Fell the air! Integrating Inclusive Awareness in Music-Making

Inclusive Awareness brings you into the moment of music-making.  You experience the many movements of playing; from air to fingers, along with the sights, sounds, kinesthetic and tactile sensations.  You are actively engaged in the the creation of sound, and can  fluidly respond to the needs of the music, fellow musicians and audience.  

This exploration will help you begin to integrate inclusive awareness into your playing. 

Exploration 1: Feel Air Movement

• Allow your visual field to be broad, feel the touch of your clothing on your skin, hear the sounds around you, see all of the colors and textures in the room.

• Notice the movement of air in and out of your body.  
  • Feel it pass through the mouth or nasal passages.
  • Feel movement in the chest where the ribs are located. 
  • Feel the movement that occurs below the ribs.
• Continue to notice the movement of air with your instrument into playing position.
• Sustain a single note and tune into the movement of air out of your body.   You may notice it passing through the mouth or over the interior of the embouchure.
• Notice the movement of air as you inhale.
• Repeat playing a short phrase 

Is there a difference in how you play when air movement is the focus of your awareness?  Is there an increase in ease?  Are you using just the right amount of air?  or was it too little or too much?  Next play a phrase as you notice air movement.

Enjoy!  As always, I welcome your thoughts & comments! 

The Sights, Sounds, Touch and Movements of Playing

Awareness of the body’s rich sensory feedback is an essential component of expressive music-making.

What are your awareness habits?

Think about your awareness habits as you play.  What is in your awareness you play?  To get an idea of your awareness habits, play a piece or etude then answer the following questions:

Would you describe your awareness as concentrating?

Does your focus shift as you play or is it fixed on one thing?

Do you ever hear the note you are playing, feel movement in your body, see the space, and feel the instrument in your hands as you play?

Barbara Conable author of “What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body” coined the term, Inclusive Awareness to describe the ideal state of awareness for making-music.  Inclusive awareness allows us to be internally and externally aware,  and to focus on a particular element without losing awareness of others.  

Movement Quality = Performance Quality

Sound emanates from the movement of air.  Approaching music-making from this same perspective, movement, offers solutions to the playing obstacles we encounter.

When the musician’s movements are free and fluid, the music will embody these same qualities.  In music-making, they translate into expression and facility.  In your next practice session ask yourself, “What are the movements I need to play/sing this?”  The answer to this simple question is not a complex mathematical equation, it is simply movement which agrees with the body’s anatomical design.  Moving according to design allows elegant and expressive coordination, which is the ideal quality of movement for music-making.

Barbara Conable’s ground-breaking resource, What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body (GIA), along with companion books authored for specific instruments offer musicians the information to reclaim natural free movement for music-making and life.

I invite you to allow movement to be the foundation to your music-making.  Movement provides the solution to playing obstacles, physical discomforts along with access to expressive freedom.

Hanging Elbows

I recently worked with a flute student who was playing with a nice sound which changed into a fuzzy unfocused sound as she continued.  As I observed her playing I noticed that she raised her left elbow away from her body as the music became more demanding. The location of the elbows as you play is a one indication of how much effort is going into playing.

What is your habit?

Investigate by watching yourself in a mirror or by watching a short video recording of your playing.  Moving the elbows away from the body as you play does not need to be part of your playing.  In order for the elbows to move away from the body, muscles in the torso and arms engage which causes tension that will affect the other muscles that you need to play.  If the elbow(s) is held chronically higher, the muscular effort not only limits rib movement which affects the breath but causes discomfort which can lead to habits that aren’t in line with how the body is designed to move.

I think of the elbows as hanging from the arm/shoulderblade joint on one end and from the hands on the other.  This is a good way to invite the arm muscles to release.  One image I suggest is to imagine that light weights hang from the tips of the elbows to remind you to simple let the elbows and arms hang.

What to do?

