Good sound is indicative of good breathing.
-Arnold Jacobs
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
-Oprah Winfrey
Air, it’s everywhere, it’s free, and we should get more of it. In any masterclass or lesson, everyone is always talking about air support. Here is how to get more, get better, and to feel better!
There are many great tricks and hacks to cultivate more effective air support and to use it to make us better musicians and healthier people. By learning to breathe right, we can actually help our health outcomes and our mental state. One of the most important things that anyone will tell you in a panic situation is to relax and breathe. A great side effect of proper air support is that it is also one of the best tools for relaxation. As professional musicians, we need relaxing to optimize our performing and create healthy and fulfilling careers.
All wind instrumentalists depend on air support to produce sounds on their instruments. Taking maximum air while avoiding tension allow us to excel in tone production, intonation, articulation, phrasing, dynamics, and virtually every aspect of our musicianship. Maximizing inhalations and controlling the speed and duration of exhalations leads to better nuance and expression in concert situations. Even string players and pianists encourage their students to explore the importance of proper breathing, even if their sound production isn’t necessarily dependent physically on air.
This article will take you through proper breathing for wind instrumentalists, from the very beginning techniques and metaphors to more advanced methods. What’s important is to find what works for YOU personally. Please also remember that I am a Doctor of Clarinet, not a Doctor of Medicine so please check with the latter before incorporating any of these tips into your playing. This is not medical advice.
The first step is to learn from everyone. As classical musicians we tend to exist in isolated silos of learning. Expand your horizons to include different instruments and disciplines. This can include medical experts, scientists, athletes, coaches, and other wind players. If we are beginning with musicians, one of the finest examples of wind air pedagogy can be found in Arnold Jacob’s Song and Wind. Written by Brian Frederiksen and edited by John Taylor, this classic read remains a must-read for wind instrumentalists. I have also included a compilation of helpful links, not just by wind instrumentalists but from a wide array of disciplines, at the end of this article.
It is useful to start air practice in a relaxed, happy state in which we don’t force breath into our lungs, but see this instead as a wonderful opportunity to optimize our well-being. Mental techniques, mantras, relaxation techniques, yoga, prayer, or any number of practices can help get us into a relaxed frame of mind and associate our instruments with happiness.
When think about more air, we should actually strive for lower air, allowing the diaphragm to relax and drop so that the lungs can expand. The American Lung Association, states, “one of the first techniques taught to new wind players is to learn to breathe from your diaphragm, instead of from your shoulders and neck, which is the way many people breathe normally.”
Tension causes us to take shallow breaths and add stress in our shoulders and necks. Try to relax the neck and upper body by doing light neck and shoulder rolls before your practice session or a performance. Expand the spinal column up, first without your instrument in your hand and keep this posture when you add it later. A good stretching regimen is essentially for proper air support. By expanding the thoracic cavity and the intercostal muscles, the muscles that run between the ribs, there is more room for proper oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange.
The next key for expansive air support is any type of activity that enhances cardiovascular function. This can be running, walking, tennis, swimming or almost any movement. Strength training can help as well and often affordable personal trainers are available through local resources in your community, such as community recreation centers. As always, check with a doctor before starting any new activity.
The power of metaphors in teaching and playing cannot be overstated.
It’s important that every musician find a technique that works best for them. Here are a few that have worked for me and my students to take effective inhalations:
Low pitched breathing
A great way to let your body breathe naturally is to pay attention to the pitch of your breath. The lower the sound, the lower it goes in your body. You can try this out by sitting up straight and taking a few “Darth Vader” breaths. Pay attention to how you feel. Then try a few “Minnie Mouse” breaths, shallow and high pitched. You are essentially hyperventilating with the latter. You can see how the lower pitched and relaxed breath makes you feel clear-headed and supported.
Belly breathing
Put your hands on your abdomen at your waist level. Make sure that your inhalations are low enough to make your abdomen expand against your hands.
Singing
Opera singers have some of the best breathing techniques in the classical world scene. Watch videos of opera (which is great for our phrasing as well) and then practice singing your music in this supported style. Since we aren’t trained singers, don’t worry about your perfection of voice but do make sure to learn how to project. Try enhancing your speaking diction and clarity by taking more air every time that you speak.
Bone versus Tissue
Imagine a skeleton hanging in an old-time doctor’s office. Everything that is on that skeleton should not be involved in moving in this breathing exercise. Instead take a deep breath and make sure anything that is tissue on your torso moves while the bones hold still. This will stop you from raising your shoulders or bringing your neck forward. This neutral skeleton and expansive tissue exercise will help you stay healthy and expand your inhalations.
