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Circular breathing is a breathing technique used by players of some wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. It is accomplished by inhaling through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out through the mouth using air stored in the cheeks.
The technique was developed independently by several cultures and is used for many traditional wind instruments. [1]
Mongolian metalsmiths have long used circular breathing on flames to achieve sustained, consistent metal temperatures. [2]
It is used extensively in playing the Eastern zurna, the Mongolian limbe, the Tibetan gyaling, the Sardinian launeddas, the Egyptian arghul, the Australian didgeridoo, many traditional oboes and flutes of Asia and the Middle East, and the saluang, a traditional bamboo flute from Minangkabau ethnic, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Some jazz and classical wind and brass players also use some form of circular breathing.
Although many professional wind players find circular breathing highly useful, few pieces of European orchestral music composed before the 20th century actually require its use. However, the advent of circular breathing among professional wind players has allowed for the transcription of pieces composed for string instruments containing a series of sustained notes that would otherwise be unplayable on wind instruments. A notable example is "Moto Perpetuo", transcribed for trumpet by Rafael Méndez from the original violin work by Paganini.
In 1997, a Guinness World Record was set for the longest held musical note when Kenny G used circular breathing to sustain an E-flat on a saxophone for 45 minutes and 47 seconds. [3] In February 2000, Vann Burchfield surpassed G's record by playing one note for 47 minutes, 6 seconds. [4]
On his album Didgeridoo Concerto (1994), Mark Atkins played continuous tones for over 50 minutes. On Sunday, 14 May 2017, Nigerian saxophonist Femi Kuti broke Atkins' record by playing for 51 minutes, 38 seconds. [5] [6]
The musician fully inhales and begins to exhale and blow outward. When the lungs are nearly empty, the last volume of air is blown into the mouth, and the cheeks are inflated with part of this air. Then, while still blowing this last bit of air out by squeezing the cheeks, the musician must very quickly fill the lungs by inhaling through the nose prior to running out of air in the mouth. If done correctly, by the time the air in the mouth is nearly exhausted the musician can begin to exhale from the lungs once more, ready to repeat the process again. Essentially, circular breathing bridges the gap between exhalations with air stored in the cheeks, an extra air reserve to play with while sneaking in a breath through the nose.
The usual first difficulty is to inhale through the nose while blowing out air stored in the cheeks. Some people may have difficulty doing this. This technique may be practiced by holding a finger in front of a thin air stream out of the lips and listening to the wind sound.
The next difficulty is to switch between cheek air and lung air without an unwelcome and uncontrolled jolt in the air pressure; this is achieved by learning to use the cheeks and the throat as a system of shock absorbers. A very simple method by which this is practiced is using a thin straw to blow on to the surface of a cup of water from just above water level, and watching the depression that the air stream creates on the water's surface. The aim is to blow continually and switch between cheek air and lung air without any change in the depth of this depression or groove or hole on the water's surface. [7]
The traditional method of learning in zurna groups is to have one older player lead as the chanter zurna and ask the younger players to hold the unchanging "drone tone"s. Professional zurna groups may play non-stop for as long as the party lasts, and a drone tone may be held for the whole evening. This is possible thanks to the disk that the lip may lean and rest against, because otherwise, the lip muscles that resist the air pressure get tired first.
The following instruments utilize circular breathing:
The didgeridoo is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia at least 1,000 years ago, and is now in use around the world, though still most strongly associated with Indigenous Australian music. In the Yolŋu languages of the indigenous people of northeast Arnhem Land the name for the instrument is the yiḏaki, or more recently by some, mandapul. In the Bininj Kunwok language of West Arnhem Land it is known as mako.
Embouchure or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. The word is of French origin and is related to the root bouche, 'mouth'. Proper embouchure allows instrumentalists to play their instrument at its full range with a full, clear tone and without strain or damage to their muscles.
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound.
Dead space is the volume of air that is inhaled that does not take part in the gas exchange, because it either remains in the conducting airways or reaches alveoli that are not perfused or poorly perfused. It means that not all the air in each breath is available for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Mammals breathe in and out of their lungs, wasting that part of the inhalation which remains in the conducting airways where no gas exchange can occur.
