I’m so thankful for this forum as it’s given this old guy the confidence to put myself out there and finally learn how to really play real music instead of nursery rhymes. I’ve gotten pretty good over the past three years at playing whistles and consider myself a solid intermediate player.
My biggest issue is how and when to breathe while playing which has a direct impact on rhythm. I was reading, on the Flute Forum, Cathy Wilde’s passionate review of Conal O’ Grada’s (sp?) new flute tutorial and she expresses perfectly my dilemma. I have pretty solid skills at techniques of finger ornamentation and I think I do a good job of controlling breathing dynamics with respect to tongueing, glottal stops, controlling pitch etc. I just can’t decide when to breathe during tunes and of course it varies between whistles since some are more efficient (can of worms alert) than others.
I listen a lot and study video of great players but haven’t yet internalized a good process for planning breathing other than trial and error.
I searched for a thread for this but didn’t come up with anything contiguous or consistent. Is there any key or rule of thumb that I can use to get over the hump? Is this where a teacher is the only real solution? This would be difficult for me since I have a rather unpredictable work schedule. Any help would be really appreciated as are all the tips and lessons I’ve received from the gracious players on C&F.
I believe a person should breath all the time, except when they’re underwater or other breathing prohibitive places. This is just my two cents but I think it matters if you’re the only wind instrument playing or if you’re playing with a bunch of wind instruments. I rarely play with other wind instruments. I would go on the same principle that vocalists do. If you’re the only wind instrument, take your breath when the phrasing calls for it. If you’re playing with other wind instruments, take your breath when other folks don’t so that the sound is seamless. Imagine if everyone in a choir took their breath at the same time. It would sound funny.
Not if the phrasing called for it, which it normally does. Choirs don’t generally sing music that goes on and on in all voices without a break.
The biggest - to my ear - fault in much amateur whistle and flute playing I hear from links on this forum and elsewhere on the internet is bad phrasing, exacerbated by opportunistic breath-snatching. ITM dance tunes, like most other western music, do have a phrasal structure, and you should breathe to emphasise and shape it, or at least in such a way as not to break it up.
Most tunes break up into symmetrical two or four bar sections. Breathe between them. You can always play a quarter note staccato, for instance, to give yourself space. Also, if you’re having difficulty finding breathing places, then maybe you’re playing too fast?
I’ve been struggling with this myself lately. I’ve been working on “Drag Her Round the Road” which I’ve heard played at 200 bpm. i’m not sure if that’s normal or fast but I’ve been working my way up to that level. I’m up to about 150. What I found really surprised me. Often times my breathing is limited by the amount of time I have to inhale. I find when playing fast that I’m not able to inhale a lungful. So I inhale a 1/3 lung full and play with that and it’s quite limiting. What I’ve been doing is cutting quarter notes short (unless they’re in the middle of a phrase and are meant to be held out). But at 150 bpm even cutting it short doesn’t allow much time to breath.
How many ‘beats’ are you counting per bar there? I normally count 2 per bar, and, at that rate, I consider 112-116 bpm to be about the limit of where I like to play reels, on either fiddle or flute. There are people who play faster of course, but it’s not that common, thank goodness. So, I’m assuming that your speed there is equivalent to what I would consider to be 100 bpm, cunparis. Am I right?
Anyway, to the OP, I try not to have hard and fast rules, except …
It’s good to vary where you breathe.
It’s usually better to breathe somewhere in the middle of the bar, and try to avoid breathing ‘between’ bars, if the music is in constantly flowing quavers, say.
It’s nice to try and continue past the end of a part sometimes, or back into the start of a part, rather than to always take a breath at the end of the A or B part.
Here’s one that might help: breathe immediately after an important note, never before.
Having said that I don’t know if rules are of much use, really. Would you care to specify a tune that typically gives you trouble? Maybe then we could dissect it for you and suggest some good places to breathe, and why they are good places to breathe.
Cunparis: just had a quick run through Drag her round the Road and I’d say cutting short quarter notes is a pretty good strategy, as is taking a little snippet that might well consist of a series of eighth notes and make the downbeat a shortened quarter note/breath instead. I tend to breathe in the same few places in that tune but when you analyse it there are loads of opportunities all the way through.
