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Hi! I had a question regarding Arnold Jacobs.
Arnold Jacobs knew a lot about the anatomy and physiology of the human body and how it related to music. He could explain simple issues in brass playing or broad musical concepts by explaining them in a philosophical sense. He knew about different stimulus in the brain that occurred when you would do something musically such as buzzing or initiating a vibration with the lips for instance. These stimulus activate a signal, the signal is then sent down through the 7th Cranial Nerve and ties into the lips and embouchure and then the lips develop response and that is how vibration is created. Arnold Jacobs knew about this anatomical side of music and how all this related and tied together right?

But how? How did he learn all of these things? Did he go to school for it, maybe a minor in med and took some advanced physiological courses at the time?
I have done some research myself on this side of music, this medical approach to understanding concepts in music. Just to be clear, I do not use this to analyze things in music, or my playing. I simply try to study this because I want to see how our bodies interact to create music and I think it's quite fascinating.
How did Arnold Jacobs start learning all of these things?
I know doctors would come to him, or just people that reside in the medical field. They would come to him with questions about respiratory activity and such.

The study of physiology was Mr. Jacobs' hobby. While he audited some courses way back when, He read a lot - A man is who a man reads! Here is a partial list of what he read: http://www.windsongpress.com/wp-content ... ks.pdf.pdf" target="_blank

I recall reading that his dad was a doctor who had a practice in their home. Arnold read a lot of his medical books. Maybe I dreamt that.

This is why I'm here

After studying with him I always centered in on what he had said I needed to work on. It was years later before I began to realize that Mr. Jacobs was one of the smartest people I had ever known. I believe his intellect would have made him a world-class surgeon, a world-class basso profundo, a world-class psychologist or a world-class bass player had he chosen to go into those fields.

How did he learn all that stuff? He was a heck of a lot smarter than most other people.

He also was of a generation that was much more self-educated. My grandfather was born in 1901 and did not have the opportunity to finish high school. You'd have never known it. He was one of the most educated and well-spoken men I've ever met. Mr. Jacobs was younger but the foregoing still applies.

the elephant wrote:1. Reading
2. Asking questions

There is no mystery, here. He did the research.

Quite often they hide the secrets....

......

.........

in books!

brianf wrote:The study of physiology was Mr. Jacobs' hobby. While he audited some courses way back when, He read a lot - A man is who a man reads! Here is a partial list of what he read: http://www.windsongpress.com/wp-content ... ks.pdf.pdf" target="_blank" target="_blank

That's quite a list!

mbeastep

Paul Scott wrote:He also was of a generation that was much more self-educated. My grandfather was born in 1901 and did not have the opportunity to finish high school. You'd have never known it. He was one of the most educated and well-spoken men I've ever met. Mr. Jacobs was younger but the foregoing still applies.

Unfortunately now, especially in the medical field, the population is being brainwashed ongoing by TV ads for drugs, and do what your doctor tells you, when your doctor's "education" and even how they are taught to think, has been structured by the drug companies. Independent thinking is ridiculed and you get asked what are your qualifications to draw that conclusion? When the qualifications are as just stated above, a degree designed to force the following of a very narrow thought path designed to profit a certain industry. If doctors were trained to think as engineers are trained to think, we'd have a whole lot different "health" care system than we do now, with infinitely better results. I've found that my self education is what has me still alive.

But you still see it in brass pedagogy all over the place. The fear of independent thinking has become pervasive, and is often regarded as "paralysis by analysis" by those who do not know how to think. I'll stop now....hot button.

From ARNOLD JACOBS: SONG AND WIND - "Jacobs was the pioneer of modern-day knowledge of respiration in relation to wind instruments. His research was conducted through thousands of hours of independent research studying the normals and abnormals of respiration. Several doctors, most notable Dr. Bruce Douglass and Dr. Benjamin Burrows, worked with Jacobs. Many have said that Jacobs knows more about the mechanics of respiration than many physicians, although he is primarily self-taught. There is truth in this because physicians are more concerned with diseases and not as concerned with the physiology of respiration as is Jacobs. Jacobs realizes his limitations, and if he senses a medical problem with a student, he always recommends that a physician be consulted immediately."