Posted by Brian Frederiksen on March 07, 2000 at 20:28:13:
In Reply to: Breathing exercises posted by Ross C on March 07, 2000 at 04:11:56:
A few months back I found a transcript of a masterclass Mr Jacobs did in 1978. I scanned it with some OCR software and have been editing it. At this time, I have passed it to a number of Jacobs students for further correction. After it gets cleaned up, I will put it on the web at www.windsongpress.com. Here is a part that Mr Jacobs talked about a young student that will be of interest to this thread.
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This is a report from a spirometer of a youngster of about 12 years of age. This young man was sent to me because he was having trouble in tone production and one of the first things I do with any new student is to measure the lung volumes. In this particular instance the young man was in trouble because the teacher would play a phrase and the youngster would try to duplicate that phrase. The amount of air this youngster had was 2-1/3 liters and he was competing with a teacher who actually had 6-2/3 liters of air.
Here is a little fellow with a tiny lung capacity taught by a fellow with a huge lung capacity. This youngster could not begin to sustain like the teacher because he has not old enough - it would be a physical impossibility. If this youngster were taught to play with the same qualities of tone but with short phrases as he has a little fuel tank, he can refill his tank instead of trying to make it last. It would be a very healthy situation, even at an early age, he can come to a fine quality of tone but he just cannot make it last very long. He should be taught phrasing but he should not have to do the complete phrase of the adult because of not having a large fuel tank of air, he has a very tiny one. Now, here is a youngster with 2-1/3 liters and a teacher with 6-2/3 liters of air.