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- Breath in deeply.
- Hold breath.
- 'sip' more air in.
- Hold breath.
- 'sip' more air in.
- Hold breath.
(repeat as desired)
- Hold breath. (longer)
- Breathe out.

Do this as much as you feel necessary; it's one of the breathing exercises I use to expand lung capacity. Just don't over-do it.
Beware popping rib cages!

It was meant to have a breath BETWEEN EACH NOTE. Never, ever lose sound.

you aren't an oboe player.. its ok to run out of air. Great tone relies on it. There is a video somewhere on the net of Jacobs playing Tannhauser and he breathes just about every other note. That would be about every 2 1/2 or 3 seconds.

tubashaman wrote:But what about phrasing

That's the fun in practicing: trying to get rid of the human element in playing and letting the emotive and musical element shine.

that and running, and ab work = more air = greater sustain

( i know i'm a bit of a hypocrite, but i know what I have to do to imporve)

examine embouchure efficiency as well. If you are using a lot of air that is not being turned into energy at the lips, this will have a sever effect on how much air is used in a phrase.

The mouthpiece makes two noises:
1. the buzzing sound of the upper lip vibrating against the lower lip
2. the air or "whooshing" noise of the air going through the throat of the mouthpiece.

If, when you buzz on the mouthpiece, you hear more of the "whooshing" noise than the buzzing noise, then you are bleeding a lot of energy off during the process of buzzing.

I always try to think of the mouthpiece buzz as being a combination of about 60% buzz noise and 40% "whooshing" noise as a good place to start your evaluation. Work on just the mouthpiece for a while trying to create a fairly strong buzz without too much of the air noise. As you move things around to get this sound, you will hear it when you find the "sweet spot" where the balance feels good and the end result has more sound to it.

Once your embouchure is creating a stronger buzz, with less lost energy of the air not being turned into work at the lips, you will find that you can hold phrases much longer and will have more sound. This means that you can now use less air to get the same amount of sound that you are getting now, which means you will be able to keep the sound going longer with less effort.

This is where I would begin.

Just an observation.

Roger

Yes, jogging IS great.
I combined jogging and what I´d call "target breathing"
(That would be: plan ahead of time just how many steps You want to inhale, hold breath, and then exhale.
Full use of lung capacity and even air flow (liters per second) throughout the breathing movement will improve both running and playing stamina by a great deal.
Don´t forget to fool around with different combinations of values, as in 2 steps inhale, 5 steps hold breath, 9 steps exhale vs. 12 steps inh., 2 steps hold, 1 step exh.

I DO regret I quit doing that kind of practise, which might have prevented my weight to soar from 108 to 121 kg.

Roger Lewis wrote:examine embouchure efficiency as well.

Roger doesn't post often, but when he does it's TRVTH. I'm printing this one out. It's quite similar to buzzing advice I got many years ago from Mike Sanders--he had be buzz a mouthpiece with idea of creating a point of air about two inches downstream of the mouthpiece opening. That focused buzz is exactly what Roger is describing.

But if you need air, you must inhale. As Jacobs said, "I have a short bow, but I change it often." The musicianship is breathing without breaking the phrase, or in ways that enhance the phrasing. If I'm playing a supporting role, though, I'd rather breathe more often than leave the sound weak and unsupportive. Some held notes in the music we play require three breaths for me to get through.

I would also like to argue against the notion that running helps much. I have been fat and unfit, and I have trained 15 hours a week and have finished marathons, centuries, mile-plus swims, and even an Ironman-distance triathlon. I can see no difference in vital capacity between the times I was a fit endurance athlete and times (like now) when I'm overweight and unfit. In fact, the training required to be fit took time away from the tuba and resulted in a net loss in ability. When I run aerobically, I'm not taking deep breaths. The shallow breathing that I do even when swimming long distances uses the middle third of the lung capacity. Tuba playing requires using the top third. It's a completely different way to breathe.

I'm not saying it isn't valuable to be fit, of course. A tuba player may be so unfit as to be out of breath just from the effort of remaining upright. That will affect playing. I'm just saying that beyond basic fitness required for reasonable health, running does not, in my view, have much impact on the vital capacity usable as a tuba player.

