Increasing lung capacity

[bigbandbone]

I'm an older guy, took 40+ years off, and when I started playing again about a year ago I switched to bass. I know I'm not taking the same big breaths I was taking as a younger man.

What breathing excercise can I do to slowly build up my lung capacity?

[Burgerbob]

Cardio. But most of it is just being efficient, not building up capacity (which is not how it works anyway).

[Jimprindle]

Your lungs will not change size, but how you do breathing exercises will help. David Vining has a great book about that http://www.mountainpeakmusic.com/breath ... -trombone/

You Tube stuff as well.

Over my 50 years of pro playing I have borrowed and created lots of exercises. You can probably find them in the TTF archives. Search for JP.

[imsevimse]

You can not increase lung volume more than what's your individual limit. Lung volume is individual and depends on how we are built. There are tables with data where you can read average lung volume for men versus women of different age and length. There you can also see the maximum lung volume decrease with age.

There are techniques to help you use your maximum lung capacity. Personally I think it helps to raise my shoulders to get the maximum air into my lungs. Then it is important to learn how to breath fast. I know there are videos on this were Alessi shows how to breath fast and efficiently. Another important thing is to blow efficiently. All air must be used as efficient as possible to produce sound and no leaks allowed. To practice very soft and long phrases helps efficiently. Another technique that can help is circular breathing. Besides this breath a lot, everywhere you can.

/Tom

[MrLong]

Look into Pat Sheridan and Sam Pilafian’s Breathing Gym to build increased efficiency.

[DougHulme]

I sat in a lecture at an ITF somewhere, maybe New Orleans where the eminent lecture giver had an exact equation on how your lung capacity decreased with every pound weight you put on. I cant remember the equation at all but it was of the character of 'for every 1lb you put on you lose ?% of lung capacity" which would suggest to me that whatever surrounds your lungs has a restricting element to how far the muscles in your lungs can expand.

The logical thought from that would be that if its fat or other organs constricting your muscles the stronger your muscles the further they can push the restriction back. therefore lung excercise or muscle strengthening would have an effect of the capacity? Not suggesting you can expand beyond your rib cage of course.

Just thinking out loud here.

[GabrielRice]

The Breathing Gym stuff is great. Cardio exercise - even just brisk walking is all you really need - is great. Yoga is great. I would suggest doing it all in moderation.

Also, this 21-day routine - https://westonsprott.com/21-days - has helped me quite a bit. I notice that I can play phrases just a bit longer. I think the extended gentle breaths and holding my breath while staying relaxed help teach my body and brain that I don't need to panic as I'm getting down below my resting air.

[paulyg]

There are surgical alternatives:

https://images.app.goo.gl/ZAz16utiA2hkedfn6

Edit: Seriously, some people swear by swimming. Any form of gentle exercise will help, but swimming especially demands breath control. Charlie Vernon is an active swimmer.

[baileyman]

Make a habit of doing all your workouts with a full breath that runs out, like doing long tones. The more in tune you can get it all together, the horn, the chops, the mouth volume, the better the sound and the longer it lasts. Endless repetition and paying attention to the puzzling things that show up over time seem to be the way to proceed.

[hyperbolica]

Don't listen to people who say you can't improve what you've got. Playing bass increased my tenor lung capacity. Playing tuba increased my bass lung capacity.

When you get a bass bone, make sure its not a giant air sucker. I'm in the same boat as you with returning at an older age with wind capacity concerns. It can impress, but don't set yourself up for failure with a huge horn and mouthpiece. And if you get a tuba as a wind exercise machine, that's great.

Those books others mention are also useful, but you have to practice, and breathe.

[CalgaryTbone]

This is just semantics - your actual lung capacity is pre-determined by your body size, particularly height. Your usable lung capacity (what you can call upon when you play) is affected by fitness or illness, and things like doing breathing exercises, or practicing on an instrument that needs more air, which is a sort of breathing exercise built into you daily practice. Both statements are true - you can't change your overall physical shape (ie: lung size), but you can learn to breathe more efficiently. Still, 2 players who do all the same exercises, etc., but have very different physiques will have some difference in their results. That being said, practice almost always trumps physical aptitude.

