Posted by Jobey on June 13, 2000 at 12:34:53:
In Reply to: circular breathing posted by just curious on June 12, 2000 at 13:51:11:
I just finished my first year of study with Chester Schmitz...the "guru" of circular breathing, or "cyclical breathing" as he prefers to call it. At one of my first lessons in September, I did it a few times during a Rochut. Since then, we have spent a short amount of time in every lesson working on the "parlor trick," or whatever the hell else some of you guys like to call it. He uses and preaches this extended technique for two simple reasons: a) very few tuba players have the enormous lung capacities of Warren Deck and Gene Pokorney. Note the Matt Good exmaple used below. I had a couple of lessons with Matt at Aspen a few years ago, and I noticed him circular breathing a few times TO MAKE MORE BEAUTIFUL PHRASES. This moves us two the second main reason Chester preaches this: b) since it obviously takes an enormous amount of air to play our instruments, many tubists must break phrases in order to catch a breath. If you found a way to make a long, beautiful phrase without the last few notes suffering due to lack of air, wouldn't you do it, too? Hell, you might even be able to keep direction moving all the way to the end of the phrase without breaking the phrase at all! Since Chester successfully pulls this off, it motivates the other sections in the orchestra (who need not use a fraction of the air) to make more beautiful phrasing as well. I have busted my ass in attempt to perfect this technique. I use it in any situation...orchestra, quintet, solo, etc... My quintet absolutely loves it! How many trumpet players in a quintet have had to settle with a tubist who always broke phrases due to lack of air? This is not a "mindless gimmick." It is a technique which enables performers to make more beautiful music. Only a handful of people in the world do it correctly. If you lose sound quality, or if your pitch bends, YOU ARE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!! Few of you have probably ever seen it performed perfectly. When Chester demonstrates it for me, I'm absolutely in awe. If you did, you would recognize its usefullness and would probably work as hard at it as I have.
- Jobey "I hope this opens a few minds" Wilson