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An avid listener has commented on a number of occasions that my breaths between notes are far too loud. Anyone have suggestions on practicing how to inhale quickly yet quietly?
Zak
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Because the mouth is an instrument in itself, when you breathe in try to pool the air across your tongue avoiding air travelling across the roof of your mouth; the air flow slows down only slightly and the frequency is lower. Because low frequencies have difficulty travelling around corners ( or back out your mouth), it's much less audible.
So instead of an "hhh" sound breathing in, you get an "ooo" that flattens your tongue and keeps the air running across your lower mouth. Make sure you're lips are wide enough that the air travels inwards but doesn't create a sound.
I hope that made a lick of sense.
Pun not intended.
Last edited by Vevolis (2009-03-20 13:08:50)
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Zakarius wrote:
An avid listener has commented on a number of occasions that my breaths between notes are far too loud. Anyone have suggestions on practicing how to inhale quickly yet quietly?
Zak
Make sure your not inhaling entirely through your mouth but utilizing your nasal breathing as well. That should calm the noise a little. Inhaling only through the mouth can be noisy.
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I've had this problem as well.
I learned that after I get warmed up (been playing for 15 minutes or so) the sounds tend to go away.
Also when I truly breath from the belly the sound is far less of an issue than when I breath with my chest.
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Seth's point is big: if you are belly breathing it's completely different. You could also chose to think about it differently. I have recordings of Yokoyama playing in the 70's where you hear the breaths so much that it becomes part of the music. Of course, it's solo music. It becomes a personal "like/dislike" thing with solo music, unless you are vocalizing. That happens also but is annoying as it's to be thought of as an extra sound that's included that's not written in the score. The sound of breathing is a "natural" sound and therefore less distracting for the listener. I don't think I've ever noticed it to a point of distraction with your playing Zak.
Last edited by chikuzen (2009-03-20 14:57:48)
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Zakarius wrote:
An avid listener has commented on a number of occasions that my breaths between notes are far too loud. Anyone have suggestions on practicing how to inhale quickly yet quietly?
Zak
Additionally, microphone placement in a recording can also affect how loudly the breathing shows in the mix.
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Zakarius wrote:
An avid listener has commented on a number of occasions that my breaths between notes are far too loud. Anyone have suggestions on practicing how to inhale quickly yet quietly?
Zak
Is the sound coming from the air passing around your lips or through your nose, or is it a gasp caused by not having a relaxed throat? If it's your throat, there's at least a couple things that can be the problem, ones that I'm aware of is 1) panicking and tightening up when I know I need a quick breath and 2) blowing with a tight throat, it might not be too loud with the slow release out but if the tension is kept on the quick in breath it's going to be loud. Good belly breathing should help if the problem is the first one of panicking and tightening. If the noise is because of blowing with a tight throat and therefore not being relaxed on the inhale, there are some tricks that can help, try googling "flute playing open throat" or "flute playing relaxed throat". I haven't watched this one because I can't on this computer but this looks promising and I know the player: http://www.ehow.com/video_2375580_breat … flute.html It would probably be a good idea to consult a teacher before trying exercises to relax the throat while playing because I'm not sure shakuhachi is supposed to be played open throated all the time. Riley Lee's "Breathe!" DVD has some excellent breathing exercises that could help in general because many breathing problems are inter-related.
If the sound is the air passing through the lips or the nose, Jim Thompson's suggestion of breathing through both simultaneously might help. It's a sad fact that the air makes noise when going through a flute embouchure fast in the other direction, so you might have to learn to relax the embouchure some more during the in breath and quickly reset the embouchure to start playing again. To demonstrate it to yourself try positioning your throat as if you were going to yawn, open your mouth somewhat wide, and experiment taking quick breaths. It probably is going to be difficult to make much sound this way. The best exercises to learn to reset your embouchure quickly is probably just plain old long tones.
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Thanks to all of you for the great replies. Perhaps I'm being too anal about the situation but my breathing sometimes even distracts my playing.
Chikuzen, the mic I've used during our Skype sessions and portable MP3 player for recording aren't particularly good, so that may be why my breathing doesn't stand out. With the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder I just got, though, the breathing may be a bit much.
