I recently started playing the tin whistle. Has anyone any tips on the breathing aspect. I struggle with some tunes and find I have to pause during the tune. Sometimes I get to the end of the tune in a heap gasping. Are there any exercises to help me improve or will it just get easier with practice?
It's a fact that you stop playing to breathe - there's no gettting away from that. (unless you make a bellows-driven bag to blow the instrument - but that would never catch on) so you have to develop a technique of inhaling very quickly, at the least intrusive places in the tune - which at first will seem to be the ends of the A parts and the B parts, but which will later be found in other places as well, or instead.
1) Breathe in through your mouth - its quicker. We're talking a quick gulp of air here, not a gently measured breath.
2) For a little exercise at home, just play something slowly and think carefully about your breathing, and where it happens. You won't necessarily be breathing in because you need air for survival, but because you need an air supply for the instrument. Sometimes, after you've tried a tune a time or two, you will find that there is a place where you need to inhale a lot sooner than seems natural, to be prepared for of what lies ahead.
3) Finally - there just is no place to breathe in Morrison's jig - you can only play this when you have developed the ability to exhale steadily for the entire length of the tune.
I assume you play mostly from sheet music? First, you have to find the right breathing spaces. If there are long notes in the tune, you can shorten them in order to breathe and come back in when it's time for the next note. In case of jigs and reels, there often is no other solution than to skip notes. This is no bad thing but a form of variation. Be sure to skip "unimportant" notes. As a thumb rule, in reels the second note in a group of four is "weak", in jigs it is the middle note in a group of three. If you are short of breath, take the notes out, take air in and come back in time for the next note. By the way, the more you get to know the tune, the less air you will need to play it.
Christian
funny you say that about morrisons its the only tune i can do the fingerwork for and now you mention it its quite right about the lack of breath I did get a brown and blue inhaler from my doctors a while ago and this has helped imensley
Are you gasping because you haven't breathed in - Or because you haven't breathed out? I find that when I'm playing the whistle I have to find pauses between phrases to breathe out otherwise I end up with a lungful of stale, useless air. Breathing in seems more intuitive. I don't know if this is common with the whistle, or just peculiar to me ....
I've just started playing the oboe again after a few years gap and finding the breathing the most difficult technique to re-acquire!! Thanks Ottery - you made me think about the problem and it is the breathing out thats causing the most problems. I take a deep breath to start, but you can only get a small amount of air through that tiny reed!! I saw a 70 yr old play a wind instrument for 15 minutes without stopping because he could circular breathe - I wish I could master that technique!!
All good advice. The other thing that applies to both flute and whistle in different ways is not to wait until you feel you 'need' to breathe, but to get in early. Otherwise, you'll find yourself gradually running more and more out of breath, your tone will weaken and/or you'll speed up in panic to get to the end of a phrase and 'safety'. The most frustraing thing is to make a great job of a tune only to reach the penultimate note blue in the face and realise that there's just no way produce a nice finishing note, rather it just dribbles out the end of the instrument and dies quietly!
Just adding to Christian's repsonse above. I find it useful to take time to look at the sheet music (away from the instrument )so that you can identify good breathing places. Mark the breathing places and then try playing according to them. With practice you will get a sense of where they should be. And, as suggested, use breathing as a way of making the music more interesting.... balance short and long phrases, or attack the note after a breath with a bit more punch to add emphasis. G.
Ottery, yer absolutely right about breathing out. I find the same thing.
On various whistle tutors (but mostly Francis McPeake's) I've found the sheet music amended to illustrate breathing points. At first I didn't pay a lot of attention, as it seemed to be that a breathing point came at the end of every bar or two. Then I tried it and it's a lot easier. More, but shallower breaths. Neil puts it well when he says "Get in early".
thanks for the tips, some very interesting, I tend to take a large breath at the start of the A and the B parts of the tune respectively, and try to let it out slowly during the tune. Not a good technique I fell. I find depending on the tune you could be in a situation at the end of the A part with some air left so you have to both exhale and inhale to start the B part, or find you are lacking in air and the last part of the tune sounds crap and leaves you sounding exhausted.
