A number of players neglect the importance of the airstream and therefore suffer from consequential problems; inferior sound, suspect intonation, limited range and the inability to phrase efficiently. By developing the ability to control your breathing basic problems such as these will be reduced and may be eliminated completely.

When you breathe normally you only use about 25% of your full breathing capacity. Problems arise when you need to increase the capacity sufficiently to fill your instrument. When you inhale you use two forms a vacuum. (i) One created by the diaphragm (ii) One created by the intercostal muscles around the rib cage You must be aware of the differences of these forms of inhalation to enable you to gain maximum capacity.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

John Ridgeon, one of the finest teachers of breathing techniques explains that to become aware of diaphragmatic breathing you only need to perform one simple exercise.

Exhale all the air from your system, open your throat as if yawning and pant rapidly using the diaphragm ensuring the upper part of your body and chest area stays perfectly still. This rapid panting action creates a vacuum that sucks air into the lungs.

If this is done correctly you will feel not only the stomach area expand, the top of your hips and back of your trunk will expand also.

Intercostal Breathing

Now that we are aware of how to control the lower part of our breathing apparatus we need to increase the capacity by using our upper body and chest area. The intercostal muscles are situated around the rib cage and they too create a vacuum when inhaling.

To find out how this intercostal vacuum works, simply a exhale all the air in your body and form a slightly stooped position, drooping the shoulders and leaning forward slightly. Pinch your nose with your fingers and keep your mouth closed. Then, straighten your body, as if a standing to attention.

Once you are in a fully upright position, quickly open your mouth. You will feel an immediate suction of air into the chest cavity demonstrating that the intercostal muscles create a substantial vacuum.

Diaphragmatic and Costal Breathing working together.

An efficient brass player should be able to breathe by using both of these forms of simple inhalation. A simple way to describe how we can activate these two breathing actions is to imagine you hold an empty glass in one hand and a jug of water in the other.When you pour the water into the glass it naturally fills from the bottom up.

Use this principle when you inhale, filling your lower body first then adding to the chest cavity in one simple movement. Remember that whatever dynamic you are playing you always need the maximum amount of air in your lungs to sustain a good sound throughout the range.

As you can see, your breath control skills can easily be rehearsed anytime and anywhere, without the use of your instrument.