Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-05-20 16:37
Maybe he doesn't utilize circular breathing because it just isn't worth learning how to do it, and he can use normal breathing well enough.
My impression, from my reading, is that circular breathing in the oboe world is more of a novelty, or a "stunt", rather than a viable alternative to normal breathing. It's always mentioned in passing during dissertations about breathing, like, "Or, well, you can use circular breathing instead if you like". But I don't get the impression that a lot of oboists--or oboe teachers--use it, or even particularly advocate it.
The bodies of so-called "free divers"--those folks who practice diving to incredible depths while holding their breath--learn to adapt to long periods of CO2 buildup. They can hold their breaths for up to six minutes. I have yet to see the musical phrase that lasted longer than six minutes--there will be somewhere in there to breathe, eventually.
So maybe Holliger, like a free diver, has simply trained his body to ignore the "breathe now!" signals, and to function on levels of CO2 saturation in the bloodstream that would have lesser oboists collapsing on the floor.
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