Catch Your Breath!


© Karen Stafford

One of the banes of tackling any instrument, including flute, is learning proper breathing to facilitate good, pure, strong tones that last from here to forever. Often, however, people just learning an instrument don't realize that the way they've been breathing in order to exist doesn't exactly work in the world of instrument playing. Proper breathing comes from down deep in the abdomen, from the muscle known as the diaphragm. To help the lungs work to their fullest capacity, the diaphragm must be allowed to drop down and out, then stay tense as long as possible to keep the breath support going. This can be quite a tough concept to think about, but here are some exercises and mental "imagings" that can help.

An exercise that my college instructor taught was the "hissing" method. Although this obviously doesn't use the correct embouchure, it does help develop the abdominal muscles. Inhale slowly through your nose, taking in as much air as you can. Exhale through clenched teeth, and count how many seconds it takes you to completely empty your lungs. Try to work your way past a count of 25.

I also tell my students to visualize a balloon. A balloon fills the bottom part up first, and is larger at the bottom. When air is released slowly, the bottom is the last to lose air. This can be compared to a wind player from head to lower torso, with the abdomen "acting" as the lower part of the balloon.

The other famous analogy is that the abdominal muscles must be tense enough during playing that one can be hit in the stomach and not feel anything. (However, if you are a teacher, I wouldn't suggest demonstrating this!) But, you can at least imagine that feel and maybe think about the muscles in a "defense" mode.

Other breathing ideas from members of both the Flute List and Flute Net mailing lists (for information on joining, check my links section):

Sally Ann Hart uses bubble wands to demonstrate proper breathing. She also uses this idea from Bob Aitkin: put your arms up high overhead on inhale, exhale quickly while letting the arms drop. The exhale needs to be big and almost pushy.

Lauren Rongo suggests blowing a ping pong ball across the floor. Another idea: put a piece of paper on the wall and hold it on their by blowing on it.

Other ideas:
Pretend to blow on a candle without putting the flame out.

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