I am still new to the flute playing (less than a year) and I currently am having a hard time to find the right breathing spots on a reel…working on spootiskerry now.
Could someone please give me some pointers?
Right now I tend to take a breath between the fourth and the next first beat or the end of a line for example and I know it’s not correct …
Don’t know how to fix this and it sounds like I am developing a bad habit.
greetings
berti
Berti, buy yourself some flute recordings of a few of the old greats. Listen and learn tunes from them. Breath where they breath, and listen to the different styles of breathing and breaking up tunes. Do that and you’ll get it in a while. That’s the best advice I can give you. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel cause it’s already been invented. And there isn’t a set formula for breathing out there or some peace of advice that will instantly fix your problem. Just listen and over time breathing and phrasing will become second nature.
Hi Berti,
Learning from the masters is certainly the way to go. However, the fact that those masters breathe unconsciously at the right spots does not mean that there is no rule behind it. From what you write I gather that you try to “squeeze” your breath between the notes. That’s definitely the wrong way. That way, you’ll not be able to maintain a constant rythm. You are much better off to omit eighth notes or shorten quarters. Let’s have a look at the first few bars of your tune:
| G2 DE GDEG | DEGA B2 AB | G2 DE GABd |eged B2 AB |
example #1: shorten quarters (first G in the 3rd bar):
| G2 DE GDEG | DEGA B2 AB | Gz DE GABd |eged B2 AB |
example #2: note omission (g in the 4th bar):
| G2 DE GDEG | DEGA B2 AB | G2 DE GABd |ezed B2 AB |
The second example is a bit problematic as it takes something away from the melody. But that’s the way it goes when you omit a note 
Shortening quarters is always a better solution in my opinion, but sometimes you’ll be out of breath and there’s no quarter around, so that you have no choice.
Grey Larsen describes this very well in his book I think. And his chapter on “musical breathing” is available for free on his site:
http://www.greylarsen.com/store/samples/essguide_chap21.pdf
But again, listen to your recordings and try to breathe the way your heroes do. No better way 
Good luck
Claus
ahhh I see… despite that I do own the larsen book I was still not getting it clear but this example sure has helped much better.
now that I have the idea what to look for it makes more sense where to create breathing spots…THANKS!
berti
couple o’ thoughts:
lately i’ve found that keeping a subtle but distinct rhythm in my blow makes taking breaths notably easier. just slightly pulse the diaphram muscles in a steady, groovy beat as you are blowing. then it is pretty natural when needing a breath to blow a bit harder on an accented down beat, exhaling, and inhale in a brief pause, resting on the up beat. the rhythm of the breath can stay completely steady this way. as Claus said, ideally, the down beat is a longer note, which becomes staccato, but it often works pretty well to accent the downbeat and skip the following upbeat note. (i’m sure all this is old news to many of you.)
the other thing that has helped me a lot is to take one section of a tune and play it over and over in a seamless loop. then just breath when you need to, which will be at different places in the loop. because the notes in the loop soon become somewhat automatic, after we’ve found the groove we can concentrate on learning to breath whenever it is necessary. if there’s one part of a tune where breathing is tricky, loop just that part.
probably obviously yours, /dan 
I guess taking a note out to breathe does literally take something away from the melody, but I think it adds something to the tune on a flute. It’s one of those things that makes the Irish flute what it is, and if you don’t take a breath instead of playing a note now and then, you won’t sound traditional. (I didn’t express that very well, but I know what I mean.) It’s one of the differences between playing the flute and the pipes or fiddle.
Berti, one thing I would suggest is, when you’re shortening a quarter note for a breath, play it loud and stacatto – give it a big accent and shorten it as much as possible. Same with eliminating a note – if it’s after a big accent (e g, the first note of a bar, as above), make the accent really big, but it also works on the last note of a bar, especially one that’s not important melodically.
After almost two years, I still find breathing the biggest challenge in flute-playing. Hopefully after another two years, I’ll be far enough along that interpreting the music is the biggest challenge. 