On the problem of vocal and instrumental breathing in music

Lopushanskaya Anna-Mariia Sergeevna Master's degree, Department of Academic Singing, Institute of Contemporary Art (Moscow) 121309, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Novozavodskaya, 27a lams.art@gmail.com

The relevance of the undertaken research lies in the fact that in the domestic pedagogical practice of training vocalists and brass players, there is no single approach to the production of performing breathing. The work on breathing in the vocal class is often based on the accumulated experience of the teacher and the generally accepted tendencies of staging breathing in a particular vocal style (academic, folk, pop). In working with flutists, the issue of setting breathing techniques is often given little attention in principle. The prevailing type of breathing of flutists – with support and strong delay can lead to muscle clamps, which will negatively affect the timbre expressiveness and sound quality in general. The above allows us to conclude that today there is a need for staging different types of breathing for both vocalists and flutists, which will contribute to a new sound quality of the instrument or voice, its greater expressiveness.

Performing breathing is a process of adaptation of the respiratory muscles to the conditions of sound production and sound science. Breathing provides arbitrary control of inhalation and exhalation, and its specificity lies in the need to coordinate the respiratory phases, which are characterized by the unevenness of their duration – fast and short inhalation and prolonged and uniform exhalation. Skillful mastery of the breathing technique is an important link in the performing technique of vocalists and wind instrument performers, since their breathing is a source of sound formation, an important part of the sound production process.

The following types of breathing are used in vocal practice:

Thoracic – with this type of breathing, external movements of the chest are actively used, while the diaphragm remains inactive, and the abdomen is retracted when inhaling.

Abdominal or diaphragmatic type of breathing – is formed with active contractions of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles.

Mixed or thoracic type of breathing – occurs due to the active work of the muscles of the thoracic, abdominal cavity and diaphragm.

The mixed type of breathing is most common in vocal practice, at the same time, we note that when singing, the division of breathing into types is quite conditional and in the process of performing one piece, the boundaries of transitions from one type of breathing to another are often very blurred. This is due to the fact that the choice of a particular technique of singing breathing depends entirely on the nature of the musical composition. The inhalation phase in its activity and volume always corresponds to the nature of the music and the length of the musical phrase, as well as the attack of sound should be subordinated to the nature of the sound of the work.

The problems of staging and choosing the type of performing breathing are relevant not only for vocal, but also for the pedagogy of wind performance. So, in the practice of training flutists, performing breathing stands out as one of the most difficult components of playing an instrument. 

The statement of the performer's breathing on the flute occupies an important place in the methodology of learning to play the instrument. Performing and pedagogical practice shows that flutists with improperly placed breathing cannot claim a high level of performing skills. The specifics of playing the flute require the performer to freely own his breathing apparatus, which allows him to use breathing to solve various artistic and performing tasks. The musical-performing process requires active interaction of thinking, musical hearing, lips, breathing apparatus, tongue and fingers of the player.

The problem of choosing the type of breathing for a flutist is the subject of research and scientific discussions, during which quite often different and contradictory opinions are expressed. 

A number of researchers and teachers express the opinion about the need to play on the closed breath. This is due to the fact that the duration of the sound directly depends on the length of exhalation and the volume of air in the lungs, the ability to create sound to the last by contracting the abdominal muscles and chest, and on the resistance of trained lips, that is, from playing on the closed breath. In this regard, the Russian conductor and teacher V. A. Fedotov writes: "The art of exhaling, or playing on a support, consists in making the diaphragm return to its natural, normal state as slowly as possible" ^{[6, also: 1, 2, 4]}.

The Soviet trumpeter and professor G. A. Orvid also writes about the importance of the support of breathing when playing the flute: "The support of breathing is achieved by precisely matching the lifting pressure of the abdominal press with the degree of resistance of the diaphragm inferior to this pressure, so that the compression of air in the lungs and the pressure of the air jet and the labial slit are continuous and sufficient for the formation and maintenance of sound" ^[5].