Imagining underwater swimming
Imagine that you are about to dive underwater to swim underwater for the entire length of a swimming pool. Visualize breathing quickly and taking in a large volume of air efficiently.
Blowing out birthday candles
Imagine that you are blowing out the candles on a birthday cake and you have to get them out in one breath. A great side effect of this exercise is that it also invokes a positive and happy life event, inducing more relaxation in our performing.
Yawning
Yawning is your body’s attempt to take in more oxygen. Then replicate this deep and relaxing breath in your practicing.
Blowing the music off the stand
Take a deep low breath and then try to blow your music off of your stand. Or try to hold a piece of paper onto the wall just using your strong exhalations.
Posture
There are a multitude of posture techniques that will maximize our inhalations and optimize our musculoskeletal system. Methods such as Alexander Technique (https://alexandertechnique.com) and Feldenkrais (https://feldenkrais.com) give us a large toolbox of techniques. For example, pretend that someone is pulling hair on the top of your head up towards the ceiling. Or that you are a puppet and being stretched upwards by an invisible hand. These exercises will help elongate the spine.
Another great technique is proper use of the “wing muscles” between your shoulder blades. Without your instruments in hand, stretch your arms out as if you were an eagle and feel the scapula muscles engage. Use these to pull your shoulder blades back and down. When you bring your hands in, try to maintain that engagement in these muscles and in your core.
Avoiding environmental toxins
COVID got us all thinking more of healthy lungs and what we can do to mitigate risk to these delicate anatomical structures. As much as possible, keep yourself in good lung shape, avoiding illness through hand washing and general health practices. As wind players, it is especially important to avoid environmental toxins including smoke and other irritants as much as possible. Address any underlying allergies or medical issues, investing in an air filter and mitigating mold, dust, and other factors.
Box breathing
Techniques developed by respiratory therapists for years have great implications for musician breathing. One of these, which you can practice without your instrument, is box breathing. This simple premise has you inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four, hold out for four. Though simple, it is remarkably effective for increasing relaxation and breath control.
Gizmos and tricks
Breathing tools have long been popular in brass communities and can help students develop a strong inhalation practice. Links to breathing bags and lung builders are at the end of this article.
Progressive exhalations
A highly effective tool to build better inhalation is the practice of exhaling for longer periods of time. Take a deep breath, engage in your best posture and then blow your air out rather forcefully for ten slow counts. Then inhale. Take a few normal breaths and then try this again, only now exhaling for fifteen counts. After a short break of breathing normally, try this again for twenty counts. This technique will make you take a low and effective inhalation by necessity in a free and unencumbered manner.
Learn from freedivers
Freedivers have a number of relevant techniques for building some of the most effective breathing techniques in the world. These include making sure that we exhale completely before inhaling, so that we don’t have any stale air in our lungs. They also “pack” inhalations, finding the capacity to take in more air before a major dive. Another freediving technique is counting the breath timing, going gradually longer on inhalations and exhalations.
Relaxing on exhalation, don’t panic
Not getting tense and taking a breath before we have “emptied” our lungs is essential to good breathing hygiene. Building CO2 tolerance gradually and not gasping for air too soon is a great way to extend how long you can take in between breaths.
Progressive long tones
Let the muscles that assist in gas exchange warm up gradually. By slowing down long tones gradually after starting in a state of ease, we can gradually work to longer and more relaxed inhalation.
Progressively longer phrases
On exhalations you actually have more air than you think. Yes, you can circular breathe, but the other option is to tolerate more CO2 build up and to create better mechanisms for gas exchange. One way to do this is to exercise phrases longer than you think you can in a relaxed state.
For example, if I have a solo that I’m worried about sustaining through, I will hold the last night longer in my practicing or gradually slow the tempo down, sometime to twice as slow as it actually needs to go. This give me the security in concert, when my heart rate is higher, to know that I can easily complete the line without forcing or tensing to squeeze the last air from my lungs.
Don’t be ashamed of breathing
While we don’t want excessive breath noises to distract from our music making or that of our colleagues, don’t hide that you are a wind player! Look at the way great opera singers incorporate breathing into their art. Don’t avoid breaths: string players and pianists actually teach their students to add breathing. Breathing in music is organic, we just want to enhance our ability to be more efficient, increasing the speed and effectiveness of our oxygen exchange.
By breathing more effectively, we can achieve flow state and be deeply relaxed in our concerts and auditions. More expansive support will give us bigger sounds and more control over our timbre and nuance. Articulation is almost completely air dependent, relying on maximum support to keep the air going when we slightly interrupt the flow with the tongue. This ensures proper diction and communication of our musical ideas. All wind players can see immediate improvement with air support by finding the technique that best fits their musical path.