I
> think you may be over-thinking things, but it sounds like it
> may be partly
> the teachers fault by making you think of, and try to do, too
> many things.
> It needs to be a coordination of many parts working together,
> too many to
> think of just one at a time when you're actually doing it.
> The comment "Draw
> up" disturbs me. Breathing during phonation should be a
> balance of activity
> between inhale and exhale muscles so as not to overburden the
> vocal folds
> with too much pressure. There doesn't need to be any kind of
> kick-off or
> force to "get it going". I guess I would need to know exactly
> what is meant
> by his statement. The main thing is the up is automatic, your
> job is to
> check the rate of the outflow so it is not too fast, without
> becoming rigid
> or overly relaxed.
Having studied with the same teacher Matthew has (being in fact the "friend"
mentioned in his email) I can clarify this.
The basic breath this teacher goes for is of the lower abdominal variety.
Begin with an expanded ribcage, the so-called "noble posture"; inhale in
such a way so that the lower back muscles expand slightly first, then the
lower abdominals, and then continue inhaling, don't stop the breath short
(in other words, don't tighten the muscles right around the ribcage in order
to cut off the inhalation, just fill to capacity), and maintain the
expansion of the ribcage. He uses various images to try to achieve this;
"inflate the testicles" is the one most commonly used with his men, as well
as a water ballon filling from the bottom up. An image he doesn't use, but
that I've found helps accomplish the same thing, is a "moist breath". One
thing that he also insists on is that the breath be "down", not "out".
On exhalation, yes, he tells the student to "draw up" or "pull up" (he
adamantly avoids use of the word "push") using the lower abdominals. What
he's going for there is a maintenance of the ribcage expansion, as well as
an absence of rigidity in the upper abdominal muscles and/or the throat. He
wants the lower abdominals to move up (not in) on exhalation so that they're
doing the work, not the chest, ribcage, or throat. He uses various images to
try to accomplish that, including the flippers of a pinball machine, or (for
men) imagining wading into a just-below-waist-high pool of very cold water.
It's a method that Richard Miller roundly decries in "On training tenor
voices". It's not a method that everybody agrees with. What I can say is
that I studied with this teacher for six years, and when I moved to a
different teacher just a couple of months ago, she told me, "Well, you're
doing everything right with the breathing. We don't need to do anything with
that."
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