Me and my roommate had a circular breathing contest in our dorm room just now. It was great. We both play the french horn and we were discussing how long we can play a note while we were circular breathing. We decided to try to see who could play the longest.
We got our horns out and started playing. A few minutes passed and I was still going strong playing with a constant tone quality. About 10 minutes in, my lips were dry around my mouthpiece and began to go numb. I knew this part would be the hardest, because I couldn`t feel my lips, and it would be easy for me to slip up playing the note.
About 20 mins. into it, spit started gurgling around in the horn and leaked out of the bell. There was no turning around now, I kept going.
A few mins. later, people came in our room cheering us on. Knowing that the competition was about to end, someone offered to be an impartial judge and listen for whoever stopped first.
Finally, about 40 mins. into the competition my roommate`s lips went numb and he lost vibration causing him to produce no sound and lose. It was fun.

Hi,

What is sircular breathing and how do you breath?

Is it through the nose and out the mouth?

Thanks
Dave

thats pretty cool i can barley hold my breath for 12 notes

Circular breathing isn`t holding your breath.... it is breathing while playing. I can`t do it, but I,ve haeard a bit about how it works...

You kinda block some air in your mouth and stricly push that air ( your throat is free and no air pass in) with your chop out buzzing your mouthpiece and while doing that, you inhale by your nose and let the air go down your throat. To do this, you have to be able to block the way mouth/throat wich I`m not able to.

yeah, that is a pretty accurate description. It is really hard to explain. Just TRY it, and try a different way each time or try varying it. That`s what I did. I eventually figured out a way that worked where I could mantain my embouchure and where the tone of the note wouldn`t suffer. A good way to practice is trying to blow on hot food. Once you learn it, keep practicing.

My director said you can practice this by blowing water out of your mouth. You would blow the water out while breathing in. I haven`t tried it but it sounded like she knew what she was talking about. lol

Okay, today my director was sick so all we did was practice for a few hours without any lecture or instruction, so i have a lot of time on my hands and will attempt to describe how to do it.

Start, by taking in a big breath. Don`t get carried away with this step, just breath in and play/pretend to play a note.
Notice how your nose (the inside of it, above where it meets your throat) seems plugged.
When you feel yourself running out of breath (don`t wait until it is too late), relax your cheeks so they puff out with the air you are continuing to blow out.
Then, take your tongue and stick it on the roof of your mouth. Pretend you are going to say the word "talk" you know where your tongue would be on the roof of your mouth to prounounce the "t" sound, your tongue should be a little bit behind this position.
After your cheeks are blown out, and a split second after your tongue is on the roof of your mouth, squeeze your cheeks together pushing out the air that was supplied in your mouth when your cheeks were puffed out. Now, since you are still putting air into your instrument (by squeezing your cheeks together) you can take a breath (through your nose) and refill your lungs.
Note that you will only have a second to breathe in, because you can`t hold that much air in your cheeks.
Thats the best I can do. Just keep practicing, you`ll get it.
When you get more advanced, you won`t have to puff out your cheeks and still take some air in.