A trombonist friend of mine once had to take an insurance physical, and the doctor made him repeat a treadmill breathing test, and was about to make him do it a 3rd time. When he asked why, the doctor said that something was wrong, because a rather average guy physically was showing the results of an elite athlete. He explained his trombone background, and the doctor realized that there was the explanation of the test results.

Jim Scott

[SimmonsTrombone]

I bought a voldyne and by daily use for several weeks was able to increase my usable lung capacity by a liter. During these weeks, I developed sore muscles around my breastbone, so I’m sure I was developing weak muscles. The advantage of the voldyne is that it measures capacity so you get feed back. I’m sure aerobic exercise can do the same.

[bigbandbone]

I bought a voldyne and by daily use for several weeks was able to increase my usable lung capacity by a liter. During these weeks, I developed sore muscles around my breastbone, so I’m sure I was developing weak muscles. The advantage of the voldyne is that it measures capacity so you get feed back. I’m sure aerobic exercise can do the same.

Thanks Simmons Trombone for the idea of buying a respiratory device. After some investigation I bought an "Ultrabreathe Respiratory Trainer". I started working with it a couple of days ago. My intercostal muscles are definitely a little sore so it is doing something. I'll give it 30 days and report back on this thread if I can find it again.
http://www.ultrabreathe.com/

[tctb]

I use an ultrabreathe and it definitely helped me to get more usable lung capacity . You can test it by setting the control for breathing out fairly tight ( making a note of the setting so that it is the same for each test )then count the seconds it takes to empty your lungs . My count steadily increased over several weeks.

[2bobone]

Regarding the trombonist/treadmill story. During a session with Arnold Jacobs, I recall him referring to brass players as "sedentary athletes". Made sense then ---- makes sense now !

[baileyman]

I stumbled on an interesting breathing effect recently:

Take a full breath and then hold it open, close no lips, no tongue, no glottis, just keep open.

Wait a little.

Okay, breathe in some more and hold it open, too.

Wait some more.

Breathe in some more and repeat until there is nothing left to take in.

Very curious, but it seems to stretch out the breathing bits. I note that in playing I come no where close to using all this capacity, though.

[2bobone]

An excellent description by "Baileyman" of a process that Ed Kleinhammer related to me almost 55 years ago ! "Take a full breath and then hold it open, close no lips, no tongue, no glottis, just keep open. Wait a little. Okay, breathe in some more and hold it open, too. Wait some more. Breathe in some more and repeat until there is nothing left to take in." In my case, Mr. Kleinhammer only instructed me to take in a single breath, hold it without any closures, and just before articulating a note take another "hitch" breath and immediately articulate the note. It was amazing to see how that slightly "Super-Charged" burst of air would make it almost impossible to miss the note you were aiming for ! The only time I found it not to work as hoped was when you encountered a conductor that had NO concept of the well known fact that wind players must, by necessity, take a breath before playing ! I especially remember Mistislav Rostropovich [ a cellist ] throwing a cue at me for a low B Natural [Yeah, THAT low B Natural] during the NSO recording of Boris Godunov without any preparative beat. Ed's little trick was a life-saver ! I was never able to get the idea across to Rostropovich, a member of the "Wire-Choir", that being alerted to an entrance always provided a better result when you are dealing with wind players. I would have thought that he might have had a better understanding of the issue because he once told a player who was auditioning for the orchestra that, "I play cello, but always wanted to sound like a trombone, and you play the trombone, but sound like a cello" ! Most trombonists would take that as a compliment, but that was not his intent. It must have been a language barrier ?? -------------- .

[Savio]

There is some tricks to do if the music allows it:
Sometimes take a sip through the nose. Sometimes skip a note and take a real breath. Some conductors hold the last note forever, then set it strong, go back or just take a breath and then make a crescendo. (makes the conductor very happy) Another thing especially in any ensemble is to play a little softer but hold all notes in full length. And be in time. Focus on attack and then go back a little and hold it stable.

If you play a solo there is lot of places to breath and still make it musical.

Well, easy to tell, I should stop both smoking and drinking beer. Start running....

Anyway, the older I get, the more I appreciate to even hold the trombone everyday and make some sound out of it. A bass trombone needs a lot of air.

