Hey my teachers been trying to teach me circular breathing for the last two weeks but to no success. I just cant get the hang of it. Does any one no any tips on how to get the hang of it and does the fact that I have asthma make it more difficult??

Thanks in advance

Leprachaun

Although I have not bothered to do a lot of work on circular breathing because it generally isn`t that necessary to classical music,
I would practice both aspects seperately for awhile. Ejecting the air and inhaling through nose.

Asthma? Yes. Most likely makes it harder. Do you have trouble inhaling through your nose under normal circumstances?
Are you controlling the condition fairly well?

~Bilbo

Probably best to print this out if you want it to help.

Circular breathing can be difficult to learn because there are several important skills that all have to be timed exactly right, going from one to the other in a cyclic fashion, under control, without panicking. It is actually a much more complicated process than many players are aware of. It is far easier to practise this first on something resembling a diggeridoo, such as the long metal tube of a vacuum cleaner.

1. Think about sucking up juice through a thin straw (or better still, do it! I THINK that what everybody does is to fill the front and back of the mouth with the tongue, then pull the tongue back from the front, while it is still blocking the back of the mouth. THEN, now that there is a mouthful of juice, we open the BACK of the mouth (i.e. throat) and swallow it.

2. OK. Now do the opposite. First fill your mouth very full of water either using a straw, or drinking from a glass. Now SQUIRT that slowly out through a small gap between your lips. Think about what you are doing while you do it. You have your tongue blocking the BACK of your mouth, and gradually pushing forward, pushing the water forwards with it, and out between your lips.

That is exactly how you squirt the AIR out, FROM YOUR MOUTH ONLY, while you take a breath during circular breathing. The same as with the water, but using a mouthful of air instead. Let`s call that Skill A... squirting a mouthful of air out of the mouth by using the tongue. Practise it.

3. Take another large mouthful of water. While holding that water in your mouth, breathe in and out through your nose. Get used to it. Lets call it Skill B... breathing in through your nose while your tongue is blocking the back of your mouth.

4. Get your mouth full of water again, lips closed. While the water is still trapped there, breathe out all your air through your nose. Now, the important bit.... Squirt out the mouthful of water (As in "2"), WHILE you are breathing in, as in in "3". That is Skill A & B combined. Multi-tasking!

5. Now do exactly the same as in 4, but using a mouthful of air instead of water. You will need to practise doing this with a very large mouthful of air.

6. Skill C is actually playing the flute with good control, while using ONLY air being pushed out from the mouth. So practise Skill A while playing a note on the flute. This is particularly difficult on flute compared with diggeridoo, oboe, or clarinet, which use less air, and do not have such a delicate embouchure to be messed up, and do not require such good control of the evenness of air pressure.

Doing it - The Beginning.

Just play a single long note. Anything else will detract too much from your concentration at this stage.

For circular breathing you start off playing normally, blowing out air from your lungs. Your throat is open, to let the air pass from your lungs to your mouth and on to the flute. Skill D is that WHILE you are doing this, you gradually fill your mouth with a lot of air.

You may need to consciously make plenty space for this air, either in your cheeks (which looks pretty odd) &/or in the very back of your mouth almost to your throat. This means you need to lie your tongue flat in your mouth, well out of that big air space. (Tonguing is difficult in this position! - yet another skill to work on later)

Next, when you lungs need to be filled, Skill E is needed. Skill E is changing smoothly (i.e. without affecting your note) to Skill A, blocking your throat and squirting air out by using your tongue.

Now, without wasting any time, as SOON as you have skill A started, you begin skill B, taking a big breath while doing Skill A, as in "4" above. You do not get much time to take this breath, because your mouth will very soon run out of air! (It is probably impossible to do any tonguing while squirting air out of your mouth.)

BEFORE your mouth runs out of air, you need Skill F, which is to very smoothly (i.e. without affecting your note) change to blowing out normally from your lungs. This means you need to quickly do all of the following: Stop breathing in, then block so air cannot come out your nose (as with normal flute playing) and lie your tongue down flat again so that it no longer is pushing air out, while at the same time, start blowing air out from your lungs again.

The you start again at The Beginning.

I hope that helps. The coordination needs a LOT of work, particularly on flute. It is possible to coordinate tonguing with the changes between lung blowing to mouth squirting, in order to disguise slight hiccups in the sound, but this is yet another difficult skill to master.

