Circular Breathing

[rookie_saxkid]

Hi,

I've heard a little bit about circular breathing. One of my sax pals heard that it enables you hold your breath longer or something like that, without having to take a breath.
What is circular breathing, and how do you do it. ( That is if anyone knows it is.) :P

[Kareeser]

I believe there is a topic like this in the "Beginners" Forum..

Anyhoo, circular breathing is inhaling and exhaling at the same time, at a controlled rate.

Therefore, you're breathing out into youe sax, and making music (hopefully), and breathing in through your nose, and replenishing the supply of air in your lungs.

I believe some members of this forum have that particular ability. It is also learnable, with practice,

[amg]

My circular breathing stinks, but anyway ....

Once you've learnt how it's done, you can keep a note going for several minutes. Of course during that note you have to refill your lungs from time to time. So ... as you come to the end of a breath you store some air in your cheeks. Then you have to change over from using diaphragm pressure expelling the air from your lungs, to using muscular pressure from your cheeks to expel that little pocket of air from your mouth. While that load of air is being pushed out through your lips you just breathe in through your nose. Then you revert to normal diaphragm exhaling.

And again. And ... again .... for as long as you please, or until you fall over.

There are various tricks people try to get the basic technique down, such as blowing through a straw into a glass of water. Keep that water bubbling while you suck the air in through your nose. But it seems to me you may as well start with a saxophone.

What you will find at first is that

1) it seems very difficult to avoid a kind of "bump" (or conversely, a gap) in the airstream as you change from diaphragm pressure to cheek pressure or vice versa

2) the pitch on the instrument goes haywire as the lips fail to maintain a proper embouchure .... because they're used to having nice rigid(ish) cheek muscles behind them, and now those muscles are going in and out like a bullfrog.

With practice these problems can be overcome (not by me yet...).

If you want see it done by a professional, go to Harvey Pittel's website --
(http://www.harveypittel.com) --
somewhere there is a little video of him playing Flight of the Bumble Bee "in a single breath" -- in fact he takes several breaths, but the sound keeps on coming out while he's breathing in.

Or find a CD of British avant gardist Evan Parker, who has made quite a few records of solo soprano saxophone music; he can go on playing multiphonic patterns without a break for minutes on end.

[schnibs]

just to echo what amg said, its not really breathing in whilst breathing out as is commonly thought by those who start out trying it, but breathing in while pushing air that is stored in your mouth. The best way i found to practice this was to:

1. get a jug/bowl/cup of water and a straw
2. take a breath in and expel it in a CONTROLLED manner, just like blowing your sax (through the straw, so bubbles are blown)
3.when you are nearly out of breath fill your cheeks up whilst still blowing out
4 nows the tricky part, push the air from your cheeks, whilst breathing in through your nose. you can see if it works coz there should still be bubbles being produced.

Now, at 1st you will notice a lack of consistency in the amount of bubbles when you squeeze air out, this is the bump that amg was talking about. Practice can get rid of this, but it takes patience. And when are you likely going to use this in a gigging situation, other than impressing a crowd? Best get back to long and overtones.

schnibs