Re: Breathing Aid


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Posted by David L. Allen on September 18, 2002 at 07:58:56:

In Reply to: Breathing Aid posted by Thomas on September 17, 2002 at 22:53:56:

Im curious as to when this product was developed. I have been using a tool similar to this that I crafted (read: threw together) from pvc plumbing parts for about .78 cents it consists of:

1. 3/4 to 1/2 pipe reducer (mouthpiece)
2. about 3 inches of 1/2 inch pipe
3. a 1/2 end cap with 4 hole drilled with either a 3/64 or 5/64 inch drill bit - I will have th check that one.

The idea came about as an attempt to improve and standardize many of the power breathing concepts of Sam Pilafian. I wanted to make sure that if I was going to teach these concepts to kids I wanted to make sure they were doing as close to exactly what I was doing as possible

The beauty of it was that the mouthpiece alone was a great breathing tool but with the resistance became a GREAT tool. At one time I had an entire high school brass section using these tools and the results were nothing short of amazing. The only two draw backs to that situation were that these little tools were very "forgetable" (just another "thing" to keep up with) and those kids who were not my students did not quite get the concept that after working with resistance there was still a great about a control that needed to be exerted to play the instrument - Hence several nasty sounds from younger players.

If there are those that are interested, I will post pics of the device as well as post instructions for individual exercises I have developed for the tool.




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