I’ve read a couple of news stories about research discussing 2 different benefits from breath related activities:
4/7/8 is a technique that is supposed to activate the parasympathetic nervous system which is what the body uses to bring you down from stress. The technique involves drawing in breath for 4 seconds, holding it for 7 seconds and then slowly breathing out for 8 seconds. The story I ready suggested that had been shown to help some folks who had trouble sleeping..to sleep. However, it has long been used to help people to relax.
Then today, I ready about this device, PowerBreath, which had been shown to reduce blood pressure. It basically provides breathing resistance which is supposed to stimulate the production of some sort of agent that helps reduce constriction of blood vesssels.
So, I wonder if the work we have to do to play the flute over longer periods of time has very real health consequences. I know that I have noticed that if I miss my morning flute practice I tend to be a lot grumpier. I don’t know if the 1+ hour of effort lowers stress or just brings me pleasure, but it does seem to be real. I’m considering buying one of those PowerBreath things, not to lower by BP, but to see if it may help strengthen my diaphram so I can play longer on a single breath, lol.
Hmmm, flute playing as stress relief? A PhD in that one, est. But it might help explain why flute players (at large, and in my experience) tend to be pretty laid back. Pipers notoriously grumpy, and fiddle players highly-strung?
There’s been a lot of discussion over recent years about the medical benefits of singing (endorphins) and music-playing and dancing (problem-solving), so flute playing could well be in the same ballparks.
My box-player mate and I have been trying to get out when weather permits (it’s a La Niña year here in Australia so we’re at the flooding rains end of the weather spectrum. Makes a change from bushfires!). We went out to our usual haunt, a wharf in Batemans Bay, but there was a threatening breeze coming up - the kind of thing that messes with flute and whistle jets. So we sought out a more-sheltered place, in the lee of a fish and chip shop that also runs boat cruises on the river. Quite a few people around, and most seemed to acknowledge us with smiles, thumbs up, pausing for a chat, etc. Nice.
After a while a lady in uniform sat down opposite us, and I wondered if we were about to be asked to leave. She was smiling though. We got to the end of the set, and she identified herself as the “skipper” of the cruise boat, which was moored nearby and taking on passengers for the luncheon cruise. She asked if we were doing anything in the next few hours, and would we like to come on the cruise? Apparently, a lot of the people who had milled past us to embark on board had suggested to her that we should be invited. We deferred on the grounds that we had already been going for a few hours, and both had obligations in the hours ahead, but we left future possibility open. But hey, nice to be asked, eh? Especially when she went on to tell us the days each week that she was skipper, making it subtly clear that she wanted us on one of her days!
So what has that all got to do with the topic? I’ll put forward the notion that there is a further “feel-good” factor in playing music for an unsuspecting public. Providing of course that your level of music playing has developed beyond bumbling idiot or mental health threat, and that you can find a nice place to play where people aren’t inconvenienced if they don’t like it!
I can’t say if playing flute all by itself has health benefits beyond what Terry mentioned (which are true!), because we’re probably all different in how much we focus on deep breathing with diaphragm, all the “right” ways to do it compared to just leaning back and playing flute as if we’re talking to someone.
I know I’m personally pretty lax in trying to develop my breathing by exercise, vs. just playing tunes and trying to build stamina that way. I’ve always been bad at rote exercise unrelated to the music. Those who intentionally work on their breathing may have measurable benefit.
I’m normally very skeptical about gadgets, but NPR (US National Public Radio) is usually a reputable source that doesn’t go in for alt-medicine nonsense. It sounds intriguing as an “easy” way to improve breathing that could apply to flute, as well as having other health benefits. Of course easy paths tend to make one skeptical, but it’s not very expensive and I may try the gadget. If I do, I’ll report any perceived benefits and please do likewise.
I’ve been looking at this out of concern that the topic might be touching on violation of CCCP 10, but honestly, I don’t see it so long as discussion of the contrivance’s pertinence to fluteplaying is to the fore. Earnest discussion of its other touted medical benefits is not permitted except in private. If anyone has better arguments against it, please contact Ben or me.
My 2¢: The PowerBreathe thingum very probably has a positive effect in strengthening the diaphragm. Beyond that, its benefit to fluteplaying probably depends on the individual, although it’s true that strength can make fine control easier.
Hmmm, an instrument that provides breathing resistance with the aim of altering blood pressure. There’s a technical name for that, isn’t there. I know - “the Scottish Bagpipes”!