Leif

[tctb]

Good advice , Savio . Sometimes you need to accept your limitations and find a way to work around them . You can only expand your lung volume so far then nature puts the brakes on.

[whitbey]

Breath Builder

https://www.hickeys.com/search/products/sku037944.php

[Seabass]

The Breathing Gym stuff is great. Cardio exercise - even just brisk walking is all you really need - is great. Yoga is great. I would suggest doing it all in moderation.

Also, this 21-day routine - https://westonsprott.com/21-days - has helped me quite a bit. I notice that I can play phrases just a bit longer. I think the extended gentle breaths and holding my breath while staying relaxed help teach my body and brain that I don't need to panic as I'm getting down below my resting air.

Do you still have the PDF available? Sprott got a new webiste, and I can't find the routine anywhere else. If you could send it to me I would be very grateful!

[harrisonreed]

You can only decrease where your lungs have to go, and therefore decrease your lung capacity. Gaining weight is one way to do it. Smoking and making them less elastic is another. I'm finding too that getting older (not that I'm old!!) Is another great way to do it. You can also forget how to use your lungs, and for that we have yoga.

So in losing weight, or doing yoga, or finding the fountain of youth, you can gain lost space back. I don't think you can increase how far your lungs can expand, however.

The best way is to just be very efficient with what you get out of the air you do have. You know the feeling you get when you've barely got your chops interfacing with the mouthpiece but it seems like even a tiny puff of air makes the whole horn bark as soon as it hits the leadpipe. The tighter you pull your embouchure, the less and less you get out of the whole system. There is like a magic equilibrium where your chops are completely malleable and you can feel the air hitting the the leadpipe and just going nuts.

Ian Bousfield is a master of this kind of efficiency.

Listen to the 3rd moment of the Walker tribune concerto as recorded by Lindberg. There isn't a lot of input going in but the output is MASSIVE.

Also check out Charlie Vernon. The man takes a LOT of breaths, and often in places that surprise me. I'll be darned if they aren't all musical and tasteful, though.

Just ignore the fact that every breath Charlie is taking is about twice the normal amount of air a normal person can take.

[Basbasun]

I stumbled on an interesting breathing effect recently:

Take a full breath and then hold it open, close no lips, no tongue, no glottis, just keep open.

Wait a little.

Okay, breathe in some more and hold it open, too.

Wait some more.

Breathe in some more and repeat until there is nothing left to take in.

Very curious, but it seems to stretch out the breathing bits. I note that in playing I come no where close to using all this capacity, though.

That is very good. The best breathing exercise I tried. Do it at least once a day.
Watch James Markey on youtube.
It is true that you can´t make your lung volume bigger, it is also tru that your lung volume get smaller with age.
How ever, most people do not use their full capacity, actually many tromboneplayer could make better use of their lungs.
Most bass trombonists have found out that they need all the air they can get.
You can not expand your lungs volume, but your capacity is not only your lung volume. Your breathing muscles can be out of shape, maybe you are not used to inhale very big, and not exhale with that control that is neede for trombone playing. If your 40 years away from the trombone is also not very much exercise, lots of sitting around doing paper work or watch TV, there is a big chance that you can increas your lung capacity. Do long walks, do the exercise baileyman posted, watch Alessi and Markey on youtube. I hade some old students last years well above 70 with very low lung capacity that manage to increase their breathing considerably.

[MagnumH]

Do you still have the PDF available? Sprott got a new webiste, and I can't find the routine anywhere else. If you could send it to me I would be very grateful!

@Seabass et al - I've shared my copy of the Sprott Breathing Exercises here. I'll leave it up for as long as I remember to.

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0kCa ... _Exercises

[Seabass]

Thank you very much!

[Kdanielsen]

I think the other side of the equation is more important than trying to increase lung capacity: efficiency at the embouchure. An efficient embouchure uses less air. Working on that seems like a better solution than trying to “stretch” your lungs.

Work on both, but I think the embouchure efficiency side has more opportunities for improvement for most people.

