I get the basic breathing and the tongue stopping, but I hear flutes play with such a cool, long tone. How do you breathe to get these different effects. I am brand new to the flute, but am loving it, up here on the Pacific Coast of Canada. THanks

Hi Kally,

Welcome to the forum!

Can't answer your question as I am a relative newbie myself.

I have just been reading about the spirit bears up near you! I ordered a flute with a maple bear block to go with the curly redwood that the flute will be made of. Started surfing and found those beautiful bears! I've ordered two books about them.

I now have 2 places on my list that I must visit before I die: the Grand Canyon and the Great Bear Rainforest in British Colombia.

Again, welcome. There are great folks here and they will be happy to help you out with your question.

Welcome to the Forum Kally,

I'm far from expert and I'm sure some of our master players will lend thier experience, but one thing I learned is to breath before you are out of breath.

One of my favorite NAF CD's is Mary Youngbloods "The Offering" The more I listen to it, the more I can hear her breathing, and the more it adds to it. She definately takes that air in.
Ed

Hello Kally. Welcome to the forum. I practice a method that I picked up from singing lessons which helps me to hold longer notes. When I inhale, I try to get all of the air in my lungs to go to my belly area, not up in my chest. Then, as I exhale, I push the air slowly out using my belly (ab muscles), not my chest muscles. Try doing this while you have your back pressed against the wall. As you practice it, you will start to fill a difference in how you breath in and out. Hope this helps a little.

dd

Hi Kally, I'm no expert either and hope to hear from some. I do know that yoga is a great way to develop breath control, as it teaches you to breathe deeply and rhythmically, filling your lungs and distending your belly in a consciously downward motion, then releasing the air slowly in a reverse upward motion. It doesn't take much breath to play a really good flute, so you can keep it going for quite a long time. As Ed says above, though, you do have to take another breath before you expel all the air. Jan Seiden teaches a workshop specifically for playing the flute using the techniques of Qi Gong, though I haven't had an opportunity yet to take it.

I'm sure also--though I can't speak from much experience--that being in good cardio-vascular shape helps develop lung capacity and stamina. This is as good an excuse as any to get me walking, running, exercising, and eating right.

I've also discovered that using a didgeridoo to meditate is a great way to improve breath capacity. Though I haven't mastered the circular breathing necessary to sustain a drone, I have found that over time with practice my ability to keep the note going with a single breath increases.

A few people, I suspect, who seem to be able to sustain a note on the NAF for what seems to be an impossible duration, are probably circular breathing.

Hope this helps.

Long breaths, come from taking air into the lower diaphragm, and then releasing it slowly, and smoothly, as you play. Vibrato also comes from the diaphragm, but in micro bursts.

It will take you a while to get the hang of it, but the more you play, and concentrate on taking in a full breath of air, the sooner it will become natural for you.

Hey Kally Welcome to the forum! For those really Looong Notes I use a Hose attached to an Air Compressor! Just kiddin!! But it is great to have you join us! Many Blessings...Robert

Kally,
One of the things that I've learned over the years is that playing the flute is as much an aerobic exercise as anything else. During those periods in my life when I am in better shape, I find that my playing is better (the converse is also true).

The first thing that I always talk about with new students is breathing. I talk about the two "C"'s of breathing in this way:

Capacity - if you're like me, then you drive your car around until the "gas light" comes on and then you start searching for a gas station. Think of your body in the same way, when you're playing the flute, do you wait for the "gas light" to come on before you start thinking about a new breath? It's important to know how much air you can hold and how long you can hold it. Everyone is different. Artists like Mary Youngblood have trained for a long time to improve their capacity, and while you may not be able to match Mary's capacity, you can definitely improve your own capacity with practice and by doing additional aerobic exercises.

Here's a link to a blog article that wrote about breathing: Blog article

Control - this is the second of the two "C"'s. Control is definitely critical to your playing. It's important that you learn breath control in order to improve your playing and enable you to articulate notes. Many beginning players have little to no awareness of breath control, but this (in my opinion) is what separates beginners from the next level. You can actually blow a note a half step flat or a half step sharp depending on how much air and air pressure you put into the flute. This can make the note either "on" or out of tune. So before you blame a flute maker for producing a flute that's "not in tune" make sure that you have the control to blow the proper note...

Here's an exercise that I invented call the "Long note".

