Breathing

After watching the instructional video, be sure to practice breathing exercises each time you play the flute to help focus your mind and work on your efficiency of airflow. Use the daily breathing exercise below to help develop this skillset.

Daily Breathing Exercise Instructions

Set your flute down somewhere safe on a flat surface (not a stand!). While standing with good posture, bring your hand sideways up to your to your mouth and drop your jaw to get a large open “OH” shape. Bring your first knuckle to the opening of your mouth and inhale - this will help create some resistance while you breath. For the exhale, extend your hand out with your palm facing you roughly 6-8 inches away and direct your airstream onto the center of your palm.

Your goal should be to fill up your lung capacity to the max on each inhale and push all of the air out of your lungs to be completely empty for each exhale. “Connect” your breaths - in other words, don’t allow any space between inhales and exhales.

Set your metronome to quarter note = 88 and work your way through this exercise.

CAUTION:

Breathing exercises may cause you to feel lightheaded. If you feel this way stop, and have a seat while breathing slowly in through the nose and out through the mouth. This is your body’s natural reaction to larger amounts of oxygen - you will get more used to this over time.