The Rhythmic Breath: Why You’re Probably Breathing All Wrong (and How to Fix It)

 

The Rhythmic Breath: Why You’re Probably Breathing All Wrong (and How to Fix It)

If you play a wind instrument, breathing is the very foundation of your technique. But for guitarists, pianists, and percussionists, it is a topic that is rarely mentioned or discussed in music education. You might think that because your instrument doesn't require air to produce sound, your breathing doesn't matter—but that misconception could be holding back your performance.

The Cost of "Oxygen Debt"

Imagine you’re performing in a packed, humid venue with no air conditioning. As the audience uses up the oxygen in the room, you suddenly find your focus and concentration slipping. Even with simple, well-rehearsed material, you might struggle to remember what comes next or find your improvisation suffering.

While this is an extreme example, many musicians deal with a more subtle version of this every day: the habit of holding their breath during long, improvised phrases or challenging sections. In an art form where we strive to be as relaxed as possible and avoid all tension, poor breathing technique creates a physical barrier to peak performance.

Training Your Breath: Three Essential Exercises

Because breathing is often unconscious, we easily fall into bad habits without realizing it. To build your "breathing muscles," try these three training exercises:

1. The Metronome Regulator Set a metronome to a slow tempo (around 50 BPM). Practice inhaling on one beat and exhaling on the next.

• The Goal: Many people exhale much faster than they inhale. Work to even out the inhalation and exhalation so they are perfectly balanced.
• The Feel: Take long, slow, deep breaths through your nose without over-breathing or hyperventilating.

2. Aligning Playing with Breath Once you have a steady rhythm, start aligning your movements with your breathing. Choose two familiar chords that require zero mental effort.

• Inhale: Play the first chord.
• Exhale: Move to and play the second chord.
• Keep it Relaxed: These are "soft beats"; you don't need to be perfectly metronomic, just focused on the steady flow of air.

3. Independent Rhythmic Breathing This is the most challenging stage. Take a piece of music you have known for years—something that is "under your fingers".

• The Challenge: Instead of matching your breath to the rhythm of the music, aim to keep a steady flow of inhalation and exhalation that is independent of the piece.
• Consistency is Key: Whether the music gets louder, quieter, faster, or slower, your breathing should remain consistent and even.

Final Thoughts

Even for experienced players, these exercises can be surprisingly difficult and may lead to a few "fluffs" in your playing at first. However, treating breath control as a conscious part of your technical practice ensures that when you are in a high-pressure environment, you have the physical resources to maintain your focus.

A little mindfulness goes a long way—give these exercises 5 to 10 minutes in your next practice session and see if it makes a difference in your relaxation and clarity.

Don't let "oxygen debt" or a lack of focus undermine your hard-earned musical technique. Whether you are a guitarist, pianist, or percussionist, learning to regulate your breathing is a vital training exercise that builds the physical resources you need for high-pressure performances. While breathing is rarely discussed in string education, mastering it is the key to staying relaxed and maintaining consistency in any environment.

Ready to take your playing to the next level?

• Visit our website: Explore professional lessons and more instructional content at www.leedsguitarstudio.co.uk.
• Access resources: View additional materials and guides to help you master the rhythmic breath at https://share.google/gEvGt7gVEqeoX7EYv.
• Get in touch: Have questions about your technique or want to book a session? Chat with us directly via WhatsApp at wa.link/hv2cwv.

Start training your breath today so your focus stays sharp when it matters most.

Chromatics Day 2

Here's another little finger twister for you. Not only will this get your fingers in a tangle but it'll mess with your mind a little bit too!

In this particular slice of Digital Hell you'll be playing an odd note grouping of 5 descending along a single string. The first finger must stay very low and reach back to anticipate the next position whilst the other fingers are playing.

This could be played two different ways rhymically:

As a pentuplet so you're playing the entire 5 note pattern in the space of one beat or alternatively over a 4/4 pulse. 

Played at any kind of speed this becomes confusing to the ear as the mind tries to resolve a constantly shifting 1. This is a useful device for creating rhythmic interest with relatively simple figures but requires greater rhythmic control to keep in time. 

