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[strad]

I've being playing my B/C box for about six months now and I'm pleased with my progress BUT some of my so called friends fall about laughing when I'm playing as I have unconsciously developed the bad habit of breathing in and out according to which way the bellows are moving. So if I play a long series on notes with the bellows going out the ways my lungs get too full and vice versa! Does anyone have advice on how to stop myself doing this? I do have other bad habits but I'm happy with them. :)

[Lester]

This has been discussed at length on Concertina.net by anglo concertina players. One of the sages on that board (Jim Lucas) gave the following advice which looks sound:

My personal advice for uncoupling breathing from bellows movement is:
...1) Practice singing an extended single note, while frequently and deliberately reversing bellows direction in playing a tune against your "drone".
...2) Practice playing an extended single note, while frequently and deliberately (more often than necessary) taking breaths as you sing a song against it.
...3) While doing 1 or 2, throw in a breath without a corresponding bellows change or a bellows change without a corresponding breath. Then throw in a couple.
...4) Continue adding unmatched changes as in 3 until you work your way up to complete independence of breathing and bellows. Now you can start matching your breathing to the phrasing of the song and your bellows reversals to the phrasing of the music and demands of your instrument (i.e., how long you can play without running out of air, or reversals required by the notes on an anglo), while keeping the two independent, except as those separate requirements happen to coincide.

[squeezy]

Well, I'm afraid it doesn't directly answer the question because it's not relating to the B/C system.  But for me on the D/G melodeon - trying to learn the Atholl Highlanders in A major stopped me, I nearly suffocated!


That's because nearly every note in the tune is on the pull therefore breathing in

[george garside]

I've being playing my B/C box for about six months now and I'm pleased with my progress BUT some of my so called friends fall about laughing when I'm playing as I have unconsciously developed the bad habit of breathing in and out according to which way the bellows are moving. So if I play a long series on notes with the bellows going out the ways my lungs get too full and vice versa! Does anyone have advice on how to stop myself doing this? I do have other bad habits but I'm happy with them. :)

'breathing' with the box is most noticeable when you breathe   via the mouth making a sort of grunting sound. If this is the case endeavor to keep the gob tightly shut throughout the proceedings  or if this fails  try sucking  a mint ball or whatever turns you on as it is difficult to suck a sweet & breath with the box at the same time.

george

[Martin J]

Hazard of your art I'm afraid.

Years ago I learnt a piece called Castle Carrie (I think that's what it was called) in order to overcome this problem and the problem of air and bellows control.  It only had one draw note in the whole 16 bars on a quint box.  It was play or die.  It took some doing but I'm still here and so will you be.  Melodeon gurning is a well known complaint, particularly with new tunes.

Personally I would have thought you had too much else to think about on a B/C box even to consider breathing, I find them devilish.

No practical advice I'm afraid but I'm with you in spirit.

[strad]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Keep them coming. I have just rearranged the room where I practise so that I'm facing the mirror. Now I can attack the gurning and anything else I don't like. This method cured me of gurning when I was starting the fiddle, though I never had any breathing problems then but I was a lot younger!

[Stiamh]

Strad, I'm curious to know what would happen if you played a scale straight up and down the C row. At a decent clip you'd be panting like a border Collie after a sheepdog trial... Maybe scales, apart from all their other benefits (hotly disputed by some - see earlier lively discussions on the subject) would help you break the habit?

[strad]

Steve

The speed I can manage at the moment for scales I am using to try and get away from this breathing problem.

I see you're also known as the polkaholic - when I've done the ABC I'm going to put one of my polkas in the tune section. See how you like it. I wrote it on the fiddle but it's also proving good on the box.

Seasons greetings to all

Nigel

[mrjulian]

No practical advice I'm afraid, but something to amuse you...

I think we all suffered from the breathing thing when we started - I certainly did.

