Five Insanely Common Myths About Your Breathing

We all know breathing is vital to playing the recorder. And we all know breathing is vital to sustaining life.

The difficulty lies in having to do both at once!

I’m joking –sort of. As a longtime recorder teacher, I’ve seen that breathing is, quite justifiably, a preoccupation of many recorder students.

In part I think this is because breathing is so central to the experience of recorder playing, with direct effects on tone, physical comfort, musicality, and even cognitive capacity (oxygen turns out to be quite useful for processing)!

And in part this is because, for all that it looms so large in our lives, breathing remains a physical process that many of us find mysterious– it’s difficult to visualize, poorly understood, and poised awkwardly atop the fence between voluntary and involuntary movement.

This is probably why breathing myths spring up so reliably, like dandelions sprouting after rain. I’ve heard many, but here’s a curated collection of some of the most common and -dare I say– pernicious!

#1: The person who makes it the furthest through the music without taking a breath wins!

OK, this isn’t so much an explicit belief as it is part of an underlying mythos that many folks seem to carry around, if only subconsciously.

Here’s the truth: Taking breaths adds shape and meaning to the music we play. And in a lot of that music, those meaningful breaths come fairly frequently.

There are no medals for lack of oxygen. Breathe when the music needs you to breathe; then add additional breaths when you need air.

#2: I need to take in as much air as possible!

This is an extraordinarily common misconception, at least partially informed by the previous myth. If you are trying to force every last ounce of air into your body as you inhale, you are activating not only the primary muscles of inhalation (e.g., diaphragm, muscles between the ribs), but a whole host of inefficient extra muscles in places like the neck, arms, upper chest, and shoulders. These accessory muscles won’t get you much in the way of extra air. But theywillmake it ten times more difficult for you play with a smooth, beautiful, unconstricted tone.

#3: I should begin my breath by forcing my stomach out.

Nope. And if you’ve bought into this one, you’re likely doing a whole lot more work than you need to. We initiate inhales by contracting the diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle that sits under the lungs, down. This puts downward pressure on the abdominal contents and the abdomen will expand as a side effect of your breath. But the abdomen doesn’t start the party.

#4: I need to breathe into/ expand my back.

I was explicitly taught this one, and it took a degree in speech-language pathology for me to figure out why it never seemed to make sense.

Your ribs are attached to your spine in the back. Anatomically, it is impossible to expand your body backwards. What can and often should happen during inhalation is that the external intercostals, muscles that run between your ribs, contract, pulling your ribcage up and out like the handles on a bucket and expanding your chest cavity. But nothing is moving backward toward the spine.

#5: I don’t have enough lung capacity to play XYZ

OK, this one is sometimes true.

But you may not need to play XYZ (See Myth #1).

And even if you do, one of the beauties of the recorder, particularly its smaller sizes like soprano and alto, is that it actually requires very little air. I have had students over the years with a wide variety lung capacities, including capacities significantly diminished by things like lung disease, a medical condition that required supine playing, and even cystic fibrosis. All of these students were able to play effectively and musically.

Frequently when I hear a student say they don’t have enough air, what is actually occurring is something different. Maybe they are aren’t taking in air effectively. Or they aren’t effectively using the air they have. Or they’re actually taking in too much air and are feeling backed up. Or they’ve subconsciously bought into Myth #1. Or any combination of the above!

In my view, it’s far better to focus on what you can do (improve your use of the capacity you have) then on what you can’t (alter fundamental determinants of your lung capacity). (Unless you’re a smoker! In which case please add improved recorder playing to your list of reasons to think about quitting.)

Want more on breathing? I have a Webinar for that.

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