"circular breathing" is this a myth or can it actually be achieved.
Anybody out there mastered it, if so how did you do it, did it take you long to master etc?
Circular breathing can only be done where the output of air is small.
You can try it without any instrument.
Breathe in through your nose, then blow a long, sustained, raspberry through your lips. This needs to be a thin, reedy raspberry, not a big squelchy noise.
Make sure you inflate your cheeks well, then you'll find you can close the back of your mouth, while sustaining the raspberry, and simulaneously breathe in through your nose.
Try it.
Once you've got the hang of it you'll realise that while it might work for an oboe, you'll never manage it with a whistle.
practising tunes at slower speeds means you have to breathe more often. if i have difficulty with breathing while i'm learning a new tune, i tend not to worry about it. if you are learning from a flute/whistle recording, take the time to have a really good listen to where the player breathes - this is often the best indication of the most convenient places.
Having played (wrestled with?) oboe for 30 years before picking up the fiddle, and recently starting up flute again, I'll add my bit: make sure you use the support of your diaphragm under your lungs (no comments please!) Take a deep breath into your belly, then tighten your stomach muscles like a sit-up and blow a small, focused, controlled stream of air across the flute, into the whistle, etc. Slowly contract the stomach muscles first, then your chest muscles last and if you need an extra 'whoosh' to the end of the phrase, you usually have some left in your throat and mouth. Next breath is another belly one.
The column of air is smoother, more controlled and less likely to induce the dizzies and passing out that make a mess out of your session playing. It takes time to develop, but really does help.
Circular breathing is apparently possible on the flute and whistle, although harder than on instruments that offer more back-resistance like saxes... check out Robert Dicks pages on Larry Krantz's website http://www.larrykrantz.com/rdick.htm#csing
From my few brief experiments I think he must be built differently to the rest of us though
Yeah, I've been puzzling over that Robert Dick feller's circular breathing claims for years. Maybe he's got extra flappy cheeks over which he has gained unprecedented mastery.
Still, what a good trick that must be. Neil, I think you should go ahead and get his Circular Breathing book, learn the technique and then teach me! I'll even buy you a few pints to say thank you
Q, I'm not falling for that - I'm still recovering from a freind who was taking a philosophy course suggesting that I should read 'Conciousness Explained' and then summarise it for him as he didn't have the time. You think circular breathing is hard?
That's easy! Consciousness is the emergent property of the conflagration of subroutines that build on and feed into and out of one another in your central processor. It's the software to the brain's hardware. What more is there to explain?
Wait, don't answer that. I spent my entire third year at university trying to explain consciousness to myself, and by the end of it, my grades told me, I was only partly convincing
Anybody who has had a go at a Didgeridoo has tried "Circular Breathing" and let me tell you, Waddy, there's a fair old throughput of air in a didge, even though most of it is blowing raspberries. I will try it on the whistle... this may take some time (like years).
It could be worse--try playing trad tunes on a harmonica--the blow and draw notes come so fast that you can easily hyperventilate. And some phrases require more breathing in than out, so you sometimes have to pause to blow out, which is very counter-intuitive. I think that is why they invented the accordion, to let a bellows do the work!
The first time I saw circular breathing and realised what was going on was a few years when I was in Egypt. A small band was playing in the cafe and one of the instruments was a keyless reed instrument looking more like a baroque oboe than anything else I can think of. After about ten minutes I realised that this player had apparently been playing without pausing for breath. I paid more attention, and this was in fact what was happening - circular breathing. Some time later I was able to discuss this with some orchestral players and they confirmed it. Circular breathing is taught to brass players in the music colleges - very useful for the jazz trumpet I should imagine.
The equivalent for a string player is to be able to change bowing direction inaudibly. Difficult, but it can be done with practice, and it is expected of the more advanced classical players. I haven't checked, but Jim Dorans may have something to say about this aspect of bowing technique on his World Fiddle website.
You need to breath in through your mouth, not just because it's quicker. but also because breathing hard through your nose is more likely to make you dizzy. I don't know why. I read it in a book on singing techniques and tested it and it's true.
