by Fokke van Heel
During my career as a player and teacher, I have increasingly come to realize how important and essential it is to involve my entire body in my technique. Among other things, I have benefitted greatly from Alexander Technique lessons to gain this awareness. Our instrument needs a balance between strength and flexibility, and in order to continue to develop myself, it was, and continues to be, necessary to try to explore that balance. Moreover, it makes practicing extra interesting and fun.
Below is a simple basic exercise that can be the start of new discoveries every day. Enjoy!
‘Step One-Two-Three’ – an exercise for all
In your practice room, you may want to add the following exercise, applicable to all levels of playing:
Step 1. Play a long tone, preferably a mezzo-forte note in the middle range.
Step 2. Ask yourself during this tone: “Can I relax anything in my body?”
The shoulders may be the easiest body part to begin with:
Your shoulders relax…great!
But…your intonation drops and your tone gets softer…not so great.
Step 3. Restore Intonation and Dynamic
Restore the intonation by lowering your soft palate a bit using the vowel E.
Restore the dynamic by intensifying the airstream.
Result: same good tone as in step 1, same pitch, same dynamic, but more relaxed shoulders and embouchure.
Simply said, you changed the energy in your playing: same quantity of energy, different quality. This is not the energy from the squeezing in your lips and the tension in your shoulders (step 1), but energy from more effort in your diaphragm and from singing in the back of your oral cavity.
What happened?
Obviously releasing the tension in your shoulders (or, in this exercise, any other part of your body) was helpful in step 1 to obtain a controlled and stable tone. But in step 2, we learn that these ‘helpful’ shoulders also cause tension in your lips and in your diaphragm, otherwise the pitch and dynamic would not have dropped.
Now both diaphragm and lips are more relaxed, but also less powerful.
To regain the steady tone you had in step 1, you need the new activity in step 3:
- In the embouchure: muscles towards and in your cheeks will be activated by saying the E-vowel in the soft palate. Challenged by the faster airstream, they take over the work of your central lip muscles.
- In the diaphragm: new, subtly different muscles will be activated to create a faster, less forced airstream.
Both new activities take a while to become strong and energetic enough, but when this has become your normal way of playing then this is your new step 1 and you can start over again…a never ending voyage of discovery!
A couple of tips:
- In a way, step 1 is the most important. Play your note like you always do, almost without thinking.
- Do not already compensate in step 2, let it happen and listen.
- If you find it hard to relax specific muscles (e.g. your buttocks or in your pelvis area), then first give those muscles even more tension, then relax, and now you feel where to relax even a bit further.
- Since, in step 3, you are using more of the vowel E, your sound may initially get too bright and lose a bit of warmth. After a while (day/days), you will regain the balance in your embouchure (between central and decentralized), and your sound will be back, with more overtones as a result of the relaxation.
- Direct the faster airstream to your soft palate rather than to your lips.
- At first, this exercise needs one long tone, but it can also be done in approx. 4 seconds.
- Once happy with step 3 (same pitch, same dynamic), try to stay in that position and challenge the new muscles. Make sure to take many pauses!
- Preferably, do not do this exercise before a performance but rather at the end of the day. Give your developing muscles time to recover overnight.
If you do not like to reflect on your playing through this exercise, I completely understand; it comes with temporary instability and your embouchure will change.
However, with curiosity you will discover and improve endlessly!
Fokke van Heel has served as principal horn in the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra/Netherlands Chamber Orchestra since 1998. He was professor at the Artez Conservatory in Zwolle and is currently teaching at the Sweelinck Academy of the Conservatory of Amsterdam. He has been a member of the faculty of the Prisma Festival in British Columbia, Canada, since 2015.