[Doug Elliott]

I think the other side of the equation is more important than trying to increase lung capacity: efficiency at the embouchure. An efficient embouchure uses less air. Working on that seems like a better solution than trying to “stretch” your lungs.

Work on both, but I think the embouchure efficiency side has more opportunities for improvement for most people.

And more benefits.

[spencercarran]

Cardio, definitely cardio. I had a period in my life when I was away from trombone for several years, but I was cycling a lot. Like 400km/week at times. When I picked up the bass trombone again, my improved physical strength more than offset rusty technique (at least in terms of tone quality; getting back up to speed on intonation, rhythmic accuracy, technical facility etc is a separate set of challenges).

[baileyman]

... embouchure efficiency ...

...

Okay, I'll bite. What the heck is embouchure efficiency? Does it have a measurement unit attached or is it a percentage or what?

[Kdanielsen]

I guess more just the concept of being efficient. I'm not a scientist or engineer so I'm not going to use numbers or anything like that. What I do know is that when the sound is great and the technique is great, it takes less air. Poor sound wastes air. Sloppy slurs waste air. Bad articulation wastes air.

I have two examples, both from when I was studying with Toby Oft. Toby produces sound so so efficiently. You can hear it in his tone at any dynamic, and in his legato.

The first example is long tones. Toby and I would play long tones back and forth during some lessons (sometimes on stage at symphony hall, which was always fun) and he would always be able to play for two or three times as long as I could, and with a bigger fuller sound. I'm 6' 1" with a big barrel chest and frame. When I do breathing bag stuff or other breathing gadgets it's always easy. Toby is much smaller than me and he could kick my ass on air every time. I don't think it was because he made his lungs bigger or stretched more or something. He used his embouchure in a way that very little air was wasted. It took a tiny amount or air to start resonating the air in the horn. Look at Norman Bolter and Joe Alessi. They are both monster players who can make huge sounds and phrases, but are small people. Look at Carol Jantsch.

That brings me to the second example. Toby had a mouthpiece rim that he would carry in his pocket. He would take it out and just buzz for a few seconds constantly. He spent a lot of time with me working on this (I never even came close to mastering it, but I also haven't tried for 5 years or so now). He was able to buzz on this rim so quietly you almost couldn't hear it. Imagine a gentle hum that was beautifully in control. Rochut, high notes, whatever. His embouchure was set up so the tiniest amount of air possible would make sound start, even without the resistance of the trombone.

I guess this is what I mean when I say efficiency.

I think the term resonance is important too. I think there is a spectrum where on one end the trombone is basically amplifying a buzz (think little Timmy in 5th grade) and on the other end, it's more like blowing across a bottle to resonate a pitch; you have to blow just right or it wont resonate. The more efficiently the embouchure is used, the closer it is to the resonating bottle end of the spectrum. This mindset really helped me. All my teachers tried to tell me this in their own ways, but I didn't really figure it out until later (at which point there was a lot of "THAT'S what they were talking about."). I'm sure this drove them crazy... Just like you need to get your lips set to blow across the bottle just right, you need to use your embouchure efficiently to resonate the trombone.

This side of the equation is a huge huge world of technique and refinement, and honestly I feel like most people have just barely scratched the surface. It took me about ten years of trying HARD and most of a doctorate to figure this out.

[Doug Elliott]

√

[Burgerbob]

The top dogs are both 1. good at breathing 2. amazingly efficient

[harrisonreed]

...

Okay, I'll bite. What the heck is embouchure efficiency? Does it have a measurement unit attached or is it a percentage or what?

Forget about numbers. You know when you feel like your lips are thin and stretched over your teeth, and you feel tired, and the sound you make is thin and airy? That is inefficiency.

Have you ever played where you just place the horn lightly on your lips, you're chops feel like they can move up and down over your teeth and aren't all stretched out, and when you push even a little air into the leadpipe, the feedback and sound is instantaneous? That is efficiency.

It's got to do with an equilibrium:

1. The rate/volume of air flow into the horn against the natural resistance of the horn.

2. The position and malleability of your lips against the mouthpiece. This is a huge topic. Some people describe it as a pucker, but that gives me the wrong image in my head.

