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Home Alt › Forums › Problems With Your Sax? › Breathing exercises and techniques
i’m into my 8 month of playing and i know exactly what you’re going through.
I find that not two songs are the same and often have asked my Sax teacher where do i next take a breath?
If the song has words sometimes you can take in air where the singer pauses to inhale.
For simple songs you can inhale every 2 bars.
For songs with lots of phrases you can inhale at the end of each phrase.
One of the problems i initially had was over inflating my lungs at the start of a song.
So when i next inhaled my lungs weren’t getting a chance to empty themselves properly – the result was that although i was reinflating my lungs quite often the actuall oxygen proportion was was too low for my body – result slightly faint.
The best exercises for the lungs is walking like in a army band.
Aim to walk 8 steps breathing in slowly, 8 steps breathing out slowly.
This could represent 2 bars in 4/4 time.
I’ve read a couple books on learning to sing – these cover all this sort of stuff!
good luck – hope this helps
On the subject of breathing through the mouth while playing the Sax.
I’ve noticed that to stop the mouth and throat drying up and becoming hoarse, saliva production goes up when inhaling and exhaling through the mouth.
It’s hard to fill the lungs instantly through the nose but quicker to open the mouth bite and gulp a large quantity of air.
So the convenience of inhaling through the mouth. Some people inhale loose their embouchure after inhaling, and have to re-embouchure.
Your’e lucky if you can inhale through the corners of the mouth.
For excessive saliva production, i presume one would have to incorporate a quick swallow every 8 bars if possible.
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