Exhalation is the flow of the breath out of an organism. In animals, it is the movement of air from the lungs out of the airways, to the external environment during breathing. This happens due to elastic properties of the lungs, as well as the internal intercostal muscles which lower the rib cage and decrease thoracic volume. As the thoracic diaphragm relaxes during exhalation it causes the tissue it has depressed to rise superiorly and put pressure on the lungs to expel the air. During forced exhalation, as when blowing out a candle, expiratory muscles including the abdominal muscles and internal intercostal muscles generate abdominal and thoracic pressure, which forces air out of the lungs.
The mijwiz is a traditional Middle East musical instrument popular in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. Its name in Arabic means "dual," because of its consisting of two, short, bamboo pipes with reed tips put together, making the mijwiz a double-pipe, single-reed woodwind instrument.
The arghul, also spelled argul, arghoul, arghool, argol, or yarghul, is a musical instrument in the reed family. It has been used since ancient Egyptian times and is still used as a traditional instrument in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Jordan.
The suling is a musical instrument of the Sundanese people in Indonesia. It is used in the Degung ensemble. Bamboo ring flute can also be found in Southeast Asian, especially in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
The term double clarinet refers to any of several woodwind instruments consisting of two parallel pipes made of cane, bird bone, or metal, played simultaneously, with a single reed for each. Commonly, there are five or six tone holes in each pipe, or holes in only one pipe while the other acts as a drone, and the reeds are either cut from the body of the instrument or created by inserting smaller, slit tubes into the ends of the pipes. The player typically uses circular breathing.
The jug used as a musical instrument is an empty jug played with buzzed lips to produce a trombone-like tone. The characteristic sound of the jug is low and hoarse, below the higher pitch of the fiddle, harmonica, and the other instruments in the band.
A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in a double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Reeds are traditionally made of cane and produce sound when air is blown across or through them. The type of instruments that use a single reed are clarinets and saxophone. The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus. E.g. the clarinet is only including the odd harmonics due to air column modes canceling out the even harmonics. This may be compared to the timbre of a square wave.
Conscious breathing encompasses techniques directing awareness toward the breathing process, serving purposes from improving respiration to building mindfulness. In martial arts like tai chi and qigong, breathing exercises are said to strengthen diaphragm muscles and protect organs, with reverse breathing being a common method. Meditation traditions, including yoga and Buddhist meditation, emphasize breath control. Yoga's pranayama is believed by practitioners to elevate life energies, while Buddhist vipassanā uses anapanasati for mindfulness of breathing.
The gourd mouth organ is a free reed mouth organ played across East and Southeast Asia. It consists of a gourd wind chest with several bamboo or bronze pipes inserted on top of it, the numbers of pipes differing from region to region.
A nose whistle is a wind instrument played with the nose and mouth cavity. Often made of wood, they are also constructed with plastic, clay, or sheet metal.
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of some wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed; others require buzzing into a metal mouthpiece, while yet others require the player to blow into a hole at an edge, which splits the air column and creates the sound.
Modern didgeridoo designs are distinct from the traditional Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo, and are innovations recognized by musicologists. Didgeridoo design innovation started in the late 20th century using non-traditional materials and non-traditional shapes. The design changes include features that are similar to more familiar musical instruments like the trombone and natural horn.
Saxophone technique refers to the physical means of playing the saxophone. It includes how to hold the instrument, how the embouchure is formed and the airstream produced, tone production, hands and fingering positions, and a number of other aspects. Instrumental technique and corresponding pedagogy is a topic of much interest to musicians and teachers and therefore has been subjected to personal opinions and differences in approach. Over the course of the saxophone's performance history, notable saxophonists have contributed much to the literature on saxophone technique.
Pursed-lip breathing (PLB) is a breathing technique that consists of exhaling through tightly pressed (pursed) lips and inhaling through the nose with the mouth closed.
Donali is an Iranian folk instrument from the Balochistan province in Iran, a pair of fipple flutes that are put in the mouth at the same time to play. The instrument is from the Ney family. The doneli's body is made of reed. One of the instruments is called male (نر) and the other female (ماده). The instrument named female plays melody and the instrument named male play harmony.
Music of Minang is a traditional and living genre of Indonesian music that grows and develops in the Minangkabau culture area. Music whose origins are related to Malay Music is generally played by musical instruments such as Talempong, Saluang, Minang rebab, Serunai, Tmbourine, Aguang, Gandang, and Violin. Minang music is also played to accompany various dances such as the Pasambahan dance and the Piring dance.
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