Breathing Exercises



       The breathing exercises that I use are very basic. They are designed to remind us what it feels like to move air properly. If you would like to gain a better insight on this, I strongly recommend you get the book "Brass Playing is No Harder Than Deep Breathing" by Claude Gordon. This book is a terrific resource, and as such is a valuable investment.      Anyway, back to the exercise. When inhaling, relax your gut (go ahead, let it flop out there!), and breath in fully in a relaxed manner. Now release this air. This should have the same ease of motion as if you had just got through running 3 miles as hard as you can. If you were to do this, your body would have one thing on it's mind, get the air in and out as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So, when playing the trumpet, you should inhale and exhale just like that. The same exhalation you would do as if you were out of breath. I will usually do about 5 breaths like this, to get the feeling of it. Then, I take my mouthpiece and exhale through the shank end of it (I'd recommend you wipe it off first). Do this about 4-5 times and make sure you are still breathing the same way you were in the first exercise. Next, I would exhale through the cup side of the mouthpiece (again, about 4-5 times). Finally, I put the mouthpiece in the horn and exhale through the horn (4-5 times). After this, any time that I feel I am "putting the brakes" on the air stream, I stop and repeat some of these breaths.      I generally will then go into some type of long-tone routine. However, I generally will start these tones with a "HAAA" attack rather then a tongued attack. You must always realize that the air is what starts the note, not the tongue. The tongue should just clean up the entrance.