First find out if you move your elbows out farther when the technical, sound or endurance demands of the music increase.  If you do, it is time to map the movements you need to play the passage.  Any change in how the elbows hang could be a sign of compensation for limitation in other aspect of your playing.  Two of my favorite Body Mapping resources on arms are Lea Pearson’s “Body Mapping for Flutists” (GIA), and David Vining’s “What Every Trombonist Needs to Know About the Body” (Kagrice Brass Editions).

Mapping Breath Support

In March I presented a workshop at the Massachusetts Music Educators Association conference in Boston titled, “What Every Music Educator Needs to Know About Breath Support.”  My original idea was to explore the body’s innate physical support but the organizer asked me to be more specific and speak on “Breath Support.”  As I thought about this change and how I could provide useful information to help music teachers teach this effectively, I realized that I needed two parts to the workshop.

1. Support: Clearly define what support  is and where it is found in the body.
2. Breathing: Illustrate important movements of breathing and how support enables them.

I found that understanding where to find the natural physical support of the body is an essential element to freeing the breath for music-making.

1. Support

What is support?  What structures provide the support for your playing? Where  are these structures located in the body?  A clear understanding to the answers of these questions allows one to utilize the innate design for support and move more naturally.

Two possibilities for physical support are

1. muscles
2. bones

If muscles are engaged for support, the body is kept upright primarily by muscular effort.  This effort results in tension that in turn limits and restricts movement.  For example, if a flutist has tension resulting from muscular support, the embouchure will be more rigid than need be.  Making embouchure adjustments will require effort which will also effect expression, the breath and sound.  The performance will be unnecessarily effortful.

What we need to find is the support that enhances and enables movement.  The anatomical reality of this is that support comes from the large bones of the skeleton.

Where Can We Find Support? 

Barbara Conable’s Body Mapping course, What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body,” identifies “Six Places of Balance” in the body that when vertically aligned bear and deliver the body’s weight and provide effortless support, this is a balanced body.

Six Places of Balance

1. Head & Neck Joint /A-O Joint
2. Arm Structure
3. Lumbar Spine
4. Hip Joints
5. Knee Joints
6. Ankle Joints

If you consider that the head weighs 9-15 pounds (equivalent to a small bowling ball), having bones available to bear the weight of and support the head is crucial.

In balance, the body’s weight is delivered to the floor through the bony structure.  This same path is also the route of effortless support.  In a balanced body, support can be be felt as sensations of buoyancy and equilibrium.  The good news is that we don’t have to “do” anything to utilize this support, it is natural, we simply need to understand balance and learn to embody the relationship of the six places.  This effortless support enhances movement ease and precision because it leaves the large muscles of the body free to move.

Try this: Stand or sit in your best balance at this moment.  Picture your bones providing the support you need to be upright. What does it feel like?  How is your breathing?  Compare these feelings and sensations to being upright with your muscles “holding you up.”  What is the difference in your physical comfort and breathing? The body’s innate design for support frees the moving muscles as it enhances movement ease and precision.

The Six Places of Balance offer us valuable sensory feedback on the body’s balance, alignment, movement quality and support.  When we learn to include them in our awareness we can fluidly adjust as we perform, which keeps us “in the moment” of music-making.

2. Breathing

The foundation to efficient breathing is whole-body balance, where the bones bear and deliver the weight of the body, and effortless support emanates from the bony structure allowing the movements of breathing to easily and naturally coordinate.

What are the movements of breathing?  How do you regulate inhalation and exhalation volume and speed?

What are the movements of breathing?

There is often confusion about the movements of breathing.  The table below is a simple outline of some of the important breathing movements that take place throughout the torso.

	Inhalation	Exhalation
ribmovement	up & out	down & in
diaphragm	dome flattens	returns to full dome shape
abdominal cylinder	moves out in every direction	returns to neutral
pelvic floor	moves down	returns to neutral
spine	gathers	lengthens

When the movements listed coordinate, breathing is natural and efficient.  Whole-body balance sets the conditions for this natural coordination and ease.  Keep in mind that balance through legs is equally as important as balance at the A-O joint.

