Swimming is supposed to be quite good for building your breathing stamina; I believe Kevin Crawford credited it for improving his lung capacity.
Years ago I had some lessons with a voice teacher, and one of the things she had me do was to practicing saying nonsense words, just whatever came to mind, for as long as I could on one breath while using my abdominal muscles to support the air column. She could do it easily for 60 seconds, which is quite remarkable as you'll see if you try it. You don't want to take in a huge gulp of air, it's better practice to take in a normal breath and then try to control and sustain your exhale for as long as possible while saying gibberish. I made it to 50 seconds once; normally I'm in the 40 seconds range. If you're sitting, sit up straight and don't lean back in the chair; this will help you better support your air column.
The tricky part is then transferring this skill to the flute. It's easy to slip into your old breathing habits, and also you might find that the physical act of playing dance tunes uses more energy and thus more air. One way I've found around that problem is to play long tones or play a slow air, and then play the dance tunes using the same approach to breathing -- long, supported breaths. Another helpful thing to keep in mind is that you can do glottal stops, tonguing, pulses, whatever, during a phrase without having to breathe: just because you're playing a phrase all in one long exhale doesn't mean the music has to be continuous. You can hear that effect here:
http://homepage.mac.com/bhurley/.Public ... ndbrad.mp3
I'm not taking especially long phrases, but there's quite a bit of staccato stopping and pulsing going on in my exhales; the phrasing isn't entirely dictated by how much breath I have left.
. What have you found most helpful to you? I am always running out of air at the most inopportune times, and I have to run to catch up, or I fade out entirely. Does Grey Larsen have any tip? I have his big book on the whistle and the flute.
