8/01/05

A tiring day. I think i'm starting to get black eyes. I woke up at 6am this morning, and went to NYJC (the college i went to) to visit the band. I'm an alumni there. To my surprise, their sound is soooo good. Its really enjoyable playing there today. I said before i hate loud bands, so if i like them, that means they are not tooo loud.

I attended their sectionals which was conducted by David Wong, SSO Bass Trombonist. Ahhhh I learnt something from him today again. Its always fruitful to sit in his lessons, the knowledge he imparts will let you think about how to improve yourself.

Heres what I learnt today. The concept of breathing in and blowing for musicians. No one ever thinks about how he inhale or exhale air but its important for us musicians to know what muscles are at work when doing those actions. The only muscles that we make use of to draw air into our body are around the rib cage. If you try to relax that set of muscles totally, you won't be able to draw any air into your body.

The other thing about breathing in is that... we always tell our musicians to breath into the diaphram but do we use any strength around the diaphram to draw in air? The answer is NO! If you use any muscles around the diaphram area, this will affect the space the air occupies there.... its smaller. So... what to do? When breathing in... relax the muscles in the diaphram area totally, will ensure maximum inflating of that part using air.

In short for breathing in, its to relax the lower part of the body. I've combined what i heard from David with what I've read before. To make air move from one place to another, there has to be 2 areas of different pressure level. Air moves from a high pressure already to a low pressure area. For the human body, we are being pressured by the air around us. And to make air flow into our body, we have to make our body a low pressure medium. To do that, our muscles will do the work to make "spaces" in our body so that the air outside flows in. That is the duty of the muscles around the rib cage as stated above. This is also in line with the thinking of relaxing the diaphram muscles. Low pressure area in the diaphram area will allow air to go there.

Thats for breathing in. Next is blowing out. When we are fully filled with air, the only muscles we use to control a constant flow of air out of our body is through the muscles near our diaphram area. Using the pressure theory, by exerting some force area our diaphram, we create a high pressure area inside there and forces air to flow out.

In short for blowing, its a total relaxation of the upper part of the body and exerts pressure on the lower part of the body.

Next, I've learnt something about buzzing (vibrations in the lips for making sound in the instrument) too. The first theory I heard from David was that the only thing that determines the pitch you play in the instrument is the lips. Lip is made up of flesh and blood. It can be stretched or compressed. By exerting pressure around the lips area, we can make different pitches when we blow enough air to make it vibrate. How much is enough? Its really very little if you actually blow correctly. However, buzzing without the mouthpiece is a difficult thing because the mouthpiece creates a support for buzzing (another complicated concept).

Going back to pitching. Since we can pitch a straight sound using a certain amount of air + a certain amount of pressure around the lips, we need to do something when we need to play louder, or when doing an accent. What we usually do is that we would add more air into vibrating the lips. This does not change the pitch of the vibration if air is the only variable. However, this adds on pressure on the lips to keep its shape. Recall that changing a shape in the lips will cause a change in pitch.... plus the sound will be quite out of tune too. So... what David was saying was that, if you increase air to play a louder note, you will need to maintain the aperture of the lips in order to make a nice cresendo. This will also reduce the tiredness in the lips.

Combining breathing, blowing and pitching, this will enable many players to make better sound. Regarding articulation, I haven't learn anything from him yet. When I do, I'll just post here haha as a record for my memory. THe issues for articulation is Tongue and tongue and more tongue haha. THe position of tongue, function as well, and muscles in tongue too.

Why am I giving a Bio posting today? hahaa I don't know.

After NYJC band practice, the alumni members, including me, went to Orchard for a walk. We went to this arcade to play some video games. As usual, I play my favourite shooting game, Giga Wings. Then is time crisis 2. Died at stage 3 haha damn difficult.

Then Dinner at B1 of cineleisure with a friend S and R. Oh talking about the friend R, he might seem sooo old but I find him an interesting guy with lots of lame jokes and animated facial expressions. He is one talented percussionist. Diploma in Percussion... don't play play.

Then I have to rush to the MRT station to buy a concert ticket from my disciple. Don't know what to say sia. haha. Make my hair messy because the wind was big when i walked very fast and I went into the rain also. But its good that this disciple came to orchard to pass me the ticket. Save me the trouble of going back to Toa Payoh haha. Jia you for concert bah. Sigh, going concert alone again haha. Compensate me la haha.