How do you regulate air movement for playing? 

Misconceptions on how we regulate air movement compromises the easy coordination of the breath. The reality is that we regulate air movement in and out of the body through rib movement. We decide how much air we need, and use rib movement to inhale the desired volume, and then use rib movement to regulate the rate at which we exhale.   In my yoga class today I was enjoying the movement of my ribs while I was in downward facing dog.  The image of a bird’s wing flapping came to my mind.  The rib movements were fluid and graceful as I inhaled and exhaled just like I see the wings of a bird move as it flies.  As I practice I will look for the same beautiful movement of my ribs as I play.

Examining breath support is a powerful reminder that music-making is a whole-body activity.  It is clear that breath support is the same support we need for being upright, moving our arms etc. Understanding where support emanates form along with the movements of breathing is an essential element of expressive music-making.  Accessing and updating body maps that govern these areas and how they relate to the rest of our body allows movement to become more refined, while eliminating unnecessary tension and elevating music-making to our highest level.

Mapping Movement – Expanding Dynamic Range

Movement is the foundation to all that we do.  Technique, dynamics, and sound all emanate from movement.  Body Mapping has allowed me to approach performing from this perspective and  has unleashed a whole new range of possibilities in every aspect of my playing.

Movement enables me to overcome plateaus by helping me to understand & access the movements I need to make a particular sound, articulation, dynamic in order to play a phrase the way I want to.   This replaces my old approach, which was to dedicate sufficient practice time to learn to play the way I desired.  Today, I map the movements I am using, look for more efficient and easier ways to move as well as other movement possibilities.

Lately exploring movement has allowed me to expand my dynamic range.  I enjoy Trevor Wye’s Practice Book No.1: Tone for this.  I use the various exercises in the different ranges, to explore the movements needed to produce different colors & dynamics throughout the flute’s range.  The first step is to play the groups with a consistent mf dynamic.  While doing this, I examine air speed, air volume and air direction, looking for the perfect combination of these factors as I release unnecessary effort that I used to think I needed.  I remind myself that the movement of the air has to do with the movement of my ribs, the support of my bone structure, and that my lips can move to change the size of the aperture and the direction I am blowing.   I suggest to my students that they need to be familiar with where the notes “live” in their flute.

Once comfortable at the mf dynamic, it is time to start having fun throughout the dynamic range. To increase the dynamic requires an increase in air volume and speed.  To initiate this, the ribs need to move at a quicker pace on their decent down and in for exhalation.  Air direction may need to be adjusted slightly to compensate for intonation changes.  This can be achieved by pivoting the head at the A-O Joint or moving the upper lip.  I have found it easier to play dynamics on short notes at first, so I separate the groups by tonguing each note, each pitch is a lively sphere of sound. When I am satisfied that I have the balance of air volume, speed & direction, I play the groups slurred as written.

For softer sounds, the air factors need to be adjusted again.  Air speed needs to increase,  while air direction is adjusted blowing higher across the lip plate.  Here I like to enjoy the movement of my lips from neutral embouchure to a place forward in space, as if the lips are kissing.  As the lips move forward, the direction of the air stream  gently rises so that less air is going into the flute but at a faster speed.  These movements decrease the dynamic level.  I like to practice these phrases until the sound disappears or as I like to say, “evaporates.”  I am mindful of the entire excursion of the lips from neutral to forward, enjoying the subtle changes.

Practicing tone and dynamics has helped me to find a new placement for the lip plate on my chin and a more fluid relationship between the flute & chin.  With the flexibility that I have gained intonation adjustments are simply movements.  These changes offer access to a wider variety of color choices & dynamics for my playing, giving me more options to create expressive phrases.  I hope you enjoy exploring your dynamic range!

Vanessa Breault Mulvey