If you want to exercise your breathing then try playing a simple tune while walking up and downstairs. I do this sometimes as an exercise ever since I had to play in a procession which moved at a pretty good speed. It had not occurred to me that this might be a problem till I tried it.
There's me thinking I'd exhausted all ways to annoy my neighbours with my practice - thanks Gallopede! A whole new vista of possibilities stomping up and down the stairs!
Actually, I can see the reasoning behind this, from an aerobic point of view... but living in a victorian terrace in England, the stairs aren't wide enough to walk up playing the flute so I'd have to side-step. Just off to search for the 'Crab Reel'
I know what oboe players feel like - having to continually hold back their breathing.
I occasionally sing a Goreki Ave Maria, which involves really long, quiet phrases for 15 mins. I am invariably feeling dizzy by the time it finishes.
"Heavy breathing" question
If Louis Armstrong had played in the band on the Titanic - would it have stopped afloat longer?
After 12 years or so pf playing the whistle as a parallel pursuit, I have largely got round the breathing problem. One thing I haven't yet managed to solve, however, is the build up of saliva - I find myself having to stop mid tune and miss several notes in order to swallow (never dropping a beat, I hasten to add).
If you want to stop drooling, just try not to think those thoughts when you're looking at the barmaid. Recite the names of football clubs to yourself or something.
Or keep a large ball of cotton wool in your mouth to dry it up....
I have found that if I sit up straight and keep my chin up while playing the whistle, the spit seems to stay in my gullet rather than drip into the instrument. So I guess I should have listened to my mom nagging me about posture when I was a young pup.
Use ornaments to give yourself opportunities to breathe. There are a variety of ornaments that allow you to skip notes or shorten them, which both give tunes character and a more syncopated sound, while also allowing you to take a breath. Listen to Matt Molloy's solo albums. You will be amazed at how often he takes a breath, and it's easy to hear. I mention this because you might think that with experience comes a greater capacity to play more on a single breath. The truth is, with experience, you'll get better at inserting breaths instinctively as a part of the tune, rather than as an interruption of it.
Agree with the diapraghm control thing. This is the only way to have proper control over your breathing. This allows you to take a lot more air on board than simply a big lung inhale and allows you to manage the outflow more effectively. You can also put more pressure when you need it without significantly increasing the amount of air lost to play louder.
Practice by expanding your tummy to draw down the diapraghm and then slowly release. A lot of people are amazed at how long I can play a note even though I'm a smoker with asthma and chronic bronchitis!
Also try not to have a breath break and the end of phrases but somewhere in the middle. This gives a much better flow to your music.
Need help with breathing
Need help with breathing
I recently started playing the tin whistle. Has anyone any tips on the breathing aspect. I struggle with some tunes and find I have to pause during the tune. Sometimes I get to the end of the tune in a heap gasping. Are there any exercises to help me improve or will it just get easier with practice?
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by squelly
Re: Need help with breathing
Tip - Don't stop.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Need help with breathing
Don't panic - it will get easier with practice.
It's a fact that you stop playing to breathe - there's no gettting away from that. (unless you make a bellows-driven bag to blow the instrument - but that would never catch on) so you have to develop a technique of inhaling very quickly, at the least intrusive places in the tune - which at first will seem to be the ends of the A parts and the B parts, but which will later be found in other places as well, or instead.
1) Breathe in through your mouth - its quicker. We're talking a quick gulp of air here, not a gently measured breath.
2) For a little exercise at home, just play something slowly and think carefully about your breathing, and where it happens. You won't necessarily be breathing in because you need air for survival, but because you need an air supply for the instrument. Sometimes, after you've tried a tune a time or two, you will find that there is a place where you need to inhale a lot sooner than seems natural, to be prepared for of what lies ahead.
3) Finally - there just is no place to breathe in Morrison's jig - you can only play this when you have developed the ability to exhale steadily for the entire length of the tune.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Need help with breathing
I assume you play mostly from sheet music? First, you have to find the right breathing spaces. If there are long notes in the tune, you can shorten them in order to breathe and come back in when it's time for the next note. In case of jigs and reels, there often is no other solution than to skip notes. This is no bad thing but a form of variation. Be sure to skip "unimportant" notes. As a thumb rule, in reels the second note in a group of four is "weak", in jigs it is the middle note in a group of three. If you are short of breath, take the notes out, take air in and come back in time for the next note. By the way, the more you get to know the tune, the less air you will need to play it.
