The Lung Horn Hangout with Dr. Mark Almond

Just breathe! Dr Mark Almond, associate principal horn of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, gives us a fascinating insight into one of the most important aspects of horn playing: the lungs. Dr Mark Almond, MA BM BCh MRCP PhD, was a specialist lung doctor in London but also played with all the top orchestras because he was also such a great horn player. This makes for a fantastic combination of knowledge and we are so grateful that he shared it with us on this Horn Hangout all about Lungs.

Transcript

Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Horn Hangout. It’s so great to see you all. Our chat has been so busy for the last half hour. It’s incredible. So many of you watching tonight for an incredible Horn Hangout. I know I say it every time, but don’t you think I think they’re all incredible, but they’re like my babies, so of course I think they’re all incredible. But tonight is especially incredible because we are hanging out together and breathing together with the fabulous Dr. Mark Almond. Dr. Mark, how are you today?

Hi Sarah, I’m great. Thanks. It’s great to see you. I was very American when I said Almond. It’s actually Almond, isn’t it? Yeah, it depends on where you are. Um, and also there are so many letters after your name that I didn’t like know quite how to start. Can you remember them all? Not that I use any of them anymore, but No, no, but tell tell me, tell me. Um, MA, BM, BCH, uh, PhD. I think there’s a few others, but I can’t goodness. Well, But I blow a piece of metal now.

You blow a piece of metal. I think you’re probably the most qualified person ever to have blown a piece of metal. Um, our Horn Hangout world is a completely lucky to have you. And I I know you and I were just um, we were hanging out by ourselves now for the last 20 minutes here online and we were keeping an eye on the chat. And it’s really incredible. What do you think, Mark, of all this this globalness? Uh, it’s fantastic. And the thing is as well, it’s like the questions people are asking are really insightful.

They’re great questions. So I look forward to answering some of them. They are really, really great great questions. Brendan Byrne is watching. Um, Anna Maine is watching. Silvia from Hamburg. Christopher from Toronto. Meet MK from Malaysia. It’s 3:00 a.m. Stay awake. Stay awake. It’s worth it. Mature again from Norway. Um, this is really fantastic. John in New York. John’s a viola player, so he has to learn how to really breathe, right? String players need to breathe as well. They really do. It’s funny cuz we we’re rehearsing the the Grand Partita right now with um, with the Berlin Phil.

Socially distant. I mean, Stefan Dohr is like miles away. Um, Stefan Yacubski and Andre’s over the other side. But Petrenko was saying today, he’s conducting it and he’s saying today how important is to learn how to breathe because the best conductors breathe with the wind players, don’t you think? Yeah, to Yeah, well, you always appreciate a conductor that, you know, broken four, someone that just go You always want a conductor that just goes one And it’s yeah, it makes life so much easier. Why is it so many of them go Yes, exactly.

All the Let’s just start and they just go Oh, and something else and you’re like Oh, it’s good. Oh, that’s the best one. I was thinking about you a lot today because we had a horn quartet rehearsal and I was playing meaty low horn stuff and I have my own questions for you today. But everybody who’s watching, welcome to all of you that are on Facebook as well. It’s fantastic to see you. I can see you all. Jared McCourt’s watching. Our tuba, one of my favorite tuba players.

Stephen Giuliani, hi Mark and Sarah. Hi from Halifax. Tanner West is watching. Hello, Tanner. Adam Wolf, so many great friends watching today. Um, but if you’ve got any juicy questions for Dr. Mark, please go over and put them on the website because the Facebook questions go like that. And uh, and it’s really hard to spot them. One very important thing today, Mark, is that we say that we’re not here This is an educational Horn Hangout. And um, although you practice the horn a lot, you don’t practice um, medicine anymore.

No, I I made that conscious decision um, like four years ago now. I was working in hospitals for 10 years. Um, and then um, you know, I think I finished working in the hospital on like August the 1st, 2016 and then started working in the opera over in San Francisco on the 22nd of August. So since that time, I’ve not been practicing medicine. So uh, yeah, no specific medical advice. See your own physician. No, it’s really it’s like a disclaimer. We have to put this on here because it’s that’s it’s an education.

We’ve got a great program worked out for you today. Well, I say we. Mark’s done all the work. And um, but Mark, well, I think what’s really important is that we tell everybody a little bit about you because in England you’re known as Dr. Mark. I met you. We were playing We were both playing extra at the LSO, weren’t we? That’s right. I remember that. Oh, Dr. Mark’s coming in today. And I was like, Dr. Mark? I said, Is he Is he a real doctor? Oh, yeah, he’s a real doctor.

He’s a lung doctor. I said, Well, um, is he Is he a real horn player as well? Oh, yeah, yeah, he just plays the horn for fun. Can you Can you give us a little potted history of how that actually happened? Yeah, okay. So it’s it’s a bit random. Uh, but I think I was always a bit torn between doing music and medicine. Uh, obviously your parents, they want you to do medicine, you know? Who wants their kid to be a musician, you know? So um, and then So I was growing up and I sort of got good at the horn and I was like, Ooh, maybe I could do this.

And my parents were like, Oh, maybe you should do medicine. I was like, Yeah, maybe I should do medicine. That’d be the sensible thing. So I went to uh, Cambridge to study medicine. Uh, and it was fabulous there, you know? They had so many great ensembles, just amateur ensembles there. So every evening I was going out playing the horn. And then I did a few competitions here and there. Um, and then when I was 19, I think it was, uh, I got a call from the LSO saying, Ooh, can you come and bump in uh, what was it?

