 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: YT
Date: 2025-10-16 10:27
Dear bboard members
I'm looking for literature, ideally in English language, about breathing or breath support when playing clarinet (or any wind instrument) but have trouble to find anything useful. Do you have any recommendations?
Have a nice day everyone and thank you!
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Author: Elsie Ash
Date: 2025-10-16 10:50
You may find useful information in books like "The Technique of Breathing for Wind Instruments" by Stephen Maxym, which is specifically about breathing for wind players. For clarinetists specifically, looking at pedagogical texts such as David Pino's "The Clarinet and Clarinet 4243459221 Playing" often includes sections on breathing and air support. Additionally, academic works like the thesis "Aspects of Breathing In Clarinet Playing" by Catherine McCorkill and similar research papers can offer a more physiological and in-depth view of the topic.
Post Edited (2025-10-17 08:36)
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Author: Alexey
Date: 2025-10-16 18:22
OFF-TOPIC
I will be banned, possibly, but breathing is very simple. We only need to make the reed vibrate. It doesn't matter how we breathe in or what fancy thing we are trying to do with our belly, diaphragm, or anything when we try to artificially "support".
Once we can blow at the palm constantly (slowly or fast) and can increase and decrease smoothly the air speed, we are good. And we can do it without knowing the mechanics of breathing at all.
Yes, there are nuances about how to take enough air, how not to be tense when taking air, what is the correct amount of air for a particular phrase, etc, but in a nutshell, breathing is the simplest part of playing clarinet. The most difficult thing is how to make everything work in coordination ( breathing, embouchure, tonguing, voicing, etc) for a particular note in particular dynamics, with particular articulation.
END OF OFF-TOPIC
Now, to the topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_system
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Author: graham
Date: 2025-10-16 19:36
Read doggedly through the posts by Tony Pay on this forum, and you’ll get what you need.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-10-17 04:38
Alexey wrote:
> I will be banned, possibly,
I'll talk to Mark about it - you're certainly committing serious blasphemy!
> but breathing is very simple. We
> only need to make the reed vibrate. It doesn't matter how we
> breathe in or what fancy thing we are trying to do with our
> belly, diaphragm, or anything when we try to artificially
> "support".
Sounds too simple. Clarinet has to be hard. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
Karl
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Author: David Eichler
Date: 2025-10-17 05:44
It is my strong suspicion that most often the primary cause of problems with breathing is a bad embouchure; and I suspect that, if someone is not using one of these already, double-lip embouchure or Joe Allard's method of single-lip embouchure will solve many peoples' breathing problems. Once I learned the Allard embouchure, I stopped thinking about breathing, other than do remind myself to breath as deeply as possible, and breathing started to become natural once my embouchure got sorted.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2025-10-17 06:42
Song and Wind by Arnold Jacob’s, former principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony. There was a time that EVERYONE made sure they had at least one private breathing lesson with Mr. Jacobs.
…………Paul Aviles
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Author: Alexey
Date: 2025-10-17 10:00
kdk wrote:
> I'll talk to Mark about it - you're certainly committing serious blasphemy!
I did it in a moment of madness, please forgive if possible 🙏🏻 😀
> Sounds too simple. Clarinet has to be hard.
It's hard in many other aspects, most of which are holistic and cognitive 🤔
Alexey
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Author: ruben
Date: 2025-10-17 10:13
I would say that breathing and blowing aren't quite the same thing. I've known athletes that can cycle up mountains, yet that don't have a good "wind-column"-to use wind players" jargon. Mark Almond-first horn with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra-is a pulmonologist. I wrote to him once and encouraged him to write a short book about the subject.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
Post Edited (2025-10-17 10:17)
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Author: JMrnr
Date: 2025-10-17 11:04
I believe that the advice frequently seen about « fast air » , « focused air » , etc are misinterpretation of voicing ; by essence, the clarinet need air pressure for the reed to vibrate, not a large air stream, but the inside shape of the mouth has a role in selecting frequency and harmonics of the reed vibration. The « wind column » is the skill to maintain the required air pressure.
Post Edited (2025-10-17 11:07)
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Author: Alexey
Date: 2025-10-18 10:54
ruben wrote:
> I would say that breathing and blowing aren't quite the same thing
I agree, but what I am trying to say is that there is a tendency to overcomplicate breathing for wind players. There is absolutely no need for:
1. Knowing how actually breathing works
2. Doing some special and unnatural things with the body when blowing into a clarinet
Your blowing technique is all right if you can:
1. Blow steady air onto your palm ( or piece of paper that someone holds before your lips, or at the flame of candlelight, anything) with different constant speeds (very slowly, slowly, moderate, fast, super-fast).
2. Gradually and smoothly increase and decrease air speed.
To do things above, we don't need to know HOW to breathe in or HOW to breathe out or HOW breathing works.
I mean, we should concentrate on the final result (sound) and not on body mechanics.
With great body mechanics, we can take in more air if needed in a more relaxed and faster way. That's all we need to learn. But even this is not a necessary requirement for good tone.
And we absolutely don't need to learn body mechanics to blow. We naturally can achieve it with exercises above when thinking about the final result and not about what fancy things we are doing with our bodies.
If you can do the exercises above and still struggle with good clarinet tone or articulation, or legato, then most likely the issue IS NOT with breathing but rather with coordination between fingers, lips, jaws, tongue, soft palate, throat, breathing, mouthpiece, and reed.
Alexey
Post Edited (2025-10-18 10:54)
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Author: YT
Date: 2025-10-18 17:32
Wow, thank you for that many replies! I already ordered the books you mentioned.
Maybe I should clarify: I'm writing a PhD thesis about breathing and clarinet playing, and in fact, it is not that simple, if you want to achieve really good professional results ;-) Everyone is talking about embouchure all the time, but the best embouchure doesn't get you anywhere when your breathing is off, and every player regardless of his or her level could benefit from knowing a few things and a few exercises.
I'm writing the thesis in German, that's why I am thankful about your recommendations (and maybe even further ones!), because to me it seems there are not that many books regarding the whole breathing subject in english yet. Even greater is your advice where to start reading in English, thank you!
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