I’m having trouble with my breathing. I feel out of breath, but I think actually it’s the opposite. I’m full of breath and having trouble exhaling enough as I play.
The result is I’m out of breath with full lungs. Does that make sense? Can you help me?
I feel this way sometimes when I’ve been playing my O’Brien
narrow bore. It has more backpressure than my other whistles.
What sort of whistle are you playing? Perhaps you would have
better luck with a different whistle?
Barring that, try taking shallower breaths more often. Don’t try
to finish a whole tune with one breath. Instead, take only half a
breath at the beginning and breathe in a little every 2 or 3
measures, even if you don’t need to, and see how this feels. If
you still have problems try even shorter breaths every 4 or 5
measures. Experiment to find a balance of enough pressure and
enough air.
You can also try the harmonica trick of letting a little air out
through your nose at the same time most of the air is coming
out of your mouth, but this may affect your breath control, and
consequently your tone.
I second everything fearfaoin said. You should never be grasping for breath at the last second and you shouldn’t be having to hold your breath for extended periods of time (though you are able to do so better as you build up your lungs). The best thing to do is to steal short, quick breaths where you can, even if you don’t feel like you’re running out of breath. Just don’t become mechanical and breathe at the same spot each time through or it becomes really noticable in your playing. Best of luck!
Thanks guys. I just have so many things to learn being so new at this! I think maybe I’m just having a bad day of breathing. I wasn’t having this problem before.
I have two whistles, a Bb, which I don’t think sounds as good, and a D. The D has a paperclip in it so it’s not so screetchy.
By what whistle are you playing, I think FF meant what make, not what keys. That can help people determine if you’ve got a high or low backpressure whistle.
Jason
I know exactly what you mean. Though it normally only happens to me when I’m nervous. I’m pretty sure I just treat it the same way as needing to take a breath – find a spot where I can drop a note and exhale just a touch.
There are so many unfortunate things that come into play with a wind instrument. The worst for me is that when I get nervous, the swallow reflex tries to kick in the back of my throat and it’s very hard, if not impossible to do that quickly and discreetly in the middle of a tune.