Exercise 1 - Take a deep breath, select any note on the flute. Blow the note while listening to the tone. The goal of the exercise is to blow the note as steady as possible for as long as possible. When you run out of air, take another breath and repeat. You'll also find that this is a very meditative exercise. Playing one notes and concentrating on the sound quality of the note has a real meditative effect. I always start my practice time with this exercise.

Exercise 2 - Similar to exercise 1, take a deep breath, but this time playing a scale up and down the flute, until you run out of breath. If you play a measured scale (to a constant beat), you can use this as a measure of how your breathing is improving. At first you might only make it up and down the scale once, but as your breathing capacity improves, you'll find that you can make it up and down several times. The other key to this exercise is to know when you are close to running out of air (i.e. the out-of-gas light is coming on...) and learn to take a breath before you run out of air in the middle of a scale. This is a great exercise to begin learning 'phrasing control'.

I hope this helps!

Sometimes the flute can make a difference as well. If it's very free flowing and doesn't have a lot of back pressure, it can use up more air than another flute.

Also, make sure you're covering the entire mouthpiece of the flute so that no air escapes from your lips before it goes through the flute. However, later on, you'll find that allowing some air to escape from your lips before it goes into the flute can work to your advantage for certain playing techniques.

And don't overblow. A good flute doesn't take a lot of air to make nice music.

You may simply not be used to blowing into a wind instrument of any kind. Some people are not used to using their diaphram and breathing fully and deeply. For instance, if you are of soft voice and when asked to speak louder, you don't really get any increase in your speaking volume, you may not be breathing and using your diaphram correctly.

Practice, practice, practice.....

I am glad I found this thread!

After getting acquainted with my new Kuzin Bruce sideblown Low A I thought I was doing an ok job adjusting to the larger flute but reality set in when I recorded myself and heard all the variations in tone quality and lack of note sustain. NOT PRETTY!

I am doing pretty well when I am just improvising but when I play a familiar song my breathing mistakes really show up. I can hear that I don't hold the notes long enough....and breath in all the wrong places. My ego has taken a hit but now I know what I need to do and just hope I can improve.

The advice I found here will help immensely....so more practice...practice.....practice! And if that doesn't work...I know where to find Hubby's air compressor.

just make sure you don't have the block on backwards on your KB like I did. ha ha.

I've struggled over the years on how to explain breath control to folks and haven't come up with the words that make it obvious.
Before the flute I played harmonicas, which more than most any other instrument demanded breath control, mostly due to the blowing in and out nature of the instrument. When the flute came along, control was easy.
My lungs, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being hooked up to O2 are about a 3 but can hold a note with the most healty of players so it's not so much lung health or capacity. It's really in the release of air and the proper "loading" up before you start to blow.
You can and should be able to blow a "run" as long with no flute, just your lips, as you can with a flute. With this, very little back pressure or very tight flutes shouldn't interfere too much with how long you can hold a note.
So maybe a flute practice should be a no flute practice (I really prefer the word "play"), just work on playing your songs with no flute, tonguing, slurs, chirps, long notes short notes etc. Work on loading up and slow releases.
In times this all come as second nature to most ,but:>)
Kuz

Thanks for the additional advice Kuz....my Low A flute is awsome and the great tones are hiding inside just waiting for me to bring them out. I love how this flute sounds even without an echo...that low voice is so beautiful.

I just tried some faster songs and they do go a little easier. It's those slow Hymns that really bring out my breathing inexperience. So now I know what I need to do.....Play....Play...Play! Hmmm....I like using the word play instead of practice....makes it sound more fun and rewarding.

And Dear Kuz.. in reference to your comment...."In times this all come as second nature to most ,but:>)" I will consider that a challenge because I sure don't want to be in the 'but' category!!

Too funny, Kuz. I used to play a mean mediocre harmonica but haven't picked one up for quite some time ... until yesterday. After playing flutes for three years, it took me awhile to remember that I also had to suck air!

Cardio exercise certainly helps in developing lung capacity, but I've also found that blowing long notes into a tuner, trying to keep the needle straight up for as long as possible is an excellent way to develop breath control, as well as begin to better understand the dynamics of a flute's tone as the needle rises and falls. I know Jan Seiden practices Gi Gong, so I talked to a local instructor who aims for developing a 60-second breath (one inhalation/one exhalation). He had me blow a long tone into my shakuhachi, and I was good for about 8 seconds ... haven't taken any lessons yet, but maybe I should.

