Away from the Instrument

Much has been made over the years of Arnold Jacobs’ approach. While primarily teaching music, he divorced remedial function matters from the actual playing of the instrument, and using a variety external devices away from the instrument, sought to develop new habits of breathing and air usage with his students.

From Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind*

Jacobs had studied pulmonary function in well-equipped laboratories such as those at the University of Chicago. He observed that some of the mechanical devices used in pulmonary research could be used with musicians to develop in minutes and days habits that it would otherwise take weeks and months to accomplish.

In the early 1960s, the cost of the equipment needed was more than $20,000, which was beyond the means and needs of Jacobs. To the great relief of his wife, he decided to experiment with alternate types of laboratory equipment rather than purchasing high-priced medical equipment.

Investing about $5,000, a great deal of money in 1960, he put together the equipment necessary for his studio. His equipment came from such diverse sources as friends in the medical field, gauges bought from heating and air-conditioning companies, and other devices including kitchen utensils borrowed from his wife. He used devices as simple as drinking straws and as complex as a spirometer.

John Taylor studied with Jacobs during this time and said, “During my years of intense study, 1962-1966, we, his regular students, joked that about every fourth or fifth lesson was ‘devoted to science.’ Mr. Jacobs was still refining and developing equipment at that date, although much was in place by 1962. Often we got to try a new gadget or device while he adjusted it. Those lessons were usually long, because somewhere toward the end he would realize that we had spent quite a bit of time working on the equipment, and we would go on to our musical needs.

“I especially remember the time he got a set of pneumograph tubes—the same as they use on a lie detector. One went around the chest just at the armpits, the second further down and the third around the belt. All I could think of was that I was in an episode of Perry Mason (very popular just then) with Hamilton Berger asking the questions. I am afraid that try as he might, I never responded to the stimuli Arnold gave me.

“Although we joked about ‘donating a lesson to science,’ Arnold Jacobs never gave us anything but his total effort, and if I ever had counted the hours beyond the one hour he charged, I would owe him for lessons into the next century. To prove a point, one day—it was a holiday—I actually had a lesson that actually lasted all day!”

During this time several physicians visited his studio and complimented him on the equipment he had assembled, telling him that, basically, his equipment yielded the same results as their far more costly laboratory equipment.

Over the years the equipment that Jacobs has used has evolved and changed. For example, in 1982, he introduced many inexpensive disposable devices [Air Bag, Breath Builder, Inspiron, and Voldyne®] that perform for musicians many of the same functions as the very expensive laboratory-style equipment.

*Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind, Copyright 1996 Windsong Press, Ltd., All rights reserved.