stream of water.
Think of air in terms of length.
- Work with air quantity
- An unsupported, thin sound is caused by thin air stream.
- Think a thicker column of air.
- Breathe to expand, not vice versa.
- Do not substitute pressure for air volume.
- Get a sense of friction at the lips.
- Keeps friction from throat. Become strong by blowing more--not squeezing body.
INTUITION-IMAGINATION-IMITATION
- Tissue responds to the authority of the 3-I's.
Do not be afraid to be wrong.
Allow yourself to make mistakes; there is no improvement without them.
Teaching Concepts
Add to skills
Paralysis by Analysis
Practice with Motivation
Practice materials
- Bel canto studies
- Medium dynamics, the expand outward
Do not correct
- Do it wrong, learn it right
- Do not learn to play instrument; learn to play music on the instrument.
- Do not stop if you do not like it
- Lie a little.
- Be a used car salesman, do it even if it doesn't feel good
Develop skill away from instrument
Strangeness can make learning easier
- Work from positive aspect
"Sound" like a loaf of bread
- Each slice has all of the ingredients
- Practice articulation in musical exercises.(Arban)
- Increase air for tonguing so decibels do not go down. (This will also prevent from tonguing too hard.)
Use minimal motors
- Allow crudities in beginners
- Encourage to "play for someone else."
Work up pieces by playing short sections
- Play a little bit very well.
- Imitate and create.
- Always pretend there is an audience.
Go beyond the requirements; Take a chance.
Do not be afraid to be wrong.
- Work with what is right not correcting what is wrong
- Precise images require mental image, not physiology
Special flute problems
- Move air beyond the mouthpiece.
- "Buzz before blowing," applicable to flute?
Beginners are elementary artists.
Let the student teach.
Be a better player in your head.
- Imitate those who are better than you
- Put excellence in the brain before the horn
- Play for others; tape yourself.
Work with player not instrument.
Physical Considerations
Three functions of abdominal and thoracic muscles
- Breathing
- Evacuation and childbirth
- Stiffening torso
Diaphragm breath means using more than thoracic cavity.
- Large quantities cannot be taken without diphragm.
For inhalation, use minimal motors (as in a flabby bicep display)
- Relax abdominal muscles
- Use a breathing tube (Dolly Parton)
- Do not move body, take in frictionless air.
- Show resistance (for teaching) - various ways to tighten
- Literal expansion is pseudo-respiration. Works only somewhat.
- Bending R, L, Front or Back shows respiratory cutoff.
- Lying down can reduce back expansion.
At end of breath, do not worry about getting ready to inhale; body will take over naturally and automatically switch gears. The thorax and abdomen can support excess of 125 lbs.
- Need to blow 3 lbs. of interoral pressure at highest trumpet range.
- Lips can resist air much greater than systems behind can provide. (i.e., use just the lips to play, do not tighten elsewhere.)
- Air pressure and quantity are function of absolute range.
- Pressure is the result not the cause. (none on flute) i.e., the same note in Herz will require the same effort on any brass instrument.
- QED, tuba upper register requires less than one pound of interoral pressure.
- Even in high register, think wind, not pressure.
- There is no causative artificial stiffness, only a result
- Go by the air, not the appearance of the body
- Do not be afraid of exaggerated motion.
- Fear restrictions.
