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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000040.txt from 2005/12

From: PhilFrei@-----.com
Subj: [DR-L] Length of breath - oboe
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:55:12 -0500

Hi -

I saw a video a short while ago about dolphins (something like "Robin
Williams talks to Dolphins") and in it there was one fellow, a young American
scientist, who could swim with them, underwater, for something like 4 minutes on one
breath. We've also heard things about sponge divers and such. But the fact
that this guy seemed like just a very intelligent, but otherwise average
caucasian, one who didn't come from a tradition where such things are learned at a
young age, makes me think we could probably play oboe without breathing for
considerably longer than 20 or 30 seconds (my usual topping out point). After all,
swimming is a lot more vigorous, and probably requires more oxygen than
blowing air through a tiny hole.

Yes, one can learn circular breathing, but if one could even approach the
commonly stated limit of 2 minutes, there wouldn't be that many situations where
one would need to do the circular thing. I'm finding, upon testing this, that
in one instance I was able to reach a minute, and am wondering if others have
tried pushing how long they can play on a breath, and what success they have
had.

- Phil Freihofner

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