Flutes use more air than the tuba. By air, I mean volume of air, not back-pressure. Oboes take the cake on back-pressure.
Flutes waste 60% of our air in order to make a sound. Because we have to waste 60% of our air, we have to figure out different ways to breathe so that we can play longer than one note at a time.
Note: this is not the traditional way to teach belly breathing. I have found over the years that this one works better.
Breathe Out
Pull in your stomach muscles as much as you can while breathing out. Breathe out until you don’t think more air is possible to come out. Your abs should be burning.
Breathe In
Let go of your stomach muscles. Your belly will get big as your lungs fill with air.
The Second Breath
In the second breath out, your abs shouldn’t burn, but you should feel your stomach muscles pull in. Breathing in will be less of a shock.
What’s happening
When you pull in your stomach muscles to breathe out, you’re using your visceral mass (organs and intestines in your belly) to push on the bottom of your diaphragm, helping it to force the air out of your lungs.
When you expand your belly to bring the air in, you’re making the air go faster than normal, all the way down to the bottom of your lungs. It’s almost like a vacuum effect.
Check Yourself in the Mirror
Stand to the side in a mirror and put your hands on your belly. You should see your belly going in and out quite a bit. If you’re just learning how to do this, it’s a good idea to begin your practice with this exercise of watching yourself in the mirror.
Belly Breathing
The process described above is called belly breathing. It’s considered one of the more effective ways to breathe. You’ll use this for the rest of your life as a musician.
Singers
I have read in a lot of flute literature that if you don’t understand something about breathing, talk to a singer. They’re a great resource for learning about breath.
James Galway used to talk to singers about breath, vibrato, and tone. I love talking to musicians about the different ways they learn things. More on that here.
Don’t Do The Things on the List Below.
Here are some things you shouldn’t do with the belly breathing
- Don’t bring your shoulders up when you’re breathing in. It creates extra pressure on your throat, does nothing for your amount of breath, and makes your body think it should only use the top 10% of your lung rather than the whole lung.
- Don’t fill up higher than 80%. The most you should feel full of air is to the height of your armpits. If you fill your lungs further than that, you put extra pressure on your vocal chords and might have bad tone for the first few notes. After a few years, you can practice getting good tone after filling up to 100%, but it takes a lot of work.
- When breathing out, don’t allow your chest to go down before your belly goes in. You’ll get a lot more playing time if you do it in that order than in the reverse.
Conclusion
Belly breathing is the bread and butter of our breathing techniques. It becomes automatic after a year or two and will serve you well in other things besides just music. More on that here.
There are two more breathing techniques, which will each come up in their own article.