Breath Control: Secrets from Free Divers and Singers
Breath control is everything in brass playing — it’s what lets you sustain long phrases, keep your tone consistent, and get through powerful passages without running out of steam. Beyond the usual brass breathing exercises, it’s worth looking at free divers and singers, two groups who’ve made breath control their entire craft.
Lessons from free divers
Free divers train their breathing to survive minutes underwater on a single breath — and several of their core techniques map directly onto what brass players need.
Diaphragmatic breathing (belly breathing) maximises how much air you take in, and it’s the same mechanism brass players need for steady, controlled airflow rather than pushing from the chest.
- Lie down or sit with your back straight.
- Place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly.
- Inhale through your nose so your belly rises while your chest stays still.
- Exhale slowly through your mouth, keeping the breath controlled.
Controlled exhalation slows the exhale — often through pursed lips — making the diaphragm work harder to regulate flow. This is exactly what long, sustained notes and smooth legato playing demand.
- Inhale deeply using diaphragmatic breathing.
- Exhale slowly and evenly through pursed lips, as if blowing out a candle gently.
- Keep your abdominal muscles engaged so the airflow stays consistent from start to finish.
Lung expansion stretches the intercostal muscles and expands the thoracic cavity, letting you take in more air per breath — meaning fewer breaths needed across a long passage.
- Stand or sit upright with your arms at your sides.
- Inhale deeply, expanding your chest as much as you can.
- Raise your arms above your head while holding your breath, opening up more space in your chest cavity.
- Hold for a few seconds, then exhale slowly as you lower your arms.
Insights from singers
Sustaining long phrases: play a scale or simple melody legato, focusing on smooth, even breaths between phrases, and gradually stretch phrase lengths as your control improves — the same discipline singers use to avoid losing tone quality mid-phrase.
Breathing in the right places: mark good breathing spots directly into your music, then practise taking quick, deep breaths at exactly those points without letting your tone or musicality slip — timing the breath so it never interrupts the music’s natural flow.
Bringing it together: a few minutes of daily breathing work, long tone practice for endurance and even airflow, mental rehearsal of breathing efficiently through tricky passages, and then applying it in real music once it’s second nature.
If you want to hear what real breath control sounds like, check out Dave Steinmeyer playing the theme from Ice Castles — count how few times he actually breathes.