Author: oboi
Date: 2012-08-27 22:49
GoodWinds, seeing that you are an RN, may I ask this question? On occasion, when I play for a sustained time (lots of loud long tones or long piece), I will feel a sudden lightness in the head, feeling a bit faint. As soon as I stop, it goes away. If I blow again right away, it returns. If I try to play later that day, I may get that feeling again. The following day, I am usually fine. It's a very sporadic thing. Is that too much back pressure to the head or lack of O2? I can sometimes practice for hours, but this usually occurs if I just keep blowing with almost no break (for a 10-minute span, say).
I've never been one with too much breath. If we had a hold-breath-under-water contest for swimming lessons, I'd badly fail and be one of the first to surface. I played flute for 6 years and I'd always be faced with breathing conundrums, being very out of breath and gasping. Now that I play oboe, I am so glad that I have enough breath, and usually too much. While I'd have breathed a billion times already on the flute, I'll still be chugging along many bars into a piece, thinking to myself, I should breathe out now. It was quite an experience learning to breathe out more and to expel air even if I don't need to yet because at some point my body will demand O2. So I'm trying to take less air in so that I have time to breathe it all out and take a new breath. Otherwise, if I have to exhale a whole lot of used air, I won't have enough time till the next note! I mark in exhale spots in my music. I was also taught recently to do a huge exhale before the inhale when starting a piece or phrase. That should be timed into the pickup beats. So instead of gulping a big breath the beat before the 1st beat, do a big exhale in time, then an inhale (as much as needed) in time, then play. That I still have trouble with as I've been ingrained to just breathe in a beat before (all conductors and coaches do that). The act of exhaling before playing and the act of preparing the breathing mechanism 2 beats before the first note. I also need to practice breathing out when done. It's funny because sometimes I like "omigod this piece is so long, almost to the end, almost out of control.... aieeeee..." and for some reason I get to the end, I'm still holding my breath, like I'm still in suspense. My teacher is like... you can breathe out now. :-P
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