Breath Support Exercises from Bassoon

[Benbrittonjazz]

I know I don't stop by the forum very often these days, but I wanted to share this great breath support exercise I discovered during a recent bassoon lesson. It was originally intended as a vibrato exercise but it works great for developing breath support on every wind instrument I've applied it to so far (bassoon, saxophone, trumpet, and counting).

The exercise consists of repeatedly and powerfully increasing the strength of the air stream via the abdominal muscles while holding a note. All you really hear is a suddenly louder version of the same pitch, but it really encourages your abdominal muscles to participate more in the music making process. In a short version the exercise is a great warm up, and done at length I believe it will strengthen your overall ability.

I have a detailed version of the exercise on my blog: http://everythingsaxophone.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-breath-support-exercise.html

 

[fibracell]

I assume that if you practise flute vib you don't need to do these on sax?

 

[jbtsax]

I went for years not knowing what "breath support" really meant. Teachers and adjudicators would use the term and I was too inexperienced and self conscious to ask. Then one day a tuba teacher said he taught "breath support" by having his students blow at a half sheet of paper and hold it on a mirror or window for as long as they can with just their airstream.

Then it dawned on me that "breath support" was just another way of saying "pressurized air" or air with pressure behind it. That's the term I used in my teaching from that point on. For younger students I would tell them to pretend they are trying to blow up a balloon that is difficult to inflate. Nothing more needed to be said. In lessons I would say from time to time, "Are you remembering to blow up your balloon"?. The tone would improve instantly.

 

[Benbrittonjazz]

I assume that if you practise flute vib you don't need to do these on sax?

The amount of resistance is increased on saxophone, so while the muscle movements are extremely similar, doing the exercise on saxophone will engage your abdominal muscles relative to that instrument. I think you will likely see a greater payoff.

One aspect of this that I didn't do so great a job of detailing is that in the bassoon version of this vibrato exercise students are encouraged to pulse the air so powerfully that it is ugly sounding with the point of fully engaging the abdominal muscles. This is actually what caught my attention. On the saxophone you'll need to really utilize the abdominal muscles to create a sudden and significant increase in dynamic.