Important Insight

[JTeagarden]

For the last two years, I had been struggling with easily fatigued chops limiting my practicing to 45 minutes a day at best, and observing (as I had before) that my chops warmed up very quickly if I exercised prior to practicing that day, but otherwise, might take 15 minutes to become responsive and reliable.

For whatever reason, about a week ago, after a doctor determined that my inner abdominal muscles were especially weak (the TVA for you home physicians), I started to make a conscious effort to pull in my stomach as I exhaled while playing, and the chop fatigue and excessive warm-up time have completely disappeared, and since doing so, I can easily practice a couple of hours a day (especially if broken up).

I'm concluding that I was simply not playing with enough air pressure, and that doing so was making my embouchure do A LOT of unnecessary work.

I certainly didn't have this problem when I was younger, and am a bit embarrassed that it took me so long to identify the root cause of the chop fatgue, I have always tried to breathe "noiselessly" as a kind of measure of relaxed breathing, but I was actually using TOO LITTLE tension.

[NathanSobieralski]

Brass playing is all about tension in the right places.

[JTeagarden]

Definitely not no tension, everywhere!

[ghmerrill]

I certainly didn't have this problem when I was younger, ...

After an intensive review of my own physical and medical conditions, and diving deeply into a wide variety of studies (a practice with which I am -- unfortunately -- professionally familiar), I've decided that my primary problem is that I'm suffering from "disease progression" where the disease is age. This is a particularly insidious condition, and it develops in a non-linear fashion. Currently, there is no successful general treatment for it, and some attempts to address it simply make it worse.

[Kbiggs]

A suggestion: tensing the right muscles at the right time.

The Breath Builder is an inexpensive tool to help with learning how to use air. Using it as the instructions on the website show, you can develop awareness of how to move air consistently, both slowly and quickly, while getting visual feedback.

https://www.originalbreathbuilder.com/

There are other more expensive tools out there, like this:

https://thebreather.com/

…and this:

https://oxyfit.store/

…which I haven’t tried. The purpose and benefits seem the same, though—develop awareness of the body motions needed to create suction during inhale and air/wind during exhale.

There are also other tools like breathing bags, incentive spirometers, and whole host of gadgets to help people in general, and brass players in particular, develop increased awareness of what’s needed during inhalation and exhalation.

If you want something even less expensive, you can use a pinwheel—you know, the child’s toy:

IMG_0524.jpeg

Make it spin fast for loud, slow for soft.

[NathanSobieralski]

I love the pinwheel as a air visualization device. 16c each on amazon!

[JTeagarden]

There are other more expensive tools out there, like this:

https://thebreather.com/

This one at least seems like total BS, all the metrics seem made up, and the flutist is holding the instrument to the wrong side.

[ghmerrill]

This one at least seems like total BS, all the metrics seem made up, and the flutist is holding the instrument to the wrong side.

That's harsh, dude. I haven't seen the flutist picture (didn't want to dive too deeply into that site, don't you know?), but possibly it's just a typical selfie that people take nowadays without bothering to change the perspective of their phone cameras?

Don't you get a warm vibe from the idea of the "BREATHER Community"? Don't you want to join it and stop gasping for air? Possibly your reaction to it is just a consequence of oxygen deprivation? Besides, apparently this thing has been around since 1980 -- and so has been tested in the population/community for 45 years!'

Also, it looks like their marketing approach is to convince you to buy it for "your loved ones" and not so much for yourself.

[JTeagarden]

Check out the photos, hard to take therm seriously, although they might be totally fine, and are just targeting the "America's Got Talent" demographic, with strong intersectionality with the "Maybe they'll love me more if I quit gasping" segment.

I'd love to be part of that special community of caring and sharing breathers, whom I've always envied: no more on the outside looking in, the condensation from my shallow breaths barely fogging their window...

[ghmerrill]

I'd love to be part of that special community of caring and sharing breathers, whom I've always envied: no more on the outside looking in, the condensation from my shallow breaths barely fogging their window...

Well, if you go in that direction, you might also be interested in one of these: https://www.magnet4sale.com/magnetic-fu ... LgVEVv16gm, which I feared had become unavailable over the years. However, this appears to be a new version upgraded with neodymium magnets. I'm thinking of getting one for my Getzen bass and attaching it to the start of the bell section in order to align the air molecules and provide a higher degree of tonal stability and focus.

[JTeagarden]

I'd be afraid of what those magnets would do to my chakras, which Scott Sweeney only recently rebuilt.

[ghmerrill]

I was unaware that he does that kind of work. I'll try to run by there for his "Same-day Saturday" service and get mine adjusted. (Will actually be driving by there in another hour or so, but it's Friday. )

[JTeagarden]

He's that good. Rebuilding my dilapidated King 6B will be a cinch.