 Many players use this technique in their improvisation. 

For ease of reading the example is notated in 5/16 but in the video I'm playing it over a 4 pulse. The tempo is 140bpm but as always build up to faster tempos slowly ensuring clarity at all times.

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Chromatics Day 1

  I always like to practice chromatic patterns. Not only are they a good way of maintaining your technique but it's also very useful to have a large repetoire of them when improvising.

So to kick of the new year I'll try and post a new one each day. Some of these will be taken from my Digital Hell series whilst others will be new.

As ever the golden rules are:

Practice these slowly and cleanly at first
Build up the speed gradually using a metronome for much of the time
If you can't sing these patterns as you play them then learn to


As usual I'm playing in P4 tuning in the video but for you unfortunate souls still in standard tuning I've tabbed it that way.

Here's the dots....

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Chromatic 3rds - Putting exercises into practice

  At some point or another every guitarist will practice sequences. Usually the focus of these is the development of technique but there's a bit more to it than that. Or rather there should be...

    Playing with intervallic patterns can give you the raw material for improvisation. Short phrases that can be recombined in many ways to form longer musical statements that have their own internal logic and flow. At that point what started out as a dry, technical exercise becomes a creative act which is what all practice should ideally be. 

The genesis of this idea was hearing chromatic 3rds in the playing of Scott Henderson. He was clearly using them as a way of introducing an 'outside' kind of falling motion into his playing. I then set out to catalogue all the different chromatic 3rds patterns I could and notate them as part of my 'digital hell' series. The 3rd is a harmonically defining interval so it's good for creating 'outside' lines.

Here's some of the patterns I used in the video.

Here's a summary of the concept I explain in the video.

• Start any of these 3rds patterns within the chord tones. i.e. Over Bm7 you could start the pattern on D and F# (the 3rd and 5th of the chord) 

• Move it chromatically in either direction until you 'hook' back into the chord and resolve the tension created by the chromaticism. IN - OUT - IN again. 

It's a really simple concept and not the only way of applying these by a long chalk but it is very effective. The improvisation at the end is a little more repetive than I would have liked but I was really focusing on this one concept and as such it's a little unbalanced. Enjoy!

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Digital Hell # 1

  Over 30 years of teaching guitar I've created many exercises for developing technique. These have turned into a whole series I've dubbed 'Digital Hell'. 

Here's an extract from number 1 in the series. This particular one focuses on 'squeeze-release', left-right synchronisation and economy picking all packed into nutritious bite sized exercises.

Here's the extract 

and here's the video. Skip to 0.45 to see the examples notated above.

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Hybrid Picking and tempo delays

Hybrid picking is all the rage these days and why not?! It's great for developing patterns and rhythms that you might not play otherwise.
 Here's an example of it I used whilst composing the riff for the Dirty Fakirs tune, Highs and Lows. It was played with a stereo tempo delay which fills out the sound and gives it extra rhythmic energy but it works just as well without. 

 The Sound Here's a screenshot of the cubase arrange page showing the two plugins I used for this guitar sound. The guitar was recorded via DI and then I used Cubase's own Chorus plugin going into the wonderful Nasty DLA by Boosty. If you're not familiar with his work you're missing out big time. 
The tempo is 116bpm and you can see from the screen shot that I used quaver notes on one side and dotted crochets on the other. Any half decent processor should be able to replicate this sound for you.

  The Technique
I've annotated the picking/fingering that I used but don't feel compelled to follow them if something else works better for you. It's just that my ring finger falls nicely over the higher notes. Your index finger might work better if your hands are bigger!
 The riff works nicely because of the contrary motion and parallel 6ths. Note also that this is played and tabbed in P4 tuning although it's playable in standard. It'll just be slightly stretchy! 

You can hear the full track and a minus guitar version at the bottom of the page. Once you've got the riff up to speed try it with the delay and then play along with the backing track version.


Let me know how you get on and if you're feeling brave maybe I'll transcribe the solo!

Here's a video showing the riff in close up at various speeds.