Breath exercises?

[VullNoid]

Somewhere I read the suggestion of recording a clip of yourself playing. I tried it, and it sounds so much worse hearing it played to me! I'm only a beginner, but I was still horrified.

The main problem was that the sound wavered quite a lot. My outward breathing is shaky, and it gets worse the longer it goes on. Can anyone suggest any excerises to help strengthen my breathing? It's a pretty important part for the tiny whistle!

[Congratulations]

Do you sing much? I've had a lot of people tell me that singing promotes good consistent tone (in the classical music world, anyway).

One very obvious suggestion would be long tones. When you first pick up your instrument for the day, play an east note (say G: xxxooo) and hold it for a LONG time. Concentrate on how you sound, and really trying to discern if the note is solid and stable.

I'm sure some others will have good suggestions, as well.

[BillChin]

Good posture helps support your breath.

You can definitely work on intonation. Some notes will sound better than others. You can spend time on all the notes, but pay special attention to those that need the most work. Stay with one whistle (if you have several). Hold each note for a long time, and slowly play up and down the scale. Vary your breath and see how it sounds, especially recorded. It is difficult to accurately hear while you are playing.

[WhistlinBob]

Hi
As a long time Choir member and slide trombone player breath control
I thought was in the bag so to speak that is until our newly graduated from Temple Univ. School of Music Choir director taught me some simple
breath control exercises.You breath in through mouth and nose filling your
lungs to capacity counting 1234 etc. then breath out through pursed lips slowly till your lungs are empty
counting as high as the twenties once you master the technique you'll find it raises capacity and stamina just be careful not to pass out

[Screeeech!!!]

Use your stomach to breath not your chest. You'll get more control from a lifting motion on the outbreath than a lowering one. You also evacuate more stale air from the lungs which allows much more oxygen to get much deeper into the lungs.

[Wynder]

There's a rehearsal technique called 'Long Tones' which really is as simple as it sounds and it's something I used to do for many, many hours each week...

Take in a deep breath of air and hold a single, steady note for as long as you can on that one breath -- do this for each note and repeat as you can tolerate the boredom.

People find that the breath control generally differs the most when you're at absolutely lung capacity or relatively close to running out of air since we generally speak in neither of those conditions -- training yourself to control your breathing like this will eventually lead to solid sounding, non-wavering notes.

[TonyHiggins]

Also pay attention to where you're breathing in a tune. It's harder to control air release at the most full and most empty parts of breathing. If you're playing too long without taking a breath, it will show. And it's not necessary to overfill if you're picking enough breathing spots.
Tony

[Emrys]

The key to playing a wind instrument is definitely to cultivate breath control. The key to breath control is to understand how to do it and to practice. The understanding: use your gut (stomach, diaphragm muscles) to control the air flow). The practice: do this a whole lot... in the car, while watching TV, etc. and you'll build up strength. The whistle is so much easier to play than the flute (in terms of what's required breath-wise) that my guess is that a little practice will go a long way.

But knowing HOW to use your gut is the biggest key of all. Find a good voice teacher who will give you a couple of lessons and teach you this part. It's easy to demonstrate, hard to describe. Make sure this teacher understands how to teach this one point; some do, many don't. The motion of supporting the air flow with your diaphragm muscles is counter-intuitive, meaning that it's not really natural, and many folks do it backwards (or not at all) until they are taught how. Hope this helps.

[Wynder]

Also pay attention to where you're breathing in a tune. It's harder to control air release at the most full and most empty parts of breathing. If you're playing too long without taking a breath, it will show. And it's not necessary to overfill if you're picking enough breathing spots.
Tony

This is a great point -- in the concert music world, we call this 'phrasing' and, while it's generally overlooked by most people, if you have someone who's been trained, it's quite obvious. Most peices are written in 2-8 measure phrases and, after each phrase, a breath should be taken -- it's almost akin to someone speaking strictly in simple sentences (See Jane talk. Watch Spot run. See Dick nod.) as opposed to someone who's using mixed sentence variation (Dick nodded as Jane was talking to him. Meanwhile, Spot ran.).

It can be a complex concept for concert music -- applied to trad, it becomes even more of a pain due to the frantic pace at which we play and, when we're generally the melody instrument, it makes it even more of a hassle. As a rule of thumb, everytime you breath attempt to take in a *full* breath of air into your gut (not just your lungs) and play in that manner. Sit up straight with both feet on the floor. Those are the 'basics' for good playing.

[lisdoonvarna]

I use a breath vibrato that I carried over from singing. It works better for me than the finger vibrato. It helps control the tone for me and makes a much more pleasant tone to listen to. This pulse may erase some of the irregularities in trying to hold a steady tone.

I found ironically that playing the whistle-especially the low whistle has improved my singing markedly. I have both better power and subltlety I can draw from. I think its helped to support the upper register. I was playing a Shaw low D for a couple years and that forced me with its large air requirements to put the diaphram fully in charge.
Pat

[John F.]

Run. Jog. Ride your bike. Take a hike. Swim the Channel. The point is, substantial aerobic endurance and capacity can only be gained through exercise which stresses your cardiovascular system. Try this in addition to the other instrument exercises mentioned above.

Because I road cycle, I came to the whistle world with a good aerobic base, and strong/long breath control. I now use the exercises mentioned by the more experienced players to enhance my performances of "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and other pieces as might be performed by a guy who's played less than a month!

[Cynth]

When you practice your long tones, don't move anything in your body---well, I guess that's the whole idea. But don't move anything in your lungs or mouth---you have to be perfectly still but relaxed.

[tim-hart]

I'd concur with much of what is above. I too do the "long tone" exercise. It's a great way to get a sense of "where your body is" when you start to play. Practice breathing more with your diaphragm and make sure your posture is good. Also work on finding places to breath in tunes so that you don't end up with your lungs completely empty and have to gulp for more air.

Cheers,

tim

[Scott McCallister]

This threadseemed to have some useful ideas.