Breathing exercises and techniques

[Jessica Lewis]

Hi Johnny,

I have had my saxophone for about 9 months now and happy to say I am improving. My sound is coming along really well and I am getting along with learning to sight read my music. There is one thing that I seem to have trouble with and it is my breathing. I have good breath support while actually playing the notes but when it comes to running out of breath and needing to take another I have to basically stop playing to gulp in air and it breaks up the rhythm of my playing and although I continue playing in time I am a couple of beats behind if that makes sense. I was wondering if there were any breathing exercises or techniques that I could practice that would allow me to learn to just have a smooth inhale between notes and not lose time. I do have asthma so I suppose this plays a part but I assume the exercises could only help with that too.
I would really appreciate any advice you or any of the other members have for combating this problem.

Thanks so much 🙂

[Anonymous]

i’m into my 8 month of playing and i know exactly what you’re going through.
I find that not two songs are the same and often have asked my Sax teacher where do i next take a breath?
If the song has words sometimes you can take in air where the singer pauses to inhale.
For simple songs you can inhale every 2 bars.
For songs with lots of phrases you can inhale at the end of each phrase.
One of the problems i initially had was over inflating my lungs at the start of a song.
So when i next inhaled my lungs weren’t getting a chance to empty themselves properly – the result was that although i was reinflating my lungs quite often the actuall oxygen proportion was was too low for my body – result slightly faint.
The best exercises for the lungs is walking like in a army band.
Aim to walk 8 steps breathing in slowly, 8 steps breathing out slowly.
This could represent 2 bars in 4/4 time.
I’ve read a couple books on learning to sing – these cover all this sort of stuff!
good luck – hope this helps

[Anonymous]

On the subject of breathing through the mouth while playing the Sax.
I’ve noticed that to stop the mouth and throat drying up and becoming hoarse, saliva production goes up when inhaling and exhaling through the mouth.
It’s hard to fill the lungs instantly through the nose but quicker to open the mouth bite and gulp a large quantity of air.
So the convenience of inhaling through the mouth. Some people inhale loose their embouchure after inhaling, and have to re-embouchure.
Your’e lucky if you can inhale through the corners of the mouth.
For excessive saliva production, i presume one would have to incorporate a quick swallow every 8 bars if possible.

[Author]

Posts