Breathtaking: An alternative approach to breathing for trumpeters

Danny Teong

Name: Danny Teong Main Subject: Trumpet, Early Music Performance Research supervisors: Wouter Verschuren, Susan Williams Title of Research: Breathtaking: An alternative approach to breathing for trumpeters Research Question: Breathing simultaneously through the nose and mouth: What are the benefits for trumpet playing? How can this technique be learned? Summary of Results: Breathing in trumpet pedagogy is a controversial area. Trumpet method books contain seemingly conflicting instructions, and breathing through the mouth and focusing on low abdomen breathing dominates conventional brass pedagogy. This research attempts to explore the teachings of Willem van der Vliet, a retired trumpet teacher, who presents an alternative approach of including the nose in the inhalation process. I have used interviews, surveys, and investigated scientific and esoteric sources to attempt to explain the breathing mechanism and to understand how and why Willem’s approach to breathing works, and how it can be learnt. Biography: Danny started playing the natural trumpet since 2011, and has freelanced with early music groups in the Netherlands and Germany. He is intrigued by the limitless rhetorical possibilities of early music and enjoys the portrayal of a singing trumpet via variations in articulation and sound colour. Danny is currently doing his master’s degree with Susan Williams in Koninklijk Conservatorium, with support from Adriana Jacoba Fonds.

Chapter 5

Conclusions and discussion

In conclusion, there are theoretical benefits (from sciences of breath) and also practical benefits (see interviews and surveys of trumpeters in Appendix 1 and 2) of simultaneously inhaling through both the nose and the mouth in trumpet playing and performance. Furthermore, it is easy to learn this inhalation technique.

However, an immediate problem is that it is not as easy to incorporate this inhalation technique into trumpet playing, as described in Chapter 3. Inhalation is only one of the four parts of the breathing process; changing one part of it changes the balance and relationship between every part. Improving one part certainly helps, but the other parts need to change as well so that the balance in the breathing process does not fall apart.

Another problem linked to the above problem also arose during my attempts to reach out to Willem’s students to survey them about their experience with the simultaneous nose and mouth inhalation. Some of them turned me down because they felt that they would devalue his ideas with their explanations, and it is something that has to be experienced in person. This showed me that even with the developments in multimedia documentation, a video or audio recording or text or picture is, in most cases, only a source of inspiration, and is insufficient to show and give the learner the complete experience of the breath. In some cases it could even obstruct the learner from achieving the complete experience of the breath.

The solution to the above problems, I feel, is best approached by learning from somebody who is well-versed in the study and practice of the breath, and also by learning from feeling or ‘listening’ to the body and the breath. If learners are left only to their own devices, it is possible to succeed, but the questions that would plague the students endlessly would be: “Am I doing it right? Am I good enough?” A teacher who can supervise and direct the learner to experience the breath is a much-needed complement because of the direct feedback provided to and from the student.

This is not to say that multimedia documentation has no place in the study of the breath. In my experience, multimedia sources are best used either as a reminder of the lessons and experience or as inspiration from a fresh perspective. Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings is a good example of the former. He describes technique in great detail, but also emphasizing the importance of practice. In some cases, the ideas described are inimical to the written word that he merely passes them off as “oral tradition”, meaning that it has to be passed on in person rather than in the book.

Finally, going back to my attempt to contact Willem’s students for surveys, there are also a couple of trumpeters who turned me down because they did not want the fact that they go to Willem for ‘unconventional’ instruction to be known. In a certain way I understand their sentiments. When I started to work on playing the trumpet with Willem’s instruction on breathing, I met with a lot of resistance. Teachers and colleagues were telling me that my way of breathing was ‘wrong’, and I should revert back to the low abdominal breathing with the open mouth and throat. And when I explained that the latter way of breathing was the thing that caused my playing to deteriorate, they dismissed that idea and simply said I was not working hard enough. That was frustrating on many levels. Nevertheless, in showing the theoretical and practical benefits through my research, I hope that it could be recognized that simultaneous nose-mouth inhalation has its place in trumpet pedagogy, and more importantly, that it could serve as a form of encouragement to trumpeters who want to explore this type inhalation.

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