I'm cured now, but come the festival season, I find myself sitting on the campsite and you can bet that nearby there will be someone who has just bought their first melodeon.
As they pick their way round some familiar morris tune I find myself breathing with them, to the extent that I get to the lungs full stage and am mentally begging them to push the bellows to find that elusive next note!

Perhaps there is no complete cure.

Julian

[buttonbox]

This has been discussed at length on Concertina.net by anglo concertina players. One of the sages on that board (Jim Lucas) gave the following advice which looks sound:

My personal advice for uncoupling breathing from bellows movement is:
...1) Practice singing an extended single note, while frequently and deliberately reversing bellows direction in playing a tune against your "drone".
...2) Practice playing an extended single note, while frequently and deliberately (more often than necessary) taking breaths as you sing a song against it.
...3) While doing 1 or 2, throw in a breath without a corresponding bellows change or a bellows change without a corresponding breath. Then throw in a couple.
...4) Continue adding unmatched changes as in 3 until you work your way up to complete independence of breathing and bellows. Now you can start matching your breathing to the phrasing of the song and your bellows reversals to the phrasing of the music and demands of your instrument (i.e., how long you can play without running out of air, or reversals required by the notes on an anglo), while keeping the two independent, except as those separate requirements happen to coincide.

Brilliant advice!  I've been struggling with having my bellows dictating my breathing for a long time.

Before I started playing Irish music on C#/D, I played harmonica (not very well!) long enough to completely ingrain the blowing and drawing into my system.  It took years on the harmonica to learn phrasing so I wouldn't get dizzy while playing, so when I started playing box I didn't have to worry about passing out.  However, my problem is that my breathing is still tagged to what I'm doing with the bellows, so I find it difficult to do much more than grunt when switching tunes, let alone calling out the key, and don't even try to understand me if you expect me to actually NAME the tune while playing.

I'll be trying out this advice.

[Jake Middleton (brinwins)]

if you breathe in and out at the same time wouldent it make playing the harmonica at same time real easy? like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjux7KtvKmk

[Owen Woods]

I've never had the problem below, probably because of playing the clarinet to a reasonable standard first, however I did find that when attempting to play and dance at the same time the other day I tended to want to dance on my right foot when pushing in and on my left when pulling out. This didn't make me fall over, but it required concentration to avoid me doing so...

[mrjulian]

I've never had the problem below, probably because of playing the clarinet to a reasonable standard first, however I did find that when attempting to play and dance at the same time the other day I tended to want to dance on my right foot when pushing in and on my left when pulling out. This didn't make me fall over, but it required concentration to avoid me doing so...

Funniest thing I've heard for ages !

[Owen Woods]

I've never had the problem below, probably because of playing the clarinet to a reasonable standard first, however I did find that when attempting to play and dance at the same time the other day I tended to want to dance on my right foot when pushing in and on my left when pulling out. This didn't make me fall over, but it required concentration to avoid me doing so...

Funniest thing I've heard for ages !

I try my best

I'm convinced that once I've got that problem sorted out it would be a good way of practising playing for Morris. At the moment if I start a tune too fast I only realise once everyone starts dancing.

[Ebor_fiddler]

When do they fid out? We don't let ours know until afterwards.

[Bob Ellis]

I'm convinced that once I've got that problem sorted out it would be a good way of practising playing for Morris. At the moment if I start a tune too fast I only realise once everyone starts dancing.

We have a number of musicians who play for our Morris side, some of whom play too faster if they are not kept under lock and key. Recently, we have been getting round that by having a single experienced musician starting the tune on his or her own whilst looking at the lead dancer, who indicates with (polite) hand signals whether the musician needs to speed up or slow down. The other musicians do not join in until the lead dancer has given the 'thumbs up' that the speed is right. Result: fewer knackered dancers who are trying to get their breathe back sufficiently to swear at the musicians. 

[Owen Woods]

I'm convinced that once I've got that problem sorted out it would be a good way of practising playing for Morris. At the moment if I start a tune too fast I only realise once everyone starts dancing.

