After playing for several years in a session I’m BEGINNING to notice when things are a bit out of tune. So I started trying to play without varying my breath pressure so much. I got the idea of playing into a tuner to see if I can keep the needle fairly close to the middle. As I got better at it I noticed my stomach feeling tight. Without intentionally trying to, I think I was pusing air from the diaphram. Am I correct in saying that this is the right way to do it?
Absolutely. You should breath in and out using the Diaphram to
support the column of air. This makes for good tone on whistle,
and is essential when playing the flute and when singing. Make sure
when you breath in, that your abdomen fills out, and when breathing
out, your abs press inward and tighten, as you’ve said (instead of
raising and lowering your chest and shoulders, which is breathing
from the top of your lungs).
You are both correct. Playing will improve noticeably when the diaphram is used. Shallow breathing from the chest will cause the player to take more breaths than with diaphram breathing. I think shallow breathing causes a person to put to much force into a note after taking a breath, and then taper off as the air runs out. With good diaphram control the notes can be played the same as the note played just before taking a breath. Diaphram breathing gives better control.
Older persons that have used shallow breathing from the chest most of their lives have problems later in life. The bottom of their lungs have become small from lack of use, and then when they need more air they can not get it. Worse if they smoked.
So whistle playing, or other instruments that are mouth blowen are healthy. 
There is something I don’t quite understand, yes, I can inhale by ‘using my diaphragm’ and see my belly come out, and I can inhale the other way and see my chest expand. The thing is, when I inhale fully, by using the first method my lungs are still not yet full, if I apply the second method right after the first, I still can fill my lungs up to a much greater deal, which would mean I’d have more air to utilize while whistling…
I just never fully got this diaphragmal and lung breathing thing..
me too.
diaphragm breaths alone feel restricting.
when i follow it with a chest breath I feel like my lungs extend beyond my shoulders. it feels much more complete.
I’m not saying you can’t move your chest or shoulders at all, but when
you’ve fully inflated the lower lungs, there’s a point where raising your
chest will start forcing the abdomen to flatten. Since the diaphram is
more useful for support, there is a slight tradeoff here between volume
of air and control of the air column…
But, when you start using the diaphram a lot, you’ll start being able to
get more and more air into the bottom of the lungs, and the trade-off
will diminish.
Sounds like that works for you. But when you blow into the whistle use the diaphram and it will give you better control, and the chest will come down on its own as the diaphram moves the air out.
Yeah, but when you breathe from the diaphram, pushing you stomach out, you have to realize the size of your stomach. From the top of the lungs, you can still pretend you’re macho.
That’s exactly what I was doing.
Note to Amar: Like you, I could never figure out this diaphram breathing. I came up it accidentally. All I did was look at an electronic tuner and try to keep the indicator as close to the middle as possible. I didn’t know this ahead of time, but it seems like my body knew that the only way to accomplish this was to use the diaphram…and that’s what began to happen. I rememer a singer explaining to me that when you use the diaphram it feels like you are holding your breath while you sing. When you use the upper chest, it feels like you are pumping out air quickly. By the way, I’m fairlly fit. It might not happen for someone my age (53) who has no wind.
Not to nitpick, but all breathing is done with our diaphragm, what you’re talking about here is supporting the breath with the abdominal muscles.
To start the process of breathing, your diaphragm moves down (which is why your stomach bulges when you breathe in) and this creates a vaccum in the lungs, causing air to move in. To breathe out, your diaphragm moves up and expels air from your lungs.
The so-called “diaphragm support” really involves using your abdominal muscles and your windpipe to control the flow of air out of your lungs so it doesn’t just come out in one big rush. You throttle the air with your windpipe and keep the pressure up by using your abdominals to help squeeze out the air.
