Strange pressure in throat?

[Travis99079]

When practicing, I sometimes encounter this odd phenomenon where my throat, I suppose near the vocal folds, gets this strange pressure. Not sure if there are muscles I could be accidentally flexing/straining??? I focus on relaxing everything, but it still seems to persist.

Not every time, but it tends to happen during long and sustained legato passages, usually at soft dynamics. Thoughts on what this could be?

[peter birch]

When practicing, I sometimes encounter this odd phenomenon where my throat, I suppose near the vocal folds, gets this strange pressure. Not sure if there are muscles I could be accidentally flexing/straining??? I focus on relaxing everything, but it still seems to persist.

Not every time, but it tends to happen during long and sustained legato passages, usually at soft dynamics. Thoughts on what this could be?

what we sometimes forget is that breathing is, primarily, the body's way of getting rid of Carbon Dioxide and that tuba playing sometimes gets in the way of that. My guess is that your CO2 levels have got a little too high, and the pressure you feel is your body wanting to get rid of it before you are ready to finish your phrase

[MaryAnn]

This sounds like one of those things that unfortunately you're going to have to figure out yourself. It's possible that the occasional teacher could help, but my experience is that the advice you'll get on something like this is not going to be of much help.

[tbonesullivan]

Could be pressure, or could also be fatigue. There are muscles in the lining of the pharynx, larynx, esophagus, etc. When you play a wind instrument you build up pressure inside, and that stretches things. This can be the body deciding to push back.

I have a problem sometimes during particularly long passages that I sometimes get OVER oxygenated. Then I don't have to breathe for 2 minutes or so after it's over.

[brianf]

Could you be triggering Valsalva? Playing the tuba requires air flow, not air pressure.

[happyroman]

If it is happening at the end of long phrases, you are likely getting too close to the end of your usable lung volume. From full lungs, if we blow the air out as fast as possible, we expend about 80% of our volume in one second (assuming healthy lungs). The remaining 20% can take as long as four or five more seconds to get to empty. There are a lot of undesirable physical effects going on in order to get this last bit of air out because we are in effect, having to squeeze it out.

This last bit of air is not really usable for playing a wind instrument. Arnold Jacobs used the analogy of an automobile gas tank, where if we use the last bit of gas in the tank, all the dirt and grit that has settled on the bottom of the tank gets sucked into the carburetor (for those who remember when cars were equipped with them).

His recommendation was to always re-breathe when we get to approximately the last third of a tank in order to avoid this last bit of air which is basically unusable. Doing this also has the added benefit that it is much easier to refill the lungs if they are not completely empty. If we have squeezed out the last drop of air, there expiratory muscles are so contracted it is hard for them to let go so that the inspiratory muscles can work freely.

Look at the music you are playing and find the sub-phrases in the line. Then feel free to breathe wherever you need to. Due to his small lung volumes, Mr. Jacobs was a master at sneaking breaths where he needed them, and no one in the audience ever noticed.

[Travis99079]

Thanks for the input folks. This is pretty darn specific, but it's been helpful.

I probably just need to practice more.

[imperialbari]

Are you sure your vocal cords don’t interfere with the airflow?

Might be audible as a noise component in the sound. Or if you unwittingly try to sing in tune with your actual notes, then there may be a little of the sound quality known from multiple stop note (there is a better term for that, but it escapes me right now).

Research with horn players has shown that their vocal cords sing the pitch of the upcoming note right at the attack and that this stabilizes the note right from its beginning. Female players not able to sing low enough sing an octave up with the same good effect.

In 1973 I attende a clinic with Denis Wick, where he demonstrated the old style Eastern European way of playing legato on the trombone, namely by briefly stopping the air by blocking it off with the vocal cords. I don’t like this effect, as I find the Western style of legato tonguing much smoother and more musical. But of course I went home trying it out myself. Not a good idea, as the air exercised a huge pressure on the closed vocal cords, so that they went very sore. So since then I have kept my vocal cords out of harms way, but for my rare attempts of playing chords/multiple stops, which I am not good at.

Klaus

[happyroman]

I focus on relaxing everything, but it still seems to persist.

The problem with trying to "relax" is that we are not set up to be able to receive feedback from these areas very well. They are not controlled by the part of the brain we use for thinking. If you want to keep the air passage open (i.e., the tongue low in the oral cavity), think in terms of a singer that has a voice like a tuba that is singing using one of the three low vowel sounds, OH, OOH, or AHH. You do not vocalize these vowels while playing, but by using your imagination, think as if you are singing these vowels while playing. This will keep the tongue low and allow a thick column of air to get to the lips.

Start with full lungs and replace the air when you get to approximately 1/3 of a tank left.

The final note is to make sure you don't blow the air hard against the lips. The lips have a tremendous ability to resist the air, if we allow them to. See how little back pressure you can get when you play. You want thick air that moves faster or slower, depending on the dynamic, but not air that is blown hard.