Help im having issues breathing quickly

[Kyle M]

Hello I am a student in Canada and I seem to be running into an issue of having to play lengthy, fast passages with no rest and I have no idea where to breathe.

An example of a piece I am working on right now would be the melody shop march solo from 78-end.
it's not necessarily the notes that are messing me up as I can practice it slowly and build up muscle memory for the passage but as I am playing it faster now I find it impossible to find a place to breathe quickly enough to continue back into the passage in time.

is there any advice?

also my idea of playing it "fast" is 100bpm

kyle

[John Morgan]

Welcome to the forum, Kyle!! Great question about Melody Shop!

Melody Shop is a great march. And you need to be a wind sack to play it all without skipping any notes. The for sure places to breathe are right after any quarter note. Play the quarter note short and take a quick breath. Do this even at the start of the fast section just to keep a full tank. The other places to breathe should be worked out in advance. What you do is leave out an eighth note occasionally. Do this by playing the first eighth note of a group of 4, then skip the 2nd eighth note, take a quick breath, then play the last two and continue on. Work this all out from home and clearly mark those places where you need to take a quick breath. When Melody Shop is played up to speed (really fast), it is virtually impossible to take breaths in between the eighth notes.

I had to play this as a solo a couple of summers ago during a city municipal band concert. I did exactly what I said above. To the audience, leaving out an eighth note in 1-2 places through that fast section is not even really noticed by the audience, and most wouldn't know you were not playing a couple of the left out notes. They would think that is the way it is supposed to go.

This is my two cents worth. Others may have other ideas. Of course if you are playing it as a solo in the band and you are the only euphonium, you could take a breath between eighth notes, and then catch up by playing the next few notes a little faster. That is another possibility. But when playing Melody Shop with a big group of euphoniums, you want to keep strict tempo.

[tonewheeler]

We played it last year with my community band with three euphs so it was manageable to keep the runs and solos going. We decided to share the solos and also trade off some of the more difficult runs in certain spots to catch a breath, but I like John's idea of skipping a note.

[davewerden]

In the Coast Guard we paired up. It's not really a "solo" in the one-only sense; I think it is a "section solo." If you get a big breath before you start you can go quite a way. So we would actually spell each other. One might play up to the first note in the measure and take a big breath, then come in on the next measure. And vice versa. If you play carefully where this will happen it can seem seamless to the audience. Getting time for a big breath within the context means you have to trade off fewer times.

[davewerden]

Related to my suggestion above:

It has been documented that as we run out of air on long phrases, it interferes with your finger coordination. The lack of oxygen messes you up! So catching barely enough air in many quick breaths may contribute to less clarity of your 1/8 notes.

[Snorlax]

We should also remember that the instruments and mouthpieces in use when Melody Shop was written were pea-shooters by today's standards...much smaller bored than ANY large-bore compensating horn today. On a pea-shooter, it would be MUCH easier than it is on a Sovereign, Willson, or 5050. Another point to consider is to make sure the conductor tells the other instruments to play QUIETLY and LIGHTLY while you're cranking it out. PS, though some people cringe at it, I have no reservations about sniff-breathing in pieces such as Melody Shop, especially if you're doing it by yourself. Having said that, I also need to leave out a few eighth notes if I'm doing it alone, and we always work out tradeoffs when doing it in a section. PS--do go for the high C.

[davewerden]

We should also remember that the instruments and mouthpieces in use when Melody Shop was written were pea-shooters by today's standards...much smaller bored than ANY large-bore compensating horn today. On a pea-shooter, it would be MUCH easier than it is on a Sovereign, Willson, or 5050. Another point to consider is to make sure the conductor tells the other instruments to play QUIETLY and LIGHTLY while you're cranking it out.

Excellent points! I think I (and others) have said on the forum that if one were doing nothing but playing standard/classic concert band literature, and American horn would be a nice choice.

As to getting the rest of the band to play soft...great idea, but somehow the CG Band directors didn't really do much with that! I think on my old Conn or King, and with the band playing softer, I could have gotten by with one or two breaths after we started. Sure would be nice to be able to circular breath sometimes!! (My nasal passages are physically obstructed to an extent that makes it impractical to circular breath on euphonium - maybe if I played trumpet it would work.)

[adrian_quince]

One other thing about The Melody Shop: A significant portion of the woodwinds are playing the 8th note line along with the euphoniums. That makes a breath sneaked here or there less apparent.

[Kyle M]

Thank you for the great advice guys, the skipping a note or 2 really helps me out to get longer air.