3. How the tongue controls the rate of flow and the "formant" for the register you're playing in. Singers seem to easily understand this concept, and vocal teachers teach it well. Brass players are in the dark about it. Watch the Sarah Willis videos of her in the MRI playing horn.

4. How the jaw controls both the rate and ANGLE of the airflow into the mouthpiece and how this motion dictates the space the tongue has to form the formant. This is another HUGE topic. Reinhardt wrote many books on this subject.

Sam Burris had a video about #3, where he uses throat singing to describe formants. I talk about #1 all the time in reference to buzzing and people say I'm crazy.

[Kdanielsen]

I'm always talking about Balance with my students. Finding and maintaining balance.

[baileyman]

...

Forget about numbers.

...

Okay, sure. Then it's not a thing, it's just some lingo we agree to. Like, centered, focused, more air, open throat, etc.

Sam said you can't measure what's going on, you can't observe what's going on, and it's really hard to describe what's going on. When someone says what's they're doing to get something to happen, I say, okay, that may or may not make sense. But something that tends to convey real knowledge is, Here, play this exercise in this way and pay attention to what you need to do to make it work. That's why I mentioned Lamart in another thread. You do something the same way for days or weeks, then, aha! And after that, it's really hard to say to anyone what you did that worked. This horn is very humbling.

Meanwhile, I'm intrigued by the comparison of blowing times mentioned above, because if efficiency means anything, it's got to be that. Someone should figure out some aparatus to investigate the idea, because just thinking about it, physically I cannot explain what is being described ceteris paribus.

[harrisonreed]

...

Forget about numbers.

...

Okay, sure. Then it's not a thing, it's just some lingo we agree to. Like, centered, focused, more air, open throat, etc.

It's on! Let's talk about this. What numbers do you need? The psi of the air into the horn? Even if you can measure that without affecting the system, how do you apply it? The is no way to know what psi you're using in the middle of a practice. The angle and shape of the tongue, or the embouchure? How do you measure this? Even if you knew the various angles, how to you apply it? You can't measure the angle of your tongue during your practice.

Isn't knowing the four items I described are real factors more useful than "oh you gotta just center it. Just feel it"?

[baileyman]

Harrison, sure, those would be nice to know. But the problem is epistemological. You cannot know them.

[harrisonreed]

Harrison, sure, those would be nice to know. But the problem is epistemological. You cannot know them.

You can learn and know the four items I described. There just aren't numbers that need to be attached to them. Great players know all of these things, deliberately or innately. Reinhardt wrote so many books about how to try and get there.

It's not a belief that the tongue helps control air and the tone and via the direction of the air, the register. There is visual evidence of this, available from Sarah, showing it.



This is embouchure efficiency ^

[hcanitz]

Hi, I am a new guy to this chat site and I know this is an older post, but I thought I would add my two cents.

I have found The Breathing Gym book by Sam Pilafian to be a really effective method for increasing lung capacity. If you get the book and CD also get the Voldyne 5000 Breathing volume visualizer to help you track your progress. When I used this method and visualizer I was able to increase my breath intake to almost 5 liters.

[Cougar7]

You have already been given a lot of resources, but here's another one that might help. It's a university trombone professor whose research and studies focused on breathing and trombone history.

http://kimballtrombone.com/breathing/

[Wilktone]

Harrison, sure, those would be nice to know. But the problem is epistemological. You cannot know them.

I'm not sure I buy the argument that knowledge about playing technique is unknowable. Measuring these things empirically is challenging and probably more trouble than it's worth for most players and teachers, but as Harrison points out, there are ways we can objectively look at these things and move beyond vague analogies.

That said, a lot of what we do is inherently knacky and just takes time to explore and try some things out until it clicks.

An efficient embouchure uses less air.

Maybe mostly, but not always. I've recently been experimenting with my chops by intentionally playing with an embouchure that doesn't work well for me for 10 days. One thing I noticed when switching back is that I ran out of air faster with my more efficient embouchure. Sometimes an inefficient embouchure is stuffy and doesn't allow the air to pass the lips as well as a more efficient one.

Dave

[Doug Elliott]

If I have not played my .547 for awhile, the first few days I am very inefficient on it. I waste a lot of air, while it may feel and sound normal. It takes some time to find the balance that the horn and chops need.