Tanks for the tips ill try it out

Asthma---I think this is the very reason that I have never had any more than a passing thought about circular breathing.
"Circular breathing can be difficult to learn because there are several important skills that all have to be timed exactly right, going from one to the other in a cyclic fashion, under control, without panicking."
I think it`s the "under control, without panicking" part. At best, normal breathing (for me) is partially defined as "under control without panicking"!!!! Let alone when I`m in the throes of asthma.
I am certain that trying to work on circular breathing would actually INDUCE an asthma attack in me. One of the "triggers" for most asthmatics is an abberation of normal breathing patterns (excessive laughing, crying, panting, strenuous activity).
Unless you have asthma that is VERY well controlled (or only a mild case), I would hesitate to recommend circular breathing.
On the other hand, the normal aspects of playing flute are actually a wonderful therapeutic activity for asthmatics --- as long as you are very cognizant of your present breathing conditions.

Same here, Kippsix. I don`t use it and never bothered with it. Galway himself said he doesn`t use it or ever intend to.

I saw a visiting big-notor flute player `demonstrate` it. He played a rapid tongued passage for about 40 seconds, with absolutely no visual evidence that he was doing anything other than normal playing in one breath. When he finished he anounced that he had taken 6 breaths while he was playing.

He didn`t convince me... I think he lied, and did this to promote his own glory in the company of the over-accepting.

"
I saw a visiting big-notor flute player `demonstrate` it. He played a rapid tongued passage for about 40 seconds, with absolutely no visual evidence that he was doing anything other than normal playing in one breath. When he finished he anounced that he had taken 6 breaths while he was playing.

He didn`t convince me... I think he lied, and did this to promote his own glory in the company of the over-accepting."

So what glory did he misrepresent? That he was actually circular breathing or that he could hold out a note/group of tongued notes for 40 seconds. Either noe is worth watching for the sport of it. In circ breathing, I would think that one could hear the intakes somewhat unless he had large nostrils.
~Bilbo

Mr. Negativity is just jealous because he can`t do it.

To clarify:

I believe he was promoting himself as a very skilled circular breather, when his much-hailed demonstration showed absolutely no evidence of circular breathing.

I am certain he was NOT circular breathing, and lied that he was doing it. The evidence of him doing so was zero. I think it is obvious to anybody who has experimented with circular breathing that it is physically impossible to do without slight movements easily visible in the upper neck, as the air pressure changes in the throat cavity.

If he showed any sign of taking any breath at all, I would have noticed, and if he wanted to demonstrate that he could do it without such such signs, he would have to do it for longer than 40 seconds, which is entirely possible WITHOUT circular breathing, to be at all convincing.

You are correct most fairly well trained flutists should be able to get 40 seconds out of one continuous note in one breath. -let alone staccato passages.
So don`t get me wrong, I agree with you. As a matter of fact, if he was really trying to show this technique, he would just play one note for 5 minutes. I suspect that because of the pressure situation, he couldn`t get it going in performance so he glossed it over as a lie. I thknk that one of the problems with people in authority such as musical directors is that if they don`t know the correct answer, they feel the need to create some answer that looks good on the spot. I can`t tell you how many times, I`ve had a student come to me and explain what some band director told them and I end up ROTFLMAO in disbelief about their stupidity.

One of the recordings that had us stumped in college was Galway playing a Paganini, Perpetual Motion etude with no apparent breaths. (It`s in a Moyse articulation book). His tonguing and tempo were great but the no breaths thing had us stumped in college. At his forum a few months ago someone asked about it and he admitted that it was the only instance where the tecnicians used adevice called a tape splicer.

The circular breathing thing is somewhat of a gimmick and the reason why I have not bothered to go beyond a glancing interest is that the flute should represent a singing soprano/alto voice in general and singing voices traditionally take breaths to emphasize words,phrases or passages in the music. It`s only natural. Now if I wanted my music to sound supernatural, that`d be different.
~Bilbo

I`ve never really needed any need for circular breathing in the past few years and I never thought I would be able to because my asthma is anything but controlled. But it was only when we moved house that i got a new teacher and she insisted that i would never be able to play properly if i didnt learn. That apparently "every famous player uses it" (her words not mine). Anyway thanks for all the advice and stuff about asthma even if I still cant do it.Mabey i just wont try doing it at all HA HA HAA cough cough.........

Leprachaun

another tired old debate, yet interesting, I just never understood why one would want to circular breathe, when the breath is part of the music.
After all, sentences have commas and periods, and fiddle players have to lift their bows now and then

Well Patrick, I suppose that sopmeone out to impress people with their super skills and technique is going to try circular breathing along with playing multiphonics and humming a third pitch. Kind of like the Roland Kirk mentality of playing three wind instruments simultaneously.

It`s all I can do to play with the instrument left-handed and the head joint upside down on my top lip. The fingerings on an open-holed flute then are kind of tricky.
~Bilbo

well said, anyway, circular breathing could wind up ruining the nicest phrases