Mastering the breath: A guide to breathing on the flute

Breathing blog cover image

Have you ever considered what the most important aspect of playing the flute is? I would say, it all starts with the breath. Without the breath, we have no sound, no phrasing, and no music. The breath has the ability to make or break our tone; it influences almost every other part of our playing. So, we really need to learn how to do this well. Let’s take some time to explore.

A good breath starts with a balanced body

Here is a little experiment. Lift your shoulders up into the air as if you are shrugging. Leave them there and take a deep breath in. Now release your shoulders back to their natural position and take a breath in again. Do you notice the difference? Try the same experiment but this time, twist your body so that your shoulders are no longer aligned with your hips. Breathe in. Now line your shoulders up with your hips again. Breathe again. Do you feel how much easier and deeper that breath is?

What we do with our body DRAMATICALLY impacts our ability to breathe, and this will affect our tone. Learning to stand or sit in a balanced way is so important. Here is a video to help you to do this:

It’s not just about lung capacity

Breathing is not just about how much air you can get in. Rather, it is about how well you use that air. You heard me right. Yes, we need a free and open inbreath. Yes, this will affect your tone and how much air your body has, but learning to use that air well is just as important. 

My former teacher, who was the principal flute for the Vienna Volksoper for many years, had an accident that damaged his lungs, leaving him with only around 70% of his lung capacity intact. He was able to sustain his breath better than many of his students almost any day of the week. 

So yes, being fit and having bigger and better lung capacity may help, but not as much as you might think!

Breathing should not be work

Breathing is much easier than you may think. In fact, this is one of the most natural things that we do, about 22 000 times a day!

However, we often have the wrong idea about what breathing is. We think we need to try to make the breath happen. We artificially lift our chest, gasping in the air to “take a big enough breath”. We think, if I just get enough air in, I will get through the phrase. We will get to this in a moment, but you may be surprised to hear this: you do not take a breath, rather, you allow the breath and your body is breathed. 

For those of you who may have not been paying much attention in your biology class at school, here’s a quick refresher of how breathing works. Breathing is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which means that it happens without us even thinking about it (which doesn’t mean we can’t work with it consciously!). 

As you inhale, your biggest respiratory muscle, the diaphragm, contracts and moves downward as the ribcage expands, causing the lungs to expand and elongate. This creates a space in your chest cavity which allows air to flow in.  As you breathe out again, the diaphragm relaxes, and air is forced out of the lungs, creating a smaller space once again. 

The magic of this process is that we don’t really need to do all that much, rather we just allow our bodies to do the work. In contrast, when we gasp in the air, we often lift our chests and suck in our tummies, preventing our diaphragm from fully contracting downward and inhibiting a free open breath.

If you’d like to learn more about this process and how it relates to playing the flute, take a look at our video below:

Support may not be what you think it is

Many of us have this idea that support is us somehow tightening or squeezing the abdominal muscles to release the air or create more force in the sound. Well, you are sort of right, but not in the way that you may think. 

In many ways, support is the result of an open free inbreath. Let me explain. 

When we breathe in and let that belly flop and expand naturally, we now begin the work of slowly releasing the air. In our everyday breaths, we would simply breathe it all out again in one go, but on the flute, we want to slowly release that air. To do this, we gently engage our abdominal muscles and then work to release the air slowly, thereby countering the natural inclination to just let go of the air. The secret here though is that the abdominal muscles are so much more than just your stomach muscles. They are the muscles throughout your abdomen. These include the muscles between your ribs, your so-called stomach muscles, the muscles going right down to your pelvic floor, and through to your back. 

These abdominal muscles gently work to sustain the release of the breath, without squeezing, pushing or forcing. As the air is slowly released, the spine lengthens, the diaphragm returns to its natural position and the ribs and torso slowly follow. 

Take a breath in and hold the air with your cheeks puffed out. Now, start releasing the air. Feel your throat relax and allow your abdominal muscles to relax too. Let the air flow out through a small opening in your lips. This full, engaged but quite soft belly is all you need for “good flute support”.

What happens when you increase the size of that opening? Do you feel how your abdominal muscles collapse and disengage? 

While support is in part about the slow, gentle release of the air, it is also about the resistance created by the smaller opening of the lips, helping to hold the air back. Not by closing the throat or squeezing the embouchure, but just by closing the size of the aperture. 

Now, of course, we can use more force and more of our abdominal muscles at times. For example, I will use an outward pulse for challenging intervals, articulation, and other moments when I need a bit of extra airspeed (which is created by these outward pulses). However, the basic support needs to feel full, open and free to give me room to use a bit more air when I need it!

Breathing should be practiced!

Like most things in flute playing, breathing needs to be practiced and developed. Not just to get a beautiful free and easy breath or to discover that lovely support, but also to learn how to use breathing in different situations. We should practice different types of breaths, playing with less air and actively work on integrating breathing spots into our music.  

Join the 14-day breathing challenge!

We have a few useful videos for you down below, but perhaps the best way to really practice breathing is to join our 14-day breathing challenge. This challenge shows you how to practice your breathing and unlock the potential of your amazing breath. You will receive daily videos and exercises, a handy printable practice resource, and an amazing community of players to share the journey with you! Although we are officially kicking this challenge off on the 8th of February, you can get started anywhere, any time, and keep working through it at your own pace. 

As promised, some more helpful ways to explore and practice breathing:

Responses

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    1. Thank you, but in a piece I could never make it that long, as there is not so much time to take a big full breath, at it is, when I just hold one note. Did you try it at different times? I find out, I’m better or worse depending on the time.

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