Rick "who buzz efficiency is a worse problem than vital capacity" Denney

I would like to take every single band director that has ever insisted on 4-bar phrases and force them to play The Ride on tuba at volume using 4-bar phrases. Gene Pokorny doesn't do it. Alan Baer likely doesn't do it. There are precious few tuba players that can do it and make it sound good.

But it's a lot easier to teach 4-bar phrases (since a TON of western music lies quite nicely in 4-bar phrases) than it is to teach the concept of musical breathing.

Itreallyreallysuckstotrytoreadasentencethathasnobreaksorpunctuationandjustgoesonandonandon...

Same with music. Just as there is a certain rhythm in speech, with breaks and pauses regardless of the need for breath, music has those same requirements. If you listen to music as a language, you clearly hear the periods, commas, semi-colons, etc.

The only justifiable reason to play a 4-bar phrase is that the music makes it an imperative. And I could probably count the number of times I have encountered such a musical imperative on one hand (excluding 20-bar sustained whole notes...). A musical imperative leaves no possibility for interpretation. And that is what we do: interpret.

Breath is a vital tool in interpreting music. You wouldn't try to repair a car without the proper tools. Why would you try to play music with one of the vital interpretational tools purposely removed from your toolbox?

Think Fountains of Rome...Is there anyone that doesn't breathe between the half note and quarter note each time it descends down to the low E in that low register? If you don't you lose support very rapidly. But it fits if you keep the musical line in the forefront of what you are doing.

In an interview on the CSO web site, Gene Pokorny makes the point that there are times when a tubist is moving upwards of 140 liters of air a minute through the horn. The math tells us that 140/60 sec. = 2.33 liters of air per second. With a huge 7 liter vital capacity, that translates to a full breath every 3 seconds if you are playing flat out and completely emptying your lungs before each breath. Now, the vast majority of players don't even have a ticket to the 7-liter ballpark. Most are between 4 and 6 liters. There isn't a snowball's chance of making it 4 bars.

I guess the best way to say it is; when you breathe often isn't as important as how you breathe in terms of musicality.

Breath often.
Breath big.
Breath musically.

And Chuck is correct...the Remington long tone exercises are intended to have a breath between each note, although I had a teacher have me breath every other note until I hit low G, then every note down to pedal C.

And as far as physical exercises go, I prefer swimming. The water pressure on your torso makes it harder to inhale. It's like ankle weights for your lungs. Also much easier on my crumbling old knees...

http://www.cso.org/main.taf?p=15,1,4,1#gpokorny - Pokorny interview...scroll down and wait for it to load.

Without hearing how you used to sound and how you sound now, it's difficult to say. It could be that what you are doing is good -- maybe getting a more robust tone. Playing on a big mouthpiece usually takes more air.

tubashaman wrote:I do not think my question was ever answered,

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tubashaman wrote:My professor is VERY knowledgeable ...

Maybe you are asking the wrong people????

Greg wrote:I could be wrong, but isn't breathing done when you need air? Not to signify the end of a phrase?

You are exactly right. Unfortunately, you seem to be in the minority on this issue. Most band directors I know (middle-school and high school) equate the breath with the end of the phrase.

tubashaman wrote: Could these ALL be factors to my lack of being able to sustain:

1. not exercising since marching band.....so maybe I should run every day, since I am fat and dont eat too well (stupid college)

2. It is currently pretty chilly here in Texas (pretty rare). Could cold air affect the amount you need to take a breath, since I think it is thinner.

3. I play on a toilet bowl for a mouth piece (PT 50+), which is heavy and huge, could it require more air and such.

4. Not being in shape at all

I worked on breathing exercises today and actually when I teach lessons, and I am doing them the same, and breathing out the same...

First off, you live in a place that is not uncommon for it to be cold. In fact, that is usually the the coldest part of Texas in the winter.

The bottom line is that you're going to have to breathe A LOT for good tuba playing! I'm a big-as-hell tuba player! (300+ lbs.) I am certainly NOT in shape, but I have learned and continue to learn the concept of air efficiency. I breathe many, many times when playing those "big and loud" excerpts. So what? It really doesn't matter about mouthpieces and being out of shape. I'm sure it does help to be in shape, but in the end you just have to produce results. If you can not at this point, then continue to work! You have already received some great advice here, so take what you will from all of this and get to work.

Forgive my physics, but I was taught that cold air is thicker. I guess when it gets colder, the air molecules don't move as much and therefore are more compact.

