Increasing lung capacity?

[tubaaron]

From what i understand (pls correct me if i'm mistaken), your maximum lung capacity can only increase as your body GROWS. Maybe, what you need here is a more efficient use of your air rather than having more air. If I remember correctly, Arnold Jacob had only ONE lung, but he made very efficient use of his air. All he needed to do was to breathe a little more often. =)

Aaron "whose lung capacity is small and has inefficient use of his air as well"

[Dean]

Id say the only possible way would be to saw through your sternum and open it up--similar to open-heart surgery, thus allowing your lungs to expand beyond your chest cavity...

I am no doctor, but I am certain that critical capacity cannot be expanded. Your lungs are made of very elastic tissue, but they only have so much room to expand before they run into other organs, your ribs, and your spine.

That being said, 95% of players do not use all the air they could be using all the time. There are a ton of exercises that can be done to increase your practical capacity, and some tools you can use with these exercises. All you really need is a metronome and practice breathing in and out at full capacity in a certain number of beats..

For example, set the metro at quarter=60. Standing up, breathe all the way in to full capacity in 4 counts, hold that (dont hold with your tounge, hol with your lungs) for 4 counts, and exhale ALL AIR in 4 counts. Practice changing those numbers... (Example, IN 4, HOLD 8, OUT 2) etc etc etc. It will help increase the capacity you USE, and make you more conscious of how you use your air.

There are also tools and breathing toys that can help you. Incentive spirometer is a good one--gives you a visual of how much air flow you have... There are others too--I found em over the years at different conferences and such. Many have roots in medicine--to be used by patients with breathing ailments.

A 1/2" or 3/4" PVC ball valve works well too! A few bucks at Lowe's or Home Depot. You can use it as a breathing tube. Place one end in your mouth. Open the valve all the way for zero resistance. Do the above exercises. Nearly close the valve, and you have a ton of resistance. Try the same exercises.

There's a ton of things you can do, really too much to write... Many people will have suggestions I hope!!

[brianf]

Arnold Jacob had only ONE lung

He did??? And he always thought he had two lungs! Someone should have told him.

[tubaaron]

Yeah he did. I didn't mix it up with Hitler having only 1 ball did i?

Aaron "who has two lungs and two balls..and haven't been puttin any to good use"

[Yama861]

Try the "Breathing Gym" by Patrick Sheridan and Sam Pilafian. Comes as a book or DVD/VHS. Outstanding.

What you may be experiencing is the inefficiency of your embouchure. Using more air to get vibration.

[Ryan_Beucke]

Another possibility is that you are using more air than you need to because of the room you're playing in. I'm not talking about air efficiency, which is a problem many players have, but you're saying that you seem to run out of air quicker while playing tuba at home than playing sousaphone in a rehearsal.

I've noticed that I tend to use up air quicker when playing in my room, because the acoustics are so bad that I'm trying to blow harder to match the volume I would normally hear while practicing in a practice room at school.

This is just speculation, but it might be worth it to try playing your Yamaha at the next rehearsal to see if this is the problem.

[Lew]

Yeah he did. I didn't mix it up with Hitler having only 1 ball did i?

Aaron "who has two lungs and two balls..and haven't been puttin any to good use"

Untrue, urban (tuba?) legend.

[Kevin Hendrick]

Arnold Jacob had only ONE lung

He did??? And he always thought he had two lungs! Someone should have told him.

Yeah he did. I didn't mix it up with Hitler having only 1 ball did i?

Given that Brian was one of Mr. Jacobs' students (not to mention having "written the book" (Song and Wind)), I'd tend to take his word for it ...

[tubatooter1940]

tuba4sissies,Arnold Jacobs lost lung capacity as he got older as we all do but he studied the problem and learned new tricks to partly compensate for the loss.We can learn to maximize the capacity we have and breathe and blow more efficiently.
I read in this forum and others that Yamaha tubas are air hogs and are frustrating to play in that respect.
Good luck with it.
tubatooter1940

[Paul Scott]

To the melody of "Colonel Bogey":

Hitler, has only got one ball,
Goebbels, he has them but they're small,
Himmler, has something similar,
and Hermann Goering, has nothing, at all.

a WWII ditty

[MaryAnn]

Work on getting a more efficient buzz: there is an optimal combination of air/lip tension for any note you need to play, and the only way to find that combo is to do "personal research." It took me several years to develop a really efficient buzz; what you do is see how tight you can make your lips and still play the pitch, and then see how loose you can make your lips and still play the (same) pitch....and find the spot somewhere in the middle that gets the sound you like. That place in the middle will be your most efficient buzz. Buzzing with tighter lips than that will get you a lousy sound, and looser than that will run you out of air faster. And interestingly enough, the most efficient buzz will generally be the best sound you can get. More air is blatty and less air is thin.

It can take years of playing an instrument before your embouchure is developed to the point where you have the "most efficient buzz." A well developed embouchure not only has muscle development but also relaxation development; you need strength of needed muscles along with relaxation of un-needed muscles to have it function at a high level.

And, different instruments will fall differently on the "efficiency curve," at least in terms of feel. After I play tuba for a couple hours, I basically will blow the bell off my french horn for the first five minutes of playing it, until I lower my air flow to the "efficiency curve" that works on that instrument.

MA

[funkcicle]

no i can play with little air at all. but it's kind of qiuet. not good for normal play.

If you can't create the same sound on your horn with no air in your lungs as you do with full lungs than it is almost certainly a matter of embouchure efficiency..ask your teacher for some lip building excercises. All the air in the world won't help an inefficient embouchure.