The Larnyx

CHAPTER ONE

Discovering your best personal sound

The larynx is a doughnut-shaped muscle, wrapped around the vocal cords, forming the “voice box”, and thus determining the timbre and quality of one’s voice.  Wind instrumentalists seldom realize the crucial role the larynx also plays in deciding the quality of their instrument’s sound.

By exercising and developing larynx flexibility you’ll accomplish the most important step in the acquisition of a beautiful, personal tone.

Chapter 4 of this book will be "Meuzik Genome", my name for the complete map of musical vocabulary.  Before one can use this extensive vocabulary, she or he must have voice: one that's beautiful is better.

So, that having been said, I will now go on to explain what, in my opinion, is this best and most effective way to begin a daily practice session:

Playing Harmonics with the Larynx.

This is done by choosing a fundamental tone, one which uses the ‘full pipe’ of your instrument: low Bb is good on saxophone, low E on clarinet, and low C or B on flute.  When attempting to reach an octave higher than this fundamental one, you are using the same technique as playing the bugle, which is all done with the larynx.  Below are the notes of the overtone series for each of the 3 woodwinds on the notes I mentioned. 

(Musical Example #1)

The pattern used to complete the harmonics should be chosen freely as in play, changing it daily; larynx flexibility develops by repetitively moving up and down the series, with absolutely no help from the tongue, and a minimum movement and pressure from the teeth, lips, and jaw.  Below are some pattern goals to strive for.

(Musical Example #2)

On saxophone there’s a really effective larynx warm-up, which I call ‘larynx trills’ because of the similarity to trumpet ‘lip trills’.

Below you will see the set of fingerings for the notes able to be ‘trilled’.  My good friend and master saxophonist, Ronnie Deale, ‘mined’ and assembled these fingerings.

(Musical Examply #3)

The feel of these ‘trills’ will take a bit of time to internalize, but to begin, press the fingering for the particular note, and while blowing the note firmly, feel the larynx fluctuate between the vowel sounds ‘eee’ and ‘ahhh’.  The notes being played should sound like the interval of a minor third, the ‘eee’ for the high tone and the ‘ahhh’ for the lower.  ‘Trill’ the ‘notes’ slowly at first, then gradually increase the speed, always remaining even and controlled.

The use of these ‘trills’ in practical playing situations can only be learned from the ‘Master’s Recordings’, i.e. Phil Woods, Michael Brecker, Sam Donahue, to name only a few.

Another enjoyable exercise is to simply play bugle calls.

The last part of this practice beginning is breath control.

In my next post, I will describe my method for choosing 'long tones' and their intervals that best flex the Larnyx.

Til then, God Bless and high regards,

Errol
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