Shaman, JUST a suggestion since we're both just students and don't have much experience to account for anything, but instead of having decent tone for 3 minutes,
how about having great tone all the time. AJ stressed thinking about the music before bodily functions and not allowing the limits of your physiological composition affect how you communicate your music.

a trick that I use and teach to my students that allows you to make sure that you are getting all the air IN that you can. I like to breathe "in tempo", and I set up so that, as I am preparing for my entrance, no matter where it is, I take a breath (in say, 4/4 time) on the 3rd beat of the bar before I come in, and then another on the forth beat without ever exhaling the first breath. This allows you to completely fill you lung vital capacity.

Now, there's a caution here. When you first start working on this you will get an explosive attack as when your lungs expand that fully, they put pressure on the rib cage and start to push it out, stretching the intercostal muscles between each of the ribs. When you start the exhalation, these muscles are drawn tight like the string on a bow, and it causes the ribs to slam back together creating an uncontrolled blast of air. So you work on this in the practice room.

After about a month or so, the intercostal muscles start to become like the waist band on a worn out pair of underwear and the muscles are more flexible and the exhalation can be controlled quite well.

This allows you to fill up fully and gives you the ability to extend the phrase. If you're going through the air too quickly, back off on the dynamic just a bit. Learn to conserve.

Personally I use circular breathing on rare occasions when I need just a little more, but my personal feeling is that circular breathing, like vibrato, is like zipping your pants in public - it is to be done DISCREETLY.

I'm done now.
Roger

Roger Lewis wrote:Personally I use circular breathing on rare occasions when I need just a little more, but my personal feeling is that circular breathing, like vibrato, is like zipping your pants in public - it is to be done DISCREETLY.

remembering that quote!

tubashaman wrote:I used to be able to do alot, but the last 2 and a half weeks (i have been practicing like normal) I have gotten to about 2 measurs, and in pieces such as Russian christmas music playing the string bass cues made me memorize it.

Cold air is thicker, but I don't think that has much effect on the situation.

Nor do I think timed tests are particularly useful without an objective standard of loudness, tone quality, and pitch stability. We don't want high-school kids going out and seeing how long they can sustain a wavering, weak tone.

I'm also playing RCM, and the tied pairs of whole notes at the end of the work require three breaths from me to get through. I stagger with my section mate. I would rather breathe in the middle of the note than at the end where it will leave a gap in the phrase. Generally, I try to breathe in the middle of measures and leave the bar-line breathing for others.

My vital capacity is not great. My efficiency is not great. I have to make up for it with strategic and musical thinking, and that is what we should teach high-school kids.

If you have seen a sudden loss of vital capacity, then you are either ill or you have flipped a switch in your thinking that you should unflip before it becomes habit.

Going back to Mike Sanders's teaching, when he talks about breathing often, he's not recommending a strategy for people with a small vital capacity. He's suggesting that we keep the lungs topped up by breathing before it is necessary. A breath to fill the top third of our vital capacity takes much less time than a breath to fill all of it. And when we breathe only to top up, we can choose when we take those breaths so that they are musical. He made this point in lessons and also in his Army Conference master class. It's not original to him, of course, but sometimes I think we forget these basic principles.

Applying that to RCM, I considered how often I needed to breathe at the end of that extended passage of string bass cues. Those are the quick breaths I take because of biological necessity. The usual strategy is for people to sound great on those pizzicato notes for about 8 bars, and then the sound and phrasing breaks down because they are working from the last remaining bit of lung capacity. So, I try to breathe that often right from the start, and use those more frequent breaths to stay topped up.

What breaks the phrase are those huge breaths we take to avoid falling out of our chair. Three smaller breaths in lieu of that one big one would be easier to manage musically and would allow us to sustain the tone, pitch, and dynamic.

Rick "who doesn't conduct timed tests" Denney

So, Roger, for those of us who would love to learn to circular breathe but who have not had much success, how about posting one of your most excellent treatises, on how to learn that?

MA

wchoc86 wrote: so I've been trying this, but I can't really hear this whooshing noise you're talking about, but my embouchure obviously isn't that efficient cause the results coming out of my bell just aren't on par with pros and such, so am I just not used to what it sounds like, or am I some sort of freak of nature or something?

What?!!???!!!!? No "world class" sound? As to the "freak of nature or something," I am unable to comment.