Re: breathing


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Posted by Matt G on June 03, 2001 at 08:17:55:

In Reply to: breathing posted by highschooler on June 01, 2001 at 16:04:03:

Tell your director to simply pick up a book on orchestration and or a musical instrument dictionary. This should have enough cold hard facts to back up what others have said without putting your name on the line. Better yet, tell him to pick up a brass techniques book (he SHOULD have one if he has a music education degree) and see what it says. If that doesn't work, then allow him to demonstrate, at some time or another common sense should kick in. If he doesn't like the stagger breathing, then both of you breath at the same time on the downbeat of every measure. That should be so unpleasant to his ears that he will be begging for you to stagger breath. Or, play the note softly enough that you can last the entire time (which will still be tough) and see what he has to say. Sometimes we have to educate conductors as much as they are educating us. The tuba does place some limitations physically upon us as far as breathing and whatnot and conductors can forget about this. I still remember a director telling me that my section (17 sousaphones) should be able to play a Bb scale one octave in whole notes at c.80 bpm up and down on one breath. I proceeded to tell him he was nuts and that most of the trumpet players couldn't even do this, which they proceeded to unwillingly demonstrate. On upper brass the breath is less noticeable because they can usually sneak quicker, shallower breaths which last longer. One thing that may help you is to learn to breath in as much as you can as fast as you can and never go into the last 1/3 of your vital capacity. I think that Mr. Jacobs was a huge proponent of this. One thing I tell my students to do is imagine blowing a match out by inhaling, not exhaling, air. This seems to open their throat without sticking a pipe or anything like that between their teeth. Once they feel the open throat sensation then I try to get them to improve the speed without tightening the throat. I mention this only because the breaths that us low brass players sometimes take are more noticable because of the duration of silence coming from our bell. Release the note as open and resonant as possible, tank up fast as lightning, then come in with a softer attack (doh) to try to be less noticable. I think many of us may have been in your situation before.
Best of Luck,
Matt G


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