Useful breathing exercises for beginners
Moderators: Classitar, pied_piper, Phineas
Useful breathing exercises for beginners
Hi. I'm a n00b teacher and I have a student who have learned the flute for a few weeks now. I've successfully taught her to breathe using the diafraghm and now the challenge is to get her play at least two semibreves (or eight counts) at one time. Her air support is still weak and she can barely manage more than four counts at one go. Any good advice is appreciated.
as someone who is getting back into flute and getting ready to audition for a flute major i have also been having a hard time getting my breathing support back. it is something that you just can't learn to do in a day or even weeks. it could take many months to build up the proper breath support needed to play those lengthy pieces!
i do long tone exercises everyday. trevor wye has some great books for this. and i have also worked on my embouchure so i am not just breathing air all out at once when i play. it is a bit difficult to explain, but i try to make my lips rounder and control how much air is coming out of my lips-though the same force of air is steady throughout each breath. this can give me a little more control of how quickly the air will run out.
when i breathe in i try to picture myself breathing not just from the diaphram but all the way from my toes. i'll do exercises where i'll slowly bend down to touch my toes while breathing in and then slowly exhaling and standing back up. or breathing slowly in for 8 counts and slowly breathing out for 8 counts. little exercises like these are handy to know. =)
- auwon
i do long tone exercises everyday. trevor wye has some great books for this. and i have also worked on my embouchure so i am not just breathing air all out at once when i play. it is a bit difficult to explain, but i try to make my lips rounder and control how much air is coming out of my lips-though the same force of air is steady throughout each breath. this can give me a little more control of how quickly the air will run out.
when i breathe in i try to picture myself breathing not just from the diaphram but all the way from my toes. i'll do exercises where i'll slowly bend down to touch my toes while breathing in and then slowly exhaling and standing back up. or breathing slowly in for 8 counts and slowly breathing out for 8 counts. little exercises like these are handy to know. =)
- auwon
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flutegeek1992
- Posts: 70
- Joined: Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:17 pm
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I recently was told of another way to breathe (verses the common "belly breath" method I've been taught). The 1st chair flutist of our local symphony told me that instead of my belly expanding, my ribcage should be expanding. You should slowly fill you lungs from the bottom down, and your ribcage SHOULD MOVE. This increased my lung capacity like crazy.
A way to teach this is to do a "finger breath". You take your right hand, and turn it so your first finger is closest to you. Then you put your hand to your mouth (your mouth should be touching your first finger at the 2nd knuckle). You then take a large breath, using a sucking type noise, like a vaccum. This is the method they create the power lung from, it gives you quite a bit of resisitance.
A way to teach this is to do a "finger breath". You take your right hand, and turn it so your first finger is closest to you. Then you put your hand to your mouth (your mouth should be touching your first finger at the 2nd knuckle). You then take a large breath, using a sucking type noise, like a vaccum. This is the method they create the power lung from, it gives you quite a bit of resisitance.