Mahler 1 and Rite of Spring. Bump. We have to explain that because there’s people assist. A bumper A bumper is an assistant horn, but in England we say bump. So, yeah. Yes, so I was Stefani Yacubski is watching, by the way. Hello, Stefani. He says hello to you, too. And he will answer your mouthpiece question. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did ask him that. Um, but uh, no, I I remember the moment vividly. I’d just done uh, I’d just played Eroica uh, in one of the Cambridge colleges.

Uh, and I was at that stage in my life when it was like, when you when you’re young, you’re like, Oh, I can play everything really loud and it sounds fabulous. So I’d just done this Eroica. I was really happy. And then I got this answerphone message from the fixer of the LSO saying, It would literally went something like, Uh, we’ve we’ve got a juicy piece of work. Uh, can you come and do it? And I’m like, Ooh, I’ve got medical school, but go on, stuff it.

So uh, yeah, I went and then I suddenly, you know, I was sat next to Dave Pyatt and Morris Murphy and Bousfield. I was like, with and Tim Jones, all these legends. I was like, What’s happened? Um, and then yeah, I got the bug. Went back to medical school for you know, did a did a bit of that and then um, uh, after I took a year out to mess around with or sort of trial with various orchestras and stuff and then uh, went back to Oxford to do my clinical training.

And in my first or second year there, I was doing my obstetrics and gynecology training. And I remember And this is another moment I remember very vividly. I’d literally just delivered a baby uh, as a medical student. When I When I say delivered, I mean catch. Um, and to pull, you caught. No, it’s it’s a natural process. Um, Valsalva maneuver is involved in that. We’ll talk about that. Um, and um, yeah, I got a phone call from Nigel, uh, the principal of the Philharmonia Orchestra who you had on recently.

And then I got offered the third horn job in the Philharmonia, uh, which I went and did. Uh, Literally after having just delivered a baby. Yeah. I’m sort of imagining you in your scrubs with your some the the the nurse holding the phone saying you know, and you saying I can’t talk right now. I’ve got to I think I was in the corridor. I think I was in the corridor. Um, and uh, yeah, so I went and played with the Philharmonia. Um, did a year there and then um, you know, I I left that because I really felt I’d done four or five years out of my medical training and if I hadn’t completed at that point, uh, I never would have.

So I went back to Oxford, finished off there. And then worked in hospitals for 10 years, all the major London teaching hospitals. And but carried on playing the horn. And then uh, sorry, this is going on a bit, isn’t it? No, no, no, we want to know. I’m going to get to the I’m going to get to the um, the the the the things you’ve done. Oh. I read the the the the the gory stuff. We want to hear the gory stuff. But towards the end of my training, I decided to do a PhD in uh, in obesity and pandemic influenza, which is actually quite relevant at the moment with all the COVID stuff.

But that PhD was fabulous because it gave me well, much to my supervisor’s annoyance, it gave me so much time to practice the horn. Um, so I did loads of practice and started playing properly again uh, with the orchestras. And then my wife wanted to move over to California. And I said, Well, um, yeah, I’ll come to I’d love to go to California. It’d be awesome, but I need a job and I don’t really want to start my re-train re-train as a doctor again, which is what you have to do over here.

So I was uh, I was in my final year of training uh, in the UK. So I yeah, I looked for horn jobs and was fortunate enough to win the um, the joint principal job at the San Francisco Opera, which I’ve been doing for the past uh, four years now. And now, Mark, tell us what’s happening in your life. Yeah, so I’m moving to I’m moving across the street uh, to the San Francisco Symphony uh, as their associate principal. Um, and yeah, I’m really looking forward to starting there whenever that will be.

Congratulations. That’s really amazing, amazing. Is it Just before we get onto the lung stuff. Everybody, we have the most amazing um, lung uh, yeah, lesson lesson about lungs um, that Mark is going to give us today. We all sort of know how to do it cuz we all do the same thing. We blow through a piece of metal and we get a sound out. So obviously we’re doing something right, but some people are doing more things right than others, and I think that’s something we can really, you know, maybe understand a bit more today.

Just another personal question for you, Mark. Was it terrible, this pull of of knowing so much, being a doctor, you have all these qualifications, but knowing you love the horn so much? I mean, you did both things obviously really well. Yeah, no, it was um you know, it was a it was a nightmare, actually, because it was brilliant. I had the best of both worlds. I could you know, I love medicine, bits bits of medicine, like acute medicine. There’s nothing like it. Um doing all the procedures, putting big chest drains in, assisting in surgeries, running I meant.

This is what Mark told me the other day. He was like, “Okay, I’ve I’ve had put chest drains in. I’ve you know, done all this.” It’s like sounds like Grey’s Anatomy. Well, it’s it’s brilliant, though, because you get you know, through your medical training, you know, you you perform at you assist in amputations, heart surgeries, uh everything. And it is it’s great, and there’s nothing like the adrenaline of acute looking after someone who’s acutely sick. Obviously, that sounds that sounds pretty morbid, but you know, it’s uh it’s similar to doing a concert, you know?

Um you get that adrenaline rush. Um but yeah, when I finally made a decision after God knows how much training, 16 six years of training and 10 years as a doctor to go into music