I feel that I have taken a step forward in my playing lately: I have gotten better at taking breaths. Not how to take breaths, mind you, but when to take breaths.
It’s not a trival thing and it took me quite a bit of time and effort. My goal was to be able to take appropriate breaths when I needed to, and to vary where to take breaths. In order to find out what appropriate breaths are, I listened very carefully to some of my favorite flute and whistle players.
After I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I had to practice. That involved playing tunes very slowly and consciously dropping the middle eighth-note in a group of three eighth-notes in a jig, for example. Dropping notes was not an easy knack to get, but an essential one. For a long time, I could only take breaths in a tune in exactly the spot or spots where I had practiced it, or I would falter or screw up the rhythm. Now I have gotten to the point where I can think, “I want to breathe” and I can do it and keep going. In fact, I have started taking breaths for effect or emphasis.
That was the second technical challenge: If you listen to good flute or whistle playing you’ll notice a very typical thing: The player will punch a strong beat (often the first beat in the A part or B part) and take a breath immediately afterwards. It gives a great kick to the tune, and there are some reels in which I consider it almost indispensible. Again, it took some practice.
My advice would be to learn the tunes with breaths at first. Meaning, as you learn by ear, regard the breaths like a note and learn them. Once you have the tune, play it slowly and vary the breaths (I daresay the player whose recording you learned the tune from will have varied the breaths already). When you have that, practice dropping other notes in the tune for breaths. At this stage I would not allow myself to take breaths at the end of a part or even a phrase (I am not strict about that rule now). I found that really working on the breaths and my ability to place them where I wanted to in a few tunes gave me the ability to do it in most or all of the tunes that I play. Very satisfying.
I have found this to be just about the hardest thing about learning whistle–especially since I previously played only non-breathing instruments. I haven’t reached Bloomfield’s level yet, as I am still struggling with getting them in. But recently I reached a new understanding on how breathing is not just a way to stay alive but is a real musical component. I used to play as long as my breath would hold out and then find a convenient place to get another lungful. Now I have been working on placing breaths in tunes and it’s raised my playing a notch.
Ditto! I’ve found learning to breath in the correct spots harder than learning to play cuts, strikes, and rolls. I can pick out good places for a breath now, but I can’t always do it very well on the fly.
It’s funny; since taking up the flute, I just can’t believe breathing was ever an issue on the whistle. But it was, and it was a huge issue. The most important thing I learned in my few whistle lessons is pretty much exactly what Bloo said. The idea of blowing and truncating a big accented note was a remarkable eye-opener, and rather than sounding like you’re doing that just to get a big breath, it sounds even more authentic than doing the same on an unaccented long note. It’s also difficult for anyone who’s gotten band or orchestral instruction to pick up the concept of finding many dfferent places to breathe. When you’re supposed to play a piece the same as everyone else and the same every time, that includes breathing in the same place each time. But if you’re playing by yourself or in a small ensemble, and you’re going through a piece four times, mixing things up a little makes it less boring, both for the player and the listener.
As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as breathing too often, just breathing too seldom. Within reason, of course.
Reading everyone’s messages, I assume that taking a breath generally refers to inhaling. I seem to have a different problem. As I toodle along on my whistle, I find myself needing to take a big exhalation. That is, I have plenty o’ air stored in my lungs, but (physiologically speaking) I guess I need to blow off some CO2. Of course, after exhaling, then I must inhale again before continuing, so the whole process takes several beats. And I find myself feeling a bit out of breath.
Is this symptomatic of something I’m doing wrong? Perhaps taking inhalations that are too big? Or something about the air pressure I’m using?
Not being an experienced breather, I find myself sometimes having too much air and I used to think that was something that needed to be used up, like finishing the box of cereal before opening another. But then I ran into the issues where someone told me I don’t breathe enough and it sounded like I was just blowing and fingering (which I was) from start to finish. I was told that it didn’t sound musical when I did that (which it didn’t).
What has happened since then is that I find when I take the extra breaths I don’t often take as big a ones and so I’m not having to get rid of excess air as much. Plus it sounds better.
Used to happen to me to. Trick is to learn not to fill your lungs too much. Whistles (mostly) don’t take much air. Try inhaling through your nose, that may help.
So I’ve heard of circular breathing, but am unclear on how it is achieved. Are there any good practices that would later lead one to be able to use it? What exactly is it anyway? Sounds like a good thing . . .
Circular breathing means that you don’t break the airstream blowing into your instrument, so that you can play and play and play and play without ever taking a breath.
The way this works is that you (1) fill your cheeks with air from your lungs, (2) use that air to play your instrument by pushing it out with your cheek muscles, while (3) taking a breath through your nose to fill your lungs. Since you don’t have much air in your cheeks, that breath has to be a quick one.
If you l run a search on the web, you’ll find explanations and instructions. One typical method of learning it is continuosly blowing bubbles with a straw stuck in a glass of water.
There was another thread long ago about the waterglass method, but I can’t find it now.
I tried it years and years ago (before taking up the whistle), but it seemed to much effort at the time. :roll: On whistle I think the challenge would be getting enough backpressure going to be able to puff your cheeks. So, I think I’d start on an Overton, if I were to try it now.