Christian
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by ChristianRo
Re: Need help with breathing
funny you say that about morrisons its the only tune i can do the fingerwork for and now you mention it its quite right about the lack of breath I did get a brown and blue inhaler from my doctors a while ago and this has helped imensley
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Ripthecalico
Re: Need help with breathing
"unless you make a bellows-driven bag to blow the instrument"
I use an electric blower.
KFG
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by KFG
Re: Need help with breathing
Sorry pal - no electric instruments here, it's an acousit session.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Need help with breathing
or acoustic - take your pick
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Need help with breathing
Are you gasping because you haven't breathed in - Or because you haven't breathed out? I find that when I'm playing the whistle I have to find pauses between phrases to breathe out otherwise I end up with a lungful of stale, useless air. Breathing in seems more intuitive. I don't know if this is common with the whistle, or just peculiar to me ....
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Ottery
Re: Need help with breathing
Really good question. I normally get round to saying that Flute and tin whistle players are the only ones who HAVE to breathe!
The advice about using a weak note is sound, so too, a quick intake as oposed to drawing a deep lungful.
And yes! It really does work. The more you play a tune and absorb it, the easier the breathing gets.
One extra little tip. If you can, change the places where you take the breath. That way, serious listeners know that YOU know all the notes!
Brianx
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by briantheflute
Re: Need help with breathing
I've just started playing the oboe again after a few years gap and finding the breathing the most difficult technique to re-acquire!! Thanks Ottery - you made me think about the problem and it is the breathing out thats causing the most problems. I take a deep breath to start, but you can only get a small amount of air through that tiny reed!! I saw a 70 yr old play a wind instrument for 15 minutes without stopping because he could circular breathe - I wish I could master that technique!!
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Tarrantella
Re: Need help with breathing
All good advice. The other thing that applies to both flute and whistle in different ways is not to wait until you feel you 'need' to breathe, but to get in early. Otherwise, you'll find yourself gradually running more and more out of breath, your tone will weaken and/or you'll speed up in panic to get to the end of a phrase and 'safety'. The most frustraing thing is to make a great job of a tune only to reach the penultimate note blue in the face and realise that there's just no way produce a nice finishing note, rather it just dribbles out the end of the instrument and dies quietly!
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by NeilC
Re: Need help with breathing
Just adding to Christian's repsonse above. I find it useful to take time to look at the sheet music (away from the instrument )so that you can identify good breathing places. Mark the breathing places and then try playing according to them. With practice you will get a sense of where they should be. And, as suggested, use breathing as a way of making the music more interesting.... balance short and long phrases, or attack the note after a breath with a bit more punch to add emphasis. G.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Gerry Byrne
Re: Need help with breathing
Ottery, yer absolutely right about breathing out. I find the same thing.
On various whistle tutors (but mostly Francis McPeake's) I've found the sheet music amended to illustrate breathing points. At first I didn't pay a lot of attention, as it seemed to be that a breathing point came at the end of every bar or two. Then I tried it and it's a lot easier. More, but shallower breaths. Neil puts it well when he says "Get in early".
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: Need help with breathing
thanks for the tips, some very interesting, I tend to take a large breath at the start of the A and the B parts of the tune respectively, and try to let it out slowly during the tune. Not a good technique I fell. I find depending on the tune you could be in a situation at the end of the A part with some air left so you have to both exhale and inhale to start the B part, or find you are lacking in air and the last part of the tune sounds crap and leaves you sounding exhausted.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by squelly
Re: Need help with breathing
"circular breathing" is this a myth or can it actually be achieved.
Anybody out there mastered it, if so how did you do it, did it take you long to master etc?
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by squelly
Re: Need help with breathing
Circular breathing can only be done where the output of air is small.
You can try it without any instrument.
Breathe in through your nose, then blow a long, sustained, raspberry through your lips. This needs to be a thin, reedy raspberry, not a big squelchy noise.
