Voices from the past bring back wonderful recollections of people who have influenced our lives and for that reason I have posted this lecture given by one of my former trumpet teachers, Don Jacoby. The tone and mannerisms in this recording make it almost as if “Jake” were actually in the room. Only people who knew this very gifted player and teacher can really know what this recording can do to a person’s past memories.
For those who knew Mr. Jacoby, enjoy remembering those good times and for those who never had the pleasure of meeting him, enjoy his lesson on breathing.
Don was a great trumpet player and teacher, but I’m sorry, he’s plain wrong on the diaphragm. The other Jake, Arnold Jacobs, would have set him straight.
First of all, the movement of the diaphragm is involuntary. Second, he states “when you exhale, it contracts and moves back up…” The diaphragm contracts when it moves down and relaxes when it moves back up. Any anatomy textbook will show this to be the case.
Hopefully one of these days, the whole fallacy of “diaphragmatic breathing” can be laid to rest forever.
Tim,
Respectfully, you’re missing the point. It isn’t about how the diaphragm is working, it’s about the fact that it works at all. It’s only important to understand that the lungs do nothing but stretch and hold air. And that the diaphragm, by moving up or down (whether this is relaxing or contracting) creates a vacuum causing the lungs too fill like a balloon. There are no muscles in the lungs. I think that’s important. You are correct in that the exhalation happens without our thinking about it. The inhalation requires the thought, though. Once inflated, the lungs will empty out on their own. I learned this from my teacher, Frank Kaderabek. Who was in the Chicago Symphony right when Arnold Jacobs was beginning his studies into breathing. In fact, many times (Frank has said) he and his colleagues in the CSO brass section were the guinea pigs for his research.
I teach this kind of breathing now, and not everyone agrees with the concepts. But I do believe in this type of breathing, as I use it each and every time I draw a breath. I also encourage my students to adopt a yawning type of breath, to really open up the throat.
“However the air goes in, it’s going to leave the same way.” – Frank Kaderabek.
If you breathe with a tiny, pinched throat, you will have a tiny, pinched sound. If you breathe with a relaxed, open, YAWNING throat, you will have a beautiful, open, relaxed sound.
Another Frank quote (and “Jake” was saying this, as well): “If the breathing’s right everything’s easy. If the breathing’s wrong nothing’s easy”.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to turn this into a soapbox.
Thanks for reading. And I meant absolutely no disrespect to you , Tim.
Gary Schutza
I was in a lesson with Frank Kaderabek years ago, and as the lesson drew to a conclusion, I thought it would be great to get the real low-down on breathing from a member of the renowned Chicago school of brass playing. I was prepared to take notes as I asked him “what about breathing?” He looked at me, a little surprised by the question, and said “make an ‘O’ in your throat.” End of discussion.
That concept was not new to me, but it reminded me as a teacher over many years after, of the importance of keeping it simple, especially with regard to discussing breathing. Pavarotti said of the diaphragm: “it goes down, it comes up.”
The old “paralysis by analysis” warning is important to heed in discussing anything physical, breathing probably most of all.
Great teachers like Frank focused on singing through the horn and moving air freely, rather than on breathing techniques.