People have often asked me about how to get a better tone out of their flutes. Part of it comes from listening closely to yourself, as well as practicing with expressive phrasing (e.g. vibrato, tonguing techniques, etc.). A big, big part of it is breath control, though. I've had a difficult time trying to find a good way to explain breath control when asked about it, but there are some basics that are easy to keep in mind. Some have already been mentioned here; for example, it is usually better to take in a new breath before the old one runs out completely, like topping off your tank before it runs dry (though not too soon before, or it can be sort of a waste). That will allow for more fluid note control as well as permit greater playing stamina in the long run. If you have to interrupt your phrasing too often to take in big, full breaths, then your melody may end up broken.

Something to consider is that the very end of a musical phrase is not always the best place to take in a breath. You may often prefer to sneak in a quick breath or two during a phrase, in between notes, to let you finish a line or melody with a confident, adequate reserve of air at the end. You can experiment with your song to find the best place(s) to breathe, but if you wait too long before a breath, then the last few notes of a phrase might come up short and sound weak, or the first few notes of a new line might be overpowering. An important tip for taking in a lot of air quickly, which I learned back in my trumpet-playing days, is to always inhale through your mouth! Don't be afraid to remove your lips from the flute for a split-second to take in air, because you'll be able to inhale a greater volume of air more quickly and efficiently than you could hope to through your nose. It might not seem like a big difference at first, but trust me...it adds up! If you get the urge to exhale excess air while playing, then vent it out through the nose. It won't interrupt your playing to do so, because you can exhale through your mouth and nose simultaneously.

Something else that others have also mentioned already is the trick of filling your tank from the bottom up. For a really big breath, you should try to conciously start filling your lungs from the lower portion (the lower diaphragm, or "in the belly"), and then fill the lungspace above that, moving upwards as you go, all the way to the shoulders and neck if necessary. As you're doing this, try to imagine that your torso is like a glass being filled up with water, and follow the level of "liquid" (i.e. air) upward as it rises to the top. If you breathe just from the diaphragm, then you can't fill up all the way (which may be fine for shorter, simpler phrasing); however, for those big breaths, you need to put some of your "accessory" muscles to use, such as in your abdomen, ribs, and shoulders. What you're doing there is optimizing the available lung space in your trunk to bring in a greater quantity of air, thus allowing for longer notes and/or phrases. With more practice, you learn to anticipate when you're going to need a fuller breath, and it becomes automatic and easier to do quickly.

There are a variety of exercises that you can do to practice breath control. Oitz listed a couple of good ones. I particularly like his first, in that it will allow you to get a better handle on maintaining both note consistency and an ear for self-critique. That's important for both tuning and expression. If you have a habit of letting your air flow drop off at the end of a note, it may turn out flat and just sound "off." On the other end of the spectrum, if you begin a note too forcefully, then you may get unpleasant squeaks, inadvertant overblows, and other such nuisance sounds. If, however, you use the same flow of air at the end of a note as you do at the start, then you'll have greater consistency and your tone will improve as a result. That may also help with your expression and phrasing, as your control of vibrato and dynamics becomes more consistent as well.

One breathing exercise that I sometimes recommend for wind instruments kind of builds on Oitz' idea. It's a consistency and stamina trainer. You can do it with or without a flute, though I prefer to do it with, because it gives you real air resistance and audible feedback to work with. You may also wish to use a metronome if you have one. To start, take in a deep breath, inhaling over a count of four steady beats (a tempo of around 70-80 bpm is usually pretty good for this). Make sure to fill up all the way on your inhalation! Then, exhale for a count of four beats using a steady flow, and try to expel the very last bit of air from your lungs on the very last beat. Now, inhale for four beats again. Then, exhale for eight beats, not expelling the last bit of air until the very last beat. Inhale again for four beats, and then exhale for sixteen beats, keeping your flow steady until you empty your lungs on the last beat. The goal each time is to set your airflow at a constant rate to coincide with the time you have to empty your lungs, without altering it too much on the fly, and without running out of air too soon. You can do this ad nauseum, increasing the number of beats for your exhalation as you become better at keeping a steady flow of air (I usually finish the set at sixty-four beats for exhalation). This will help you to become consistent with your airflow, as well as to get a concious feeling for more precise control of your breathing muscles.

Hope this helps!

songkeeper, I have watched you play and you don't EVEN breathe, you are lightning fast. Thanks for the tips.

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge Songkeeper.

I have copied and printed out everybody's advice and now have a great reference tool to help me work on my breathing techniques.