^ 7 Comments...

1. Eskadee
   February 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

   lawl.

2. Graham
   February 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am

   You know, funnily enough I’ve been having problems with breathing in pieces lately and I realized it was because I wasn’t really exhaling. It’s like you read my mind!!

   Luckily, I read your comic before I took ot to the point of exploding…

3. J-Oboe
   February 10th, 2008 at 10:27 pm

   It’s been happening to me….a lot! In masterclass, in lessons… yea… this comic sums up my life… I think Kristen even told me I was going to explode…. my head ‘asplode!

4. moy
   February 11th, 2008 at 1:20 am

   Jim actually told me this last year in a lesson. Almost word for word. Not kidding.
   I just gave you the short version, J-Oboe.

5. patty
   February 11th, 2008 at 11:23 am

   Heh … I was just telling some colleagues about our need to exhale. I have this monumentally long note in Rigoletto (that keeps getting longer because the singers drag their recitative section out more and more) and the big thing I have to remember is to note take in TOO much air! Funny how that works.

   I try to get my students to believe in exhaling. We, as living breathing beings, don’t seem to believe that exhaling is a necessary thing sometimes! I demonstrate with my hands, how their lungs must look … take a deep breath, lungs fill up, play a little and take another big breath … lungs even larger … play a little and take ANOTHER breath … lungs get even fuller. Meanwhile we are also dealing with carbon dioxide. So finally … kaboom! Lungs explode!

   So I guess all teachers do the explode thing! We are so … so … predictable!

6. Hollu
   March 12th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

   Oh. My. Gosh. It has been way to long since I’ve looked in on this comic :S. Sorry. Just to let you know, it not just oboes or instrumentaists that have this problem! Although you probably knew that. As a singer Lorin (accompanist) always shouts “drop your stomach, drop your stomach, release before you take another breath”. Heidi said the same thing.

   This can probably apply to every wind player/singer: He said that a lot of singers put the cart before the horse; they think that their stomach will drop as they are breathing, but what we actually need to do is drop our stomach’s first and THEN breath. He made me sing with my hand on my stomach, it was wierd, but it helped.

   Anyway, just wanted to mention that I have the same problem ^_^.

   ~Hollu

7. ren
   March 21st, 2008 at 6:46 pm

   I love how annoyed Jim looks in the last panel.

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