And you are right, at any kind of danceable speed you haven’t much time to get air into your lungs. Lungfuls are out of the question, but if you make good use of the limited time, the little sips or gulps you can take will easily keep you going for four or six bars if necessary.
Well, I don’t consider that the speed you are playing it at is much of an issue. At a good clip, yes, the intervals for snatching a breath are shorter, but on the other hand you are using less air, so you will need a breath after more or less the same number of notes as when playing the tune more slowly!
That assertion may or may not stand up to scientific scrutiny, I suppose. But I really don’t think speed changes much.
Cooley’s reel, the way most people play it, has a number of passages of continuous eighth notes where it seems you can’t take a breath. But you always can. You have to develop the knack of varying the tune to allow yourself a breath - this is a bit more complex than shortening a quarter note, but it’s not that difficult. It gets easier as you go on. And the better you know the tune, and the ins and outs of the musical language, the easier it gets. It becomes unconscious, in fact.
In jigs, we often drop an eighth note, typically in the middle of a group of three, in order to breathe. You can do the same thing in reels.
Ideally I’d post a recording… will try to get time later. In the meantime here is a typical ABC transcription of the tune. I repeat each line showing the notes I would usually shorten or drop by inserting a rest (z). Obviously I wouldn’t take all these breaths in any one playing: they are just possibilities. And I’m sure more could be found easily. Hope this helps.
X:35
T:JOE COOLEY’S REEL
C:Joe Mills, Galway (1938)
R:reel
M:C|
L:1/8
Z:Henrik Norbeck
K:Edor
EBBA B2EB|B2AB dBAG|FDAD BDAD|FDFA dAFD|EBBA Bz[/b]EB|BzAB defg| % a few possible places to take breaths - indicated by a rest (z)
EBBA BzEB|BzAB dBAG|FDAD BDAD|FzFA dAFD|EBBA B2EB|B2AB defg|
BTW, a few years ago there was a useful site called whistlethis.com
It was a “tune of the month” idea, and people could upload their own recordings of tunes and get feedback from other members.
It was fun while it lasted, and possibly of use to some, but after a while the owner moved on to other things and the site quickly became moribund. But it is still up, 4 years later, and you can listen to everything that was posted.
Cooley’s reel was one of the tunes, with lots of submissions. Obviously the quality varies widely, but some of the better clips may be instructive, hearing where different players snatch breaths. I particularly like a low-D rendition by Jacob Fournel, and “kilfarboy” (lately Mr. Gumby on here) posted two nice renditions. I posted two versions myself as “Kipper”, using some of the breathing spots indicated in the above post.
Go to whistlethis.com, choose “Previous tunes”, then “Cooley’s reel” and you’ll see all the clips.
There are places to breathe in a tune that do not break the phrasing, lilt, timing of the tune regardless of speed. These are logically on longer notes that can be shortened or by dropping out the middle note of a triplet for example. Sometimes this clipping of long note or dropping of a note can even enhance the tune by changing it up second time through etc. Also, it sounds better in some places than others so you should try it out. It took me a long time to realize how important this is and then to easily incorporate and play around with it in tunes. It was explained to me as gassing up at the available gas station so you don’t run out at an awkward point in the tune. Reading some posts, maybe there are some who just always did this naturally and so never had to be conscious of it; kudos (or cooties) to them.
Just bouncing off the last two posts, one thing you can do - and I do quite frequently - is to turn running or passage work triplets into a dotted quarter note - for instance, you can vary GF#G AGA into G.. A.. (no idea how to do this in ABC notation). Which allows you to breathe quite nicely if you play them staccato. And can give a nice surge to a repeat. Nothing new here, but I thought I’d add it just in case no-one else had.
The Irish are prone to NOT setting hard-and-fast rules about anything, least of all Irish music. I’ve never liked those tutor books that break everything down into logical, systematic procedures. The only advice I’d give is to draw a breath anywhere except when approaching a crescendo (sp?). I’ve found myself running out of breath and taking a gulp and dropping a note or two at critical junctures. I was surprised that it seemed to work ok.
If you work with sheet music, you might mark in breather points.
(can of worms alert) than others.