Any time you make an adjustment (or switch embouchure type intentionally) it's going to take time to find the balance.

On the MRI video you can see that with a completely variable mouth cavity due to the tongue that can make infinite shape adjustments, many notes can be played different ways depending on the context, and you can observe how the tongue shape influences the sound quality, not just the pitch.

[imsevimse]

Everything affects, but to me efficiency has a lot to do with using the air effectively. Make it last the phrases, make a legato smooth enough, back away to save air in a way the sound is not affected and the playing still works and to make the music sing. Since I have played both tuba, french horn, trumpet and flugelhorn for awhile next to the different trombone-sizes I do believe the trombone to be the most demanding and difficult instrument when it comes to air. The bass trombone is worst. On the French horn I have no problem to play phrases for eight bars and the same on trumpet and flugelhorn but to play the same phrase on trombone needs to handle the air more careful. Just to find that balance were everything works is more demanding. I often find the solution is to play softer. The challenge is try to make a bigger sound with less air. I have found this to work. That's what I have to do to solve the long phrases if I don't break the phrase and breath of course, that might be what to do when air is gone. I can't play the 8 bar phrase forte and not mezzo forte but maybe mezzo piano. To take the most efficient breath and to use it efficiency might result in a mezzo piano. With efficiency that mezzo piano can sing a little louder where it has to. The lungcapacity is what it is. I try to get the most out of them.

/Tom

[baileyman]

... Since I have played both tuba, french horn, trumpet and flugelhorn for awhile next to the different trombone-sizes I do believe the trombone to be the most demanding and difficult instrument when it comes to air. The bass trombone is worst. On the French horn I have no problem to play phrases for eight bars and the same on trumpet and flugelhorn but to play the same phrase on trombone needs to handle the air more careful. ...

/Tom

What would your experience be if you played the same phrase on the same pitches for all the instruments? I would investigate myself, but cannot play them...

[imsevimse]

... Since I have played both tuba, french horn, trumpet and flugelhorn for awhile next to the different trombone-sizes I do believe the trombone to be the most demanding and difficult instrument when it comes to air. The bass trombone is worst. On the French horn I have no problem to play phrases for eight bars and the same on trumpet and flugelhorn but to play the same phrase on trombone needs to handle the air more careful. ...

/Tom

What would your experience be if you played the same phrase on the same pitches for all the instruments? I would investigate myself, but cannot play them...

Acctually eight bars in 4/4 on the trumpet is doable. I tried it now when I played "Jennie with the light brown hair". It is one of the tunes I play daily on the trumpet in f-major. A phrase there is typically four bars but it was doable for me on the trumpet to stretch the phrases to eight bars. F-major is a comfortable range and register on the trumpet. To play that same pitches on the trombone would be to go as high as the high eb. (b) That would give me other troubles as this demands me to reach my highest notes on the trombone. It is not very easy to compare with that tune. I have to compare with playing in a register that is as comfortable on the trombone as it was on the trumpet.
It takes a lot more air on the trombone if I do that.
I think register could have something to do with it so I give you right there. I think "if" I could play the same thing in the same octave as on the trumpet the amount of air needed would come close to what is needed for the trumpet, but again it would give me other problems. Besides the higher register the trumpet also has more resistance. It is easier to control the airstream against that resistance. On the trombone we have almost no resistance except from the turbulence we create when we blow the horn. To me much of the balance that makes playing on trombone work is to be found in that feel of resistance that our blow creates.

When it comes to the french horn it is possible to play the exact pitches as comfortable as on the trombone. The french horn takes less air absolutely. The difference here has a lot to do with resistance alone. I have experienced with this already since I play my folksongs in the same key on both trombone and french horn. I can play longer phrases on the french horn and it is also more easy compared to when I play them on the trombone. One thing is I feel the emboushure needed for a good sound on french horn and on the trombone is very different. The mouthpieces are also very different. The different boresize of the horns are also significant. The smaller mouthpiece, bore size and the bigger resistence could be why it is easier to play longer phrases on the french horn.

/Tom

[baileyman]

Very interesting. From another thread, perhaps the French horn is more "efficient". Thx.