We have a number of musicians who play for our Morris side, some of whom play too faster if they are not kept under lock and key. Recently, we have been getting round that by having a single experienced musician starting the tune on his or her own whilst looking at the lead dancer, who indicates with (polite) hand signals whether the musician needs to speed up or slow down. The other musicians do not join in until the lead dancer has given the 'thumbs up' that the speed is right. Result: fewer knackered dancers who are trying to get their breathe back sufficiently to swear at the musicians. 

Yeah, unfortunately although we have three musicians, including myself, we never seem to be around at the same time, i.e. we perpetually have 7 people at a practice.

Our leader doesn't tend to give me those signals, even during the 'once to yourself'. As soon as everyone starts to dance though I do realise that I'm playing too fast. Of course, if I then slow down then people might fall over...

[WillQ]

I think we all suffered from the breathing thing when we started - I certainly did.

I'm so glad to know I'm not alone! And so glad to have found some exercises that may help me break this habit 

I've been playing D/G melodeon since 1999, and never once thought "there must be an internet forum for melodeon players" until yesterday. Silly me!

I started with harmonicas when I was very young--age eleven?--about eight years before the melodeon, to the point that I had about two dozen of them and was playing for English dances; by the time I picked up my first squeezebox I'd been "breathing with a diatonic instrument" for nearly as long as I could remember. But most of my box playing has been for Morris, so the breathing problem wasn't often a problem. I figured out how to play cross-row so the bellows didn't run out of air, and that was good enough; my lungs didn't really figure into my playing.

After a couple years off from squeezing I returned to it in January with the idea I would play more other sorts of tunes and try to do some singing, and of course the bad breathing habit has made this nearly impossible. Hopefully with practice I'll cure myself... if I don't wind up posting here regularly, it may be because my lungs exploded mid-song!... 

[Bob Ellis]

We have a number of musicians who play for our Morris side, some of whom play too faster if they are not kept under lock and key. Recently, we have been getting round that by having a single experienced musician starting the tune on his or her own whilst looking at the lead dancer, who indicates with (polite) hand signals whether the musician needs to speed up or slow down. The other musicians do not join in until the lead dancer has given the 'thumbs up' that the speed is right. Result: fewer knackered dancers who are trying to get their breathe back sufficiently to swear at the musicians. 

Our leader doesn't tend to give me those signals, even during the 'once to yourself'. As soon as everyone starts to dance though I do realise that I'm playing too fast. Of course, if I then slow down then people might fall over...

Instead of not having enough musicians present at any one time, we have quite the opposite problem - too many! At practices and local dance-outs, we often have around ten musicians, so it is important that one person sets the tempo or it could easily become a musical race to see who can finish first!    Many of these musicans don't attend festivals, so it is more normal for us to have four or four musicians at a festival, but even these numbers require a leader to set the tempo.

As for your lead dancer not giving you signals about tempo, Ukebert, I think you need to have a quiet word with him. Too many dancers take their musicians for granted, not realising that the way the music is played affects how well they dance. If he can't judge the correct tempo, it is probably because he hasn't realised the need to do so. With practice, he will soon get the hang of it.

[Owen Woods]

Instead of not having enough musicians present at any one time, we have quite the opposite problem - too many! At practices and local dance-outs, we often have around ten musicians, so it is important that one person sets the tempo or it could easily become a musical race to see who can finish first!    Many of these musicans don't attend festivals, so it is more normal for us to have four or four musicians at a festival, but even these numbers require a leader to set the tempo.

As for your lead dancer not giving you signals about tempo, Ukebert, I think you need to have a quiet word with him. Too many dancers take their musicians for granted, not realising that the way the music is played affects how well they dance. If he can't judge the correct tempo, it is probably because he hasn't realised the need to do so. With practice, he will soon get the hang of it.

I will. Problem is that our other musicians are much much more experienced and better players than me.

But 10 musicians?! Grief... we sometimes struggle to make up a set, we don't have enough men to have more than one person playing. It is a rare event that we have more than 7 people at a practice...