Circular Breathing

From Geoffrey Browne: The Art of Cor Anglais

Puff up your cheeks like a balloon. Now, holding this position, try to take a breath in through your nose without letting any air escape from the 'balloon' you have made with your cheeks. Your probably find you can breathe in and out quite normally while holding your cheeks puffed up. If you can do this, then you have mastered the first stage of learning the art. This part is really quite easy. Practise breathing in and out while holding your cheeks puffed with air, and remember how this feels. This is very close to how it feels when you are circular breathing with the instrument.

Now take a reed, put it in your mouth and make it squeak just with the air in your puffed-up cheeks. The squeak will only be a short one because your cheeks can only hold a small amount of air. That is the second stage.

Put the reed onto the instrument and play a nice middle D in the ordinary way. Now things become a bit harder. Try to play the middle D using air in your puffed-out cheeks only, just as you did when you were squeaking the reed only. You can only make the note last about half a second, but that is just enough time to snatch a breath through your nose as you play. In other words, you are sustaining the note while you are taking a breath. If you can do this then you are doing pretty well.

The next stage is tricky. As the air in your cheeks runs out can you take over the blowing with your lungs in the normal way, so there is no interruption of the air stream? You probably won't achieve this on your first attemp, but now you have the general idea and with practice you will succeed.

The type of sound you make by blowing with cheeks is not as good as the tone you make by blowing in the conventional way with your lungs and diaphragm. You cannot really expect a seamless join between two methods of blowing, but to become a master-craftsman at circular breathing the final stage is to ensure the pitch of the note does not alter as you change between blowing with your mouth and blowing with your lungs.

You will find that circular breathing is easier on some notes than on others. Some notes require more air than others do, so you should choose notes that require the least air. That is why I chose a middle D for learning. It would have been much harder on a low B. Try circular breathing on different notes to see which work the best. This will help you plan your breathing, as you should when you tackle a long solo. When you r technique is perfect, then you may want to play every piece apparently in one breath, but I would recommend that you do not. Circular breathing can be rather a strain on the throat and anyway your embouchure needs a rest from time to time. But more than that, you yourself may appear not to need a breath but music often cries out for spaces which might as well be used for the player to breathe. There are only a very few pieces that require circular breathing, and so I would say that if you still find circular breathing a problem then forget about it altogether. Breathe in the conventional way, and put as many breaths into the music as you possibly can.



I failed on the second stage. There is no way for me to squeak the cor anglais reeds with just the air from "balloon". But I really think that my 80 seconds (20 bars x 4 beats per bar x 1 second per beat) solo in planet earth movement 2 requires circular breathing.