Make sure you inflate your cheeks well, then you'll find you can close the back of your mouth, while sustaining the raspberry, and simulaneously breathe in through your nose.
Try it.
Once you've got the hang of it you'll realise that while it might work for an oboe, you'll never manage it with a whistle.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Need help with breathing
Look, my view on all of this, is if you have any flute question, press the Phantom Button on it.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: Need help with breathing
...Or you could always ask me. Just say: "Look, I'm Desperate, Dan..."
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: Need help with breathing
practising tunes at slower speeds means you have to breathe more often. if i have difficulty with breathing while i'm learning a new tune, i tend not to worry about it. if you are learning from a flute/whistle recording, take the time to have a really good listen to where the player breathes - this is often the best indication of the most convenient places.
keep at it!
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by flisstle
Re: Need help with breathing
Having played (wrestled with?) oboe for 30 years before picking up the fiddle, and recently starting up flute again, I'll add my bit: make sure you use the support of your diaphragm under your lungs (no comments please!) Take a deep breath into your belly, then tighten your stomach muscles like a sit-up and blow a small, focused, controlled stream of air across the flute, into the whistle, etc. Slowly contract the stomach muscles first, then your chest muscles last and if you need an extra 'whoosh' to the end of the phrase, you usually have some left in your throat and mouth. Next breath is another belly one.
The column of air is smoother, more controlled and less likely to induce the dizzies and passing out that make a mess out of your session playing. It takes time to develop, but really does help.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by dragonfiddle
Re: Need help with breathing
By the way, keep your stomach tight the whole time, till you grab another breath. Or a pint.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by dragonfiddle
Re: Need help with breathing
Circular breathing is apparently possible on the flute and whistle, although harder than on instruments that offer more back-resistance like saxes... check out Robert Dicks pages on Larry Krantz's website http://www.larrykrantz.com/rdick.htm#csing
From my few brief experiments I think he must be built differently to the rest of us though
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by NeilC
Re: Need help with breathing
Yeah, I've been puzzling over that Robert Dick feller's circular breathing claims for years. Maybe he's got extra flappy cheeks over which he has gained unprecedented mastery.
Still, what a good trick that must be. Neil, I think you should go ahead and get his Circular Breathing book, learn the technique and then teach me! I'll even buy you a few pints to say thank you
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Q
Re: Need help with breathing
Here's another link that describes it:
http://experts.about.com/q/2059/3536502.htm
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Q
Re: Need help with breathing
Q, I'm not falling for that - I'm still recovering from a freind who was taking a philosophy course suggesting that I should read 'Conciousness Explained' and then summarise it for him as he didn't have the time. You think circular breathing is hard?
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by NeilC
Re: Need help with breathing
Apparently circular breathing is de rigeur in jazz and modern classical playing flute-playing. Who knew?
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Q
Re: Need help with breathing
That's easy! Consciousness is the emergent property of the conflagration of subroutines that build on and feed into and out of one another in your central processor. It's the software to the brain's hardware. What more is there to explain?
Wait, don't answer that. I spent my entire third year at university trying to explain consciousness to myself, and by the end of it, my grades told me, I was only partly convincing
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Q
Re: Need help with breathing
Anybody who has had a go at a Didgeridoo has tried "Circular Breathing" and let me tell you, Waddy, there's a fair old throughput of air in a didge, even though most of it is blowing raspberries. I will try it on the whistle... this may take some time (like years).
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: Need help with breathing
In some styles of lfute playing (eg. Sligo) breathing and "breath-pulsing" is quite emphasized and stylized.
# Posted on November 16th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Need help with breathing
It could be worse--try playing trad tunes on a harmonica--the blow and draw notes come so fast that you can easily hyperventilate. And some phrases require more breathing in than out, so you sometimes have to pause to blow out, which is very counter-intuitive. I think that is why they invented the accordion, to let a bellows do the work!
