Credits: newscientist.com

Afterthoughts About Breathing During a Musical Speech

Jean-Baptiste Collinet
Nov 3 · 3 min read

“Breathing” does not mean being passive.

Any singer could explain you in great detail how breathing and performance are intertwined and interdependent…

Calling myself “singer” is not something I’ll do, even if I actually sing.

Yet. I’ve got something extremely important to develop, too. It’s a digression I spared you, but I can’t nullify my work by removing every digression. Those dreaded things are usually the best part of anything written.


Let me ask you a question to begin with.

Do you breathe the same way when you are deep in your sleep or when you’re bursting with anger? It’s the kind of subtlety too often forgotten when talking about breathing (related to musical performance as speech).

We should even talk about dreams and music heard during dreams. It’s an excellent cathartic exercise.


Musicians playing a bowed instrument know well that if they try to make music breathe, it won’t be the same at all if they’re in a mood or another… as everything that’s felt by the player goes straight in the bow!

It happens without being noticed, most of the time. We only notice it when our gesture doesn’t follow our intentions, and when our breathing goes in the way of expressing feelings.

Rhetorics put an emphasis on breathing for an obvious reason!


Having a focus on breathing is good.

Having a focus on both breathing and having one’s feelings not going against the nature of what is to be played is much, much better.

Interesting results can be obtained when neither breathing and mindset/emotions are aligned with the music to be played, but even as an overgraduated rule-breaker, I wouldn’t encourage you to try.

Many contemporary/modern composers already write music using techniques going against nature. It’s not a matter of personal taste. It sounds weird most of the time, but once accustomed to it… there’s no going back.

Jazz players also use very different breathing techniques in order to obtain sounds the instrument they play was primarily not made for.

I’m not into hierarchy. One is not better than the other.

Jazz, contemporary, whatever. It’s the same language: music.

Look again at the list of tonalities and ask yourself: “how would I breathe if I were in such a mood/ state of mind”?


I don’t know enough about winds and brass, but breathing is not only technical. Every feeling goes straight into producing a sound.

Actually, the bow’s hair length and the air column size are the same. They can be easily compared, and it’s quite obvious that the same results are obtained with one or another.

Thinking of it some more… organ pipes are also the same.

I mean that the result is the same. Yet the production of air in an organ doesn’t need the organist, so the only way to channel emotions is through a sophisticated system of keyboards, a pedalboard and a host of stops…

Even though organ keyboards are extremely touch-sensitive (more than any other keyboard instrument), it’s quite safe to say that the organist won’t let much emotion get in the way of playing due to the technical features of the organ… at the very least, it’s not likely to be heard.

Granted, hitting the “wrong key” would speak volumes about emotions (related to breathing) getting in the way. The same could be said about fingers missing the “right” spot on a fingerboard, and so on.

I’m not saying that breathing is not any problem for an organist. It may affect phrasing and articulation, sure.

From my (limited) experience, it’s less of a problem than with a “directly produced” sound.

I could tell you what breathing is and how it affects playing from a drummer’s perspective, but it would have me write until I die.

There’s simply too much to say…

It’s always the same with everything musical. Once started, there’s no end.

Jean-Baptiste Collinet

Written by

Drummer. Electric Viola da Gamba Player. Composer. Expect a lot of Baroque Music, Sound Engineering, Studio Work and Musicians’ MSKDs. Motto: “Do or Die”.

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