I’m not sure that pressure training would be all that relevant to flute playing, as we are dealing with a family of instruments that depend on flow, not pressure. (The only such instruments incidentally, the other woodwinds are pressure driven.) I am aware that humans at large tend to not develop or use all the lung capacity available to us. It would be interesting to know if flute players score better than average at this, and if Irish flute players are at the apex of that group. If not us, who? And how dare they?
A glance online for “deep breathing benefits” scored “About 112,000,000 results (0.57 seconds)”. Breathtaking! Someone like to check them out for flutical relevance?
I can tell you this: At a session I dropped a peanut (shelled, please) into my flute, closed all the holes and covered the embouchure with my mouth, girded my diaphragmatic loins, blew for all I was worth, and that sucker went sailing. My fluteplaying wasn’t any better for the display of might.
Here is an abstract of a paper on a related topic, from the Annals of The Salzburg Kazoo Collegium, Dec. 2020.
Abstract–‘Kazoo: menace or panacea?’
A long term demographic study shows that playing the kazoo lowers the musician’s blood pressure and slows her heart rate. There are also benefits to thyroid function as well as lower cholesterol. However the effects on the audience are reversed. Also 57 percent of the audience report an existential crisis, and say things like: ‘Why go on?’
These reports support the larger contention that, generally, playing an instrument that is good for the musician is bad for the audience. We submit this contention deserves to be taken seriously, after our demographic study, despite some of the histrionics surrounding the subject, e.g. ‘Five-String Banjo: Strings of Death,’ Picker’s Review.’
’
Sounds an awful lot like Pranayama.
Recently some of these concepts have seeped into the pop-conciousness in things like ´Square Breathing´ or ´Combat Breathing´.
The speed reading on this bundle of nearly pre-historic breath-mastery techniques is anything that adds awareness and control of your breathing can be beneficial.
A modern physiological take is this can stimulate and sooth your vagus nerve and help your mind-body state.
I dunno. What I do know is long tones on the flute sooth my soul and improve my embouchure.
I got into playing the flute largely because I was writing about Francis O’Neill and thought I would need a more direct understanding of the music. But my other motive, As a man of a certain age, was physical, keeping the old bellows going and pushing myself.
It feels good to play the flute, that is, when it’s not frustrating, but I’m not sure about health benefits.
I was a chest breather years ago, and now from whistle/flute playing, and fitness related stuff that require proper breathing, I breathe through my diaphragm properly now. Chest breathing is supposed to raise stress levels and other weird things I think. Idk how true that is. But cold technically be a slight health benefit from playing wind instruments.
When you lie all day in bed, your lungs tend to deflate, so you don’t get enough oxygen and you are at risk for pneumonia. The spirometer helps turn deep breathing into a kind of game, because you try try to keep the little disc in the air as much as you can.
Or just tell the nurse, “It’s OK, I brought my flute along!”
Re. Psychological impacts of breath control, deep breathing, meditation and flute playing the Japanese zen practice of Suizen comes to mind. Shakuhachi playing as meditation.
Many, many years ago, I seriously cut my left thumb on the crude table saw I had rigged up at the time. We bandaged it up best we could and took me down to the local hospital, where the surgeon (with the reassuring name of “Dr Stubbs”) rejoined a tendon, sewed it all back together and bandaged it heavily to immobilise it. I asked “do I come back here to the Emergency ward to get the stitches out?” to which he responded “Good God, no. There are sick people out there!” But he did warn me that I was going to require a lot of physiotherapy to get good movement back. And he wanted to see me at some point to make sure all had gone well.
When I went to see him some months later he was astonished how well it had healed. “That physiotherapy really worked!” he exclaimed. At that point I confessed I had found the physio really awful and despiriting - it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So instead, I pulled out my old treble recorder and started playing it. Using the thumb hole was murder at first - you could really imagine the join in the tendon being dragged through a slightly too-small channel. But, bit by bit, it became easier and smoother in operation, until I no longer noticed it. “Treble recorder, eh? I’ll keep that in mind” says Dr Stubbs.
We often snarl at our instruments as causes of repetition strain injuries and other maladies, but they can be part of the solution too!
I confess that I was intrigued enough about the potential flute benefits of the PowerBreath gadget to order one. Of course because it was featured in an NPR (USA) story, I got an email a few days later that due to heavy demand it wouldn’t ship for a while. So don’t bother ordering one any time soon. When it finally does arrive, I’ll report on whether using the gadget turns me into the next Matt Molloy.
You do realize that in an interview Matt recounted having been diagnosed, and I believe hospitalised for a time with Tuberculosis. He felt that smoking and the crazy lifestyle of being on the road all the time contributed to this. The wonder of modern pharaceuticals saved the world a great fluter. And, I shouldn´t be surprised perhaps a little moderation!