This may sound strange, but slightly drier foods often get stuck in my throat and I have to grab a sip of something to get it down. This idiosyncracy may be compounding my 'gasping'. I have a feeling I'm using abdominal breathing when exhaling and not when inhaling.
Zak
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Zak, Ni hao.
Keisuke Zenyoji once drew me a visual diagram on how to handle the Ma, in Honkyoku. In a nutshell, it went something like this:
When the sound stops. everything stops. There is a moment of complete inactivity. Then take the breath. When the breath stops, everything stops (another moment of inactivity). Then blow the note. When I looked at it this way, my breath and the music seemed to be one thing.
Of course, there's lots of ways to understand the Ma.This is just one that may help in your question about breath sound.
Hope this helps. Peace bro.
Last edited by Yungflutes (2009-03-22 21:17:38)
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That's another good thing to pay attention to. Keeping the throat clean is a best case scenario for keeping it open. I use hot water, lemon and honey or if you have some there, apple cider vinegar, honey and hot water.
The other thing could be the mic (and the throat thing combined). Optimum miking for long flutes would be to have two mics but since you're using the zoom, try to put it on a high shelf or rig something so that it's several feet above your head and several feet in front of you. That way it will catch the sounds bouncing off the ceiling together. If it's too close to the shakuhachi it will get the sounds resonating nearest where it's placed to the flute. For ex., if you put it near the bottom of the shakuhachi RO and Tsu will be stronger but the higher notes less. If near the top, Ro Kan, chi & hi will pounce out but Ro otsu will die quite a bit (in the recoding). You can also mess with the sound if you have editing software. I used to use the raw mic sound but I have to admit that getting rid of extraneous sounds (my dog walking around) are a big improvement.
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Just curious Zak, what is the mic position you have been using?
It hasnt been suggested yet, but I guess one way to improve the situation is to play a louder tone?
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Thanks to your suggestions, I believe I'm mostly resolved my 'heavy breathing' problem. I made my first recording of Taniguchi's piece entitled Bosatsu which you can check out if you're interested. Note that this is a first take recording and I'm no master (yet!)... I saved the file as a low-quality MP3 to reduce file size. My Geocities account has a 4.2MB hourly traffic limit and the file is about 3MB, so if you can't access it and would really like to hear, please try again later.
http://www.geocities.com/baishaolin/sha … tsu_sm.mp3
Zak
Last edited by Zakarius (2009-03-28 08:40:42)
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The recording is nice! I hear the breathing and it sounds a bit hasty and 'out of breath' to me (or too high in the chest which has that effect). Maybe you can try to slow the inhale down a bit? fast moving air makes more sound then slow air I feel slowing the breathing down, will maybe even benefit the piece you played. The piece itself doesn't have this hastyness itself, sounds good!
Bas
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Thanks for the recent observations. In the past months since my original post, I feel that I've become much better at breathing without too much noise. For me, the secret has been to 'open' my throat and remind myself to maintain upright posture.
Zak
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( Stolen from my Tips page, http://nyokai.com/tips/ ):
"One of the difficulties that students sometimes encounter is that their in-breaths are noisy or hurried, or that they have a desperate quality to them.
"Of course there are places even in honkyoku that require a quick breath so as not to break the phrasing, but in many cases there is no hurry. At first, just be with the in-breath when it's in-breath time: don't worry about what comes next, don't try to remember what comes next no matter how difficult it might be, just rest in the current moment with the current in-breath. That way you can do it as quietly as you want. Once you're used to this feeling of calm quiet on the in-breath, it is easy to change its length without any 'gasping' quality.
"I also believe that the human will to live can impose a desperate quality to the in-breath, as if we have to work feverishly at getting enough air. We also tend to think of the in-breath as work and the out-breath as release, but this habit can be reversed. There is an exercise I like to do that demonstrates the autonomic security of the in-breath: expel all the breath from your lungs. Then expel some more -- you probably really haven't gone anywhere near the end of your breath. Hold it down there for a while. Then just let go. Notice how air automatically rushes into your lungs just by relaxing, without any work. I think it helps to remember this feeling while playing."
(I don't know if this relates to your particular situation, Zak, but it's what's been useful for me).
Last edited by nyokai (2009-07-17 10:33:33)
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