Hi, I’ve been playing the whistle for 1.5 years now and I generally play/practice at least half an hour almost every day. My main whistle now is a Freeman tweaked Blackbird D, I also got a Mellow dog D when I got my Blackbird , and I’ve been keeping it in the car so I play it a few times a week. It is still really hard for me to play though, because it requires so much more air than the Blackbird and I can barely play a high B on it in a song still. I’ve never smoked or had lung issues, but I’m guessing I have small lungs, is there any hope that I’ll ever get better/stronger and be able to play bigger whistles(other keys) without getting dizzy after one song? It is mostly Irish music that makes me dizzy on my regular smaller whistle but it takes half an hour, whereas the Mellow Dog, just one song and I have to rest a while. I’m only 53 and I do exercise and am generally healthy. I don’t have plans to try a low D anytime soon, but I’d like to get stronger, if anyone has any ideas.
First, try to figure out if you’re running out of air vs running out of oxygen.
If you’re running out of air, you won’t have anything left to blow. This can happen from small lung capacity, but often it’s caused by not breathing in a way that uses your full lungs. Breathing exercises can help. Make sure you’re breathing “into your belly” and pulling in a full breath. Check progress by seeing how much you can fill a balloon with one breath. Practice inhaling quick so you can get more air when you take a breath in the middle of a tune. And look for more places to sneak in a quick breath while playing where it won’t break the flow - even if it means taking a breath before you really need to.
The other side of this is when you have plenty of air, but you’re running out of oxygen. In this case you’ll feel lightheaded, breathless, etc, but you still have air to blow with. It can be a vicious circle since breathing in when your lungs are mostly full means less room for fresh air, so you run out of oxygen even faster…. To counter this, try letting some breath out through your nose while playing so that when it’s time for a new breath, you have more room in your lungs. Aerobic exercise also helps by improving your body’s efficiency in using oxygen. You mentioned exercise, but not what kind - different types have different benefits. If you mostly do strength training or exercise with short high-intensity bursts, consider adding some aerobic training to the mix.
I doubt lung capacity is your problem. Its almost certainly an issue of technique, such as how you breathe, how often you breathe, and how you phrase the tune and insert breathing points. And perhaps posture too?
When I play high D whistles I tend to have an over-capacity problem, and have to exhale some unneeded air from my lungs in order to get some fresh air. The problem being that a lot of high D whistles take so little air that they slow down your breathing when you play if you don’t spill some air.
It’s less likely but it might be worth working out if the dizziness is due to you hyperventilating - breathing more than your body needs. That’s hard to do on a high whistle though -more a problem for flute players who can use/waste lot of air. Before running out of air for the tune stop playing and see if you are in need of a breath or can wait until an urge to breath comes. Either way paddler’s first paragraph points to a way forward.
On a high whistle I often have to leak air out through my nose (may take some practice) to be ready to take in air for me.
Thank you for the good ideas! I will use them and try to figure it out and hopefully get better at playing. It is possible I’m waiting too long between breaths, especially since I’m used to playing mostly on a narrow bore whistle, so when I switch to the wider bore whistle I’m probably still trying to get breaths at the same spots in the songs that I’m used to. I have been working on deep breathing, I’ll have to look up more breathing exercises.
I tried it again this afternoon while in the car and realized I just need to work in more breaths, I’ve been holding my breath too long trying to play the Mellow Dog like I do the narrower blackbird. Thanks!
I can recommend exercises to build air capacity of the lungs. You basically need to expand lung capacity by expanding rib cage and diaphragm capacity. Most people who don’t do this consciously or through athletic training, rarely build diaphragm capacity and use the rib cage to breath, but without reaching the full capacity. Rib cage and diaphragm are flexible (obviously) and can be improved in physical range.
Running, doing sprints, or cycling or any kind of physical exercise that gets you breathing hard, contributes to giving you the FEELING of these two areas in use, trying to increase their range to increase breathing capacity. You, and I mean YOU, need to get that feeling. You don’t need to run regularly, but doing some sprints or cycling or brisk pace walking can do it; get the feeling of those muscles groups in action and >>> how to consciously exercise them. Then you can practice doing it any time of the day by taking deep full breaths on the inhale, by fully expanding the rib cage and diaphragm to the max, holding the full inhale at it’s peak for 4 seconds to fully push those groups to the maximum range, and then on the exhale, fully exhale to the max, for maximum exhale. By exercising the full air volume range, you assist building full range of FEEL as well as physical capacity.
This is internal bodybuilding for a focused area. The biceps of breathing. Your body WILL respond favorably to this, those muscle groups are designed to function 24/7 and will adjust in capacity, to exercise. Just don’t drive yourself to fatigue; you want regular practice of this, but not to fatigue, but to feeling busy and fully warmed up. A comparison would be using barbells. If you can curl 20 pounds 30 times, then the breathing equivalent would be curling 20 pounds 20 times, and doing that maybe two or three times a day.
What I really like about walking or doing sprints for this, is that you can do a warmup first. If you want to do sprints, do some walking of 5 blocks first, or jog casually first for 5 or 10 blocks, then walk a few blocks to calm things down, but while still warmed up, then, hopefully in a park or sports field with suitable surface, do sprints. Run quickly in a straight line for maybe 50 to 70 yards, then walk until the breathing catches up and slows down again. Then repeat 5 times and when you feel that oxygen debt causing your lungs to be reaching for deep breaths, REALLY HELP THEM; draw in air with your diaphragm and rib cage by fully opening them to the max and holding the full open position for 4 seconds to get those muscles used to opening to the max, then relax them and give a few full exhales too.
Good luck. This stuff works wonders. It’s so important to know that feel of controlling the diaphragm and rib cage and how it feel to fully expand them.
When playing flute, you use the same conscious control of full inhale and exhale, but probably in a range of 90% open and then 90% closed for exhale, so you are comfortable. You probably want to avoid reaching for 100% expansing/inhale during performance. Doing a breathing volume practice before performing or practicing, makes lots of sense.
Breath control has also been a core part of meditation and sports relaxation and yoga practice for millenia, for good reason. Doing a full diaphragm expansion can cause instant relaxation of many things, take pressure off the heart area, and the conscious effort over-rules unconscious anxieties and nervousness, and you relax, blood pressures drops, energies start to flow better.
See you on the other side………..the music side.
This is a common issue with oboe players. The instrument requires great breath control, but often not so much actual air flow. It is sometimes necessary to exhale unused, carbon dioxide laden air and exchange it with fresh air in order to keep playing. There have long been rumours (or are they rumours?
) that oboe players are a little bit crazy because of excessive exposure to CO2. (Really… just rumours.)