Ill also be sure to tell my band director to tell my clarinet army to quiet down.

Kyle

[tonewheeler]

In the Coast Guard we paired up. It's not really a "solo" in the one-only sense; I think it is a "section solo." If you get a big breath before you start you can go quite a way. So we would actually spell each other. One might play up to the first note in the measure and take a big breath, then come in on the next measure. And vice versa. If you play carefully where this will happen it can seem seamless to the audience. Getting time for a big breath within the context means you have to trade off fewer times.

I thought there was one solo at the beginning of the piece.

[John Morgan]

None of the euphonium part is "marked" as a solo. The fast part "is" more like a section solo as Dave mentions, but I have seen this (and done it myself) played as a euphonium solo. And of course the woodwinds (clarinets and flutes) are playing the same line. The edition transcribed and edited by Marc Oliver sets the tempo at half note = 160. That will get your blood flowing and your fingers moving!!!

Here is a performance by the University of Northern Texas Symphonic Band along with Brian Bowman and his current students and alumni. The first pass through the march is at a comfortable tempo of about 130. Then, they play the fast section again, fast. That's what I'm talking about!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGEHGSUbtQ

[davewerden]

I was just re-listening to Hiram Diaz's great performance of Mantia's Original Fantasy. In the last section there are a ton of 16th-note runs with only the space of 1 16th to catch a breath. If you listen closely to Hiram and other fine players, they will "cheat" a bit because you can't get a very good breath during a Presto 16th rest. So he makes up the time in the next run. It's not something you notice because he gets back to the correct beat very smoothly. So in a SOLO piece, that might be an option. Of course, in a march like Melody Shop you don't want to do that. And there is the reason that it seems smarter to work with the section for staggered breathing so you can keep a solid beat going at ANY tempo.

[John Morgan]

I was just re-listening to Hiram Diaz's great performance of Mantia's Original Fantasy. In the last section there are a ton of 16th-note runs with only the space of 1 16th to catch a breath. If you listen closely to Hiram and other fine players, they will "cheat" a bit because you can't get a very good breath during a Presto 16th rest. So he makes up the time in the next run. It's not something you notice because he gets back to the correct beat very smoothly. So in a SOLO piece, that might be an option. Of course, in a march like Melody Shop you don't want to do that. And there is the reason that it seems smarter to work with the section for staggered breathing so you can keep a solid beat going at ANY tempo.

Ditto on Hiram's performance being great. It was absolutely stellar in my opinion. I am working up that same piece to play this fall or next spring, not sure which. And the way to handle the last section without skipping any notes is to do precisely that. Grab a quick breath and catch up. Essentially play the eighth note as a sixteenth note with a sixteenth note rest. I am toying between doing that or just leaving out a note in a couple places to get a better breath. That is such a challenging solo, and in my opinion, it was one of if not the hardest solo in the smaller euphonium repertoire back in the 1960-70's. I think there are some really hard ones that have been written since then, but Fantasie Orginale was in my mind just about the hardest back then.

That is a really interesting solo to dissect and find the hard spots. What makes this solo so hard, if you play all of it as written, is:

1. It is long and calls for extremely good endurance.
2. There are places where you have to have very good and fast slurring ability in Variation 1 at the end of a couple phrases - this means you really have to have a mature set of chops and great slurring capability.
3. Good solid range up to a high Eb above high Bb.
4. In Variation 2, you have to have incredible finger dexterity to play the notes up to speed. You need excellent and fast chromatic fingers. And playing really fast with a compensator requires more work in getting the valves down and up fast then say on a trumpet with a much shorter throw.
5. This piece is from an Italian, you need to be able to play this in the correct style.
6. The final part goes at light speed, you have to be able to keep up and drive it home.
7. There is another very difficult (in my opinion) part right before the end where you play from a C in the staff up to an F above the staff by slurring 2 notes at a time and going up by half steps. At tempo, this is a hard thing to do and requires good coordination to get really fast. Some people, including Hiram, choose to double tongue that line. I can't quite tell what he does coming down, but don't think he is playing the ink. What he plays is surely excellent and snappy, just different from the written part.

There are more places in this piece requiring some real dedication, but in some solos, you can manage most of the piece without having some "show stopper" parts. With this one, you have to have really good skills in several areas to be able to pull it off.

This is one great piece of music.

Edit: And of course, I forgot, the breathing challenges in this solo are intense, the reason for this thread in the first place, breathing during fast and long passages.