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Need help with breathing
The first time I saw circular breathing and realised what was going on was a few years when I was in Egypt. A small band was playing in the cafe and one of the instruments was a keyless reed instrument looking more like a baroque oboe than anything else I can think of. After about ten minutes I realised that this player had apparently been playing without pausing for breath. I paid more attention, and this was in fact what was happening - circular breathing. Some time later I was able to discuss this with some orchestral players and they confirmed it. Circular breathing is taught to brass players in the music colleges - very useful for the jazz trumpet I should imagine.
The equivalent for a string player is to be able to change bowing direction inaudibly. Difficult, but it can be done with practice, and it is expected of the more advanced classical players. I haven't checked, but Jim Dorans may have something to say about this aspect of bowing technique on his World Fiddle website.
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Need help with breathing
You need to breath in through your mouth, not just because it's quicker. but also because breathing hard through your nose is more likely to make you dizzy. I don't know why. I read it in a book on singing techniques and tested it and it's true.
If you want to exercise your breathing then try playing a simple tune while walking up and downstairs. I do this sometimes as an exercise ever since I had to play in a procession which moved at a pretty good speed. It had not occurred to me that this might be a problem till I tried it.
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by LowProfile
Re: Need help with breathing
There's me thinking I'd exhausted all ways to annoy my neighbours with my practice - thanks Gallopede! A whole new vista of possibilities stomping up and down the stairs!
Actually, I can see the reasoning behind this, from an aerobic point of view... but living in a victorian terrace in England, the stairs aren't wide enough to walk up playing the flute so I'd have to side-step. Just off to search for the 'Crab Reel'
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by NeilC
Re: Need help with breathing
I know what oboe players feel like - having to continually hold back their breathing.
I occasionally sing a Goreki Ave Maria, which involves really long, quiet phrases for 15 mins. I am invariably feeling dizzy by the time it finishes.
"Heavy breathing" question
If Louis Armstrong had played in the band on the Titanic - would it have stopped afloat longer?
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Need help with breathing
After 12 years or so pf playing the whistle as a parallel pursuit, I have largely got round the breathing problem. One thing I haven't yet managed to solve, however, is the build up of saliva - I find myself having to stop mid tune and miss several notes in order to swallow (never dropping a beat, I hasten to add).
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Need help with breathing
If you want to stop drooling, just try not to think those thoughts when you're looking at the barmaid. Recite the names of football clubs to yourself or something.
Or keep a large ball of cotton wool in your mouth to dry it up....
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by Ottery
Re: Need help with breathing
I have found that if I sit up straight and keep my chin up while playing the whistle, the spit seems to stay in my gullet rather than drip into the instrument. So I guess I should have listened to my mom nagging me about posture when I was a young pup.
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Need help with breathing
Of course, that was what I meant to say - look at the ceiling...
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by Ottery
Re: Need help with breathing
Use ornaments to give yourself opportunities to breathe. There are a variety of ornaments that allow you to skip notes or shorten them, which both give tunes character and a more syncopated sound, while also allowing you to take a breath. Listen to Matt Molloy's solo albums. You will be amazed at how often he takes a breath, and it's easy to hear. I mention this because you might think that with experience comes a greater capacity to play more on a single breath. The truth is, with experience, you'll get better at inserting breaths instinctively as a part of the tune, rather than as an interruption of it.
# Posted on November 17th 2005 by Ailin
Re: Need help with breathing
Sorry, Jim, Dave, (Sho)Waddy(dadito). One day I'll get people's names right. Probably on the same day I learn to keep my mouth shut...
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: Need help with breathing
I've started drooling a lot more when playing, oddly. When I started it wasn't a problem..
# Posted on November 18th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Need help with breathing
Agree with the diapraghm control thing. This is the only way to have proper control over your breathing. This allows you to take a lot more air on board than simply a big lung inhale and allows you to manage the outflow more effectively. You can also put more pressure when you need it without significantly increasing the amount of air lost to play louder.
Practice by expanding your tummy to draw down the diapraghm and then slowly release. A lot of people are amazed at how long I can play a note even though I'm a smoker with asthma and chronic bronchitis!
Also try not to have a breath break and the end of phrases but somewhere in the middle. This gives a much better flow to your music.
Good luck.
# Posted on November 19th 2005 by breandan