I find it helps to think of one’s lungs as a bagpipe…your abdominal muscles are like the arm pressing down on the bag to expel the air, and your windpipe is like the neck of the bag. If you tighten your windway a bit, as if you’re holding your breath, and then let your air out in a controlled, gradual fashion, you’ll get good steady breath support. Practice rationing your outgoing breath so it takes a while to empty your lungs while maintaining a strong enough breath so you can talk normally (I talk nonsense words while I’m doing this). I can make my outgoing breath last for about 30 seconds, but I’ve met people who can make it last nearly a minute with strong support (talking or even playing flute all the time).
Brad, I think you nailed it there. This explains why my abs were a little sore afterwards. Also, you verified what the singer was telling me about “holding your breath”. (see my previous comment on this).
Thank you Brad for writing what you did. As a physiologist I am always uncomfortable when I hear musicians and martial artist talk about breathing. I think I understand what they are trying to accomplish but the incorrect information is grating.
The diaphragm is ALWAYS used when you breath in. The amount of ribcage extension also effects tidal volume. Breathing while playing is an attempt to increase the inspiration volume quickly while controlling expiration flow rate. The diaphragm is a mixed voluntary muscle just like a bicep or tricep…and, just like all muscles, if you want to have good motor control this will takes practice (just like controlling your fingers).
Normally, at rest, inspiration is active (muscle work) and expiration is passive (relaxation of diaphragm and accessory muscles). You train yourself to take larger than normal breaths (training the diaphragm) and also learn to control your expiration flow rate. But learning to control the flow rate during expiration takes practice…and probably requires some work by other accessory muscles not usually used during a normal ‘free’ expiration. So in fact I would not be surprised if during singing, playing, etc. that expiration is more like moderate to heavy exercise where expiration becomes active (muscle work)
I remember reading, years ago, studies about breath control of musicians reported by some accomplished scientists…I need to go look that stuff up again. In addition there have probably been further studies that elucidate what is going on. If there are others reading this who are more current on this topic please chime in. If not, and if others express an interest, I could take a day or two and actually do some literature searches and try to do a better job of describing the process with the current knowledge.
Of course if I have it all wrong please correct me or I will correct myself after further investigation. Would not be the first time I have been mistaken, out-of-date or because of writing from the hip, express myself poorly.
Waddya’ think?
One important point I would add is that we shouldn’t be taking big deep breaths when we play. I took lessons from a voice teacher for several years, and she said that good singers (and whistle and flute players) should just take a normal breath in – it’s the controlled exhale that’s more important than the volume of air that you take in. If I take a deeper breath I can take marginally longer phrases when I play, but I’m less relaxed.
The key thing to keep in mind about breath control when playing the whistle or flute is that your goal is not to take longer phrases than anyone else-- that’s not music, it’s a pissing match. Instead, you should aim to be able to take normal phrases in the tune comfortably, without strain and without running out of breath at the end.
Most tunes have natural phrases, natural points where taking a breath makes sense within the tune. When I work with students I explain phrasing by thinking of sentences…you wouldn’t say “Darling, I [breath] love you!” for example. You say it all in one breath. In the same way, Irish tunes can be broken into musical phrases that complete a “musical thought” or at least don’t break up the flow too much. The goal in breath support is to be able to complete phrases without fizzling out at the end of the phrase as you run out of air.
Here is a quickie I dug up from medline. Important conclusion i put in bold
Sensation of inspired volumes and pressures in professional wind instrument players.
Smith J, Kreisman H, Colacone A, Fox J, Wolkove N.
Department of Medicine, Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
"In this study, respiratory sensation was assessed in 13 professional wind instrument players and 13 age-matched controls. "
…
" Professional wind instrument players appear to have some inherent or acquired differences in respiratory perception and ventilatory neuromuscular control compared with other normal subjects."
J Appl Physiol. 1990 Jun;68(6):2380-3.
Thanks. I’d always wondered if that was a misnomer… or, at least,
since middle school health/biology/anatomy/whatever.
This may explain why I find the suggested “take a breath” marks in some beginner whistle books so useless. I generally find I need to breathe much less often than is suggested and can still produce a consistent tone. I’m not a flute player, but I have sung with a choir group for many years. My daughter is a flute player and she finds the same thing to be true.