Researcher and teacher, professor of the Moscow Conservatory in the flute class Yu. N. Dolzhikov, based on his many years of experience and scientific research in the field of physiological features of breathing, carried out in the laboratory of musical acoustics and sound recording of the Moscow Conservatory and the Laboratory of Singing Physiology of the Gnessin Music Pedagogical Institute, claims the prospects of using mixed type of breathing in the practice of flutists ^{[3, p. 9]}. The flutist's mixed type of breathing is the most acceptable, since due to the action of the muscles of the diaphragm and chest, the effect of exhalation for sound formation is the highest. At the same time, in the practice of training performers on the flute, the expediency of using both thoracic and diaphragmatic (abdominal) types cannot be denied.

The opinions given by a number of teachers of the national school of wind instruments indicate that in their practice of staging breathing, support is a fundamental element of the rational performing breathing of musicians. At the same time, the passion for playing on the closed breath of performers on the flute can lead to muscle clamps of the performing apparatus. Therefore, at the moment we can say that the staging of the breathing of flutists should be based on the experience of the vocalists. It is necessary to pay attention to the production of thoracic (mixed) or diaphragmatic, which would meet the specifics of performance and correspond to the nature of the performed repertoire.

The process of setting the flutist's breathing requires attention to this component of training in the specialty lessons. This work should be carried out only in the process of playing the instrument directly. Since exercises for the development of the flutist's breathing without the participation of the instrument will not be effective enough. The skills of a diverse type of performing breathing are formed in the flutist during the development of a diverse musical repertoire and instructional exercises. Scales performed at a slow pace on various nuances can act as such exercises. First of all, special attention should be paid to the "support", that is, the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm; to the chest resonator; to the correct design of the ear pads. If all conditions are met, focus the performer's attention on soft, without shocks, sound delivery. Here it is useful to play the work more slowly (even if the set tempo is very slow), with observance and even exaggeration of nuances and shades. Working slowly, the student gets the opportunity to listen to all the details of the work, gets used to and adapts his entire performing apparatus to a certain fingering, to breathing in phrases; manages to hear the sound.

Improving the technique of performing breathing of a flutist is practiced on a selected repertoire, in which the performance of dynamic nuances and phrasing features require the musician to use different types of breathing when playing an instrument.  Breathing in cantilena is a special topic. It is very important to immediately identify the caesures and adhere to them throughout the work on the work, even (especially) when working at a deliberately slow pace.

The staging of the flutist's breathing also requires paying attention to the syntactic nature of the construction of the melody being performed. This feature of working on breathing is also relevant for vocal performance practice.

So, the inhalation of air should not occur at the moment when the flutist runs out of air. Just as during the performance of a vocal piece, the listener does not feel where the vocalist takes his breath, the melody performed by the flutist should also be divided into parts naturally, without violating the logic of constructing a musical phrase. The moments of inspiration during the flutist's breathing should be based on the logic of free musical development in the work. The desire to play as much music as possible in one breath indicates the limitations of the performer and the lack of understanding of the performed work.

Analyzing the peculiarities of vocal and instrumental breathing, we note that for both singers and flutists, it is important to correctly distribute the points of change of breathing, which largely characterize the expressiveness of the performance. It is necessary to accustom performers to this work from an early stage of training in the specialty lessons. First, the teacher himself must indicate the points where to take a breath. The student should always participate in this analysis, gradually learning to understand the material independently and find the right solution to breathing issues. Sometimes performers who have passed the initial period of training without analyzing the above points under the guidance of their teacher have a tendency to inhale mainly at the boundaries of the beat. Meanwhile, it is necessary to focus the attention of a novice musician on the fact that the clock line is a metric boundary and may not coincide with the beginning or end of a musical phrase. Very often, if not in most cases, musical phrases begin with a weak fraction of a beat, which makes it unacceptable to inhale on the clock line. This, as well as the work on the correct breathing, should be mandatory in the framework of initial training of both vocalists and performers on wind instruments.