Transcription

Today we're talking about circular breathing. It's been 7 years since I've done a video on it, and I figured it was time for an update. For those of you who what the piece that I played was No. 7 out of the Advanced Studies for the Clarinet by Victor Polatschek.

What is circular breathing? In short, it's the ability to breathe out while breathing in at the same time.

Some of you may be thinking, "How is that even possible? That seems inhuman!" In fact, you're not really breathing in and breathing out at the same time, you're pushing air out through your mouth as you're breathing in through your nose. That's a very different thing because you have cheek muscles that can squeeze air out like that without ever using the mechanism that you use to breath in and out through your nose. Let me show you what I mean.

Step 1:

Put air in your cheeks and then start breathing through your nose

That air is stuck in there, but useful to you. Your're bypassing your mouth while you breath in an out through your nose.

Step 2:

Breathe out through your mouth as you're breathing in through your nose.

You're not breathing, you're squeezing the air that's trapped in your mouth, out of your mouth, using your cheek muscles. I'm just going to show you what I mean by just squeezing the air out. I'm not using my lungs at all. That air is purely coming out of my oral cavity inside my mouth. If you do it a little bit slower and controlled, it sounds like this.

I'm squeezing it out slower in a more controlled way. Lick you lips and try to do it without making any noise at all.

Step 3:

Is being able to do all of that while taking a breath in. This is where it gets a little trickier. I'm going to breath out and put a little bit of air in my cheeks before I run out of air and breath in. As I breathe in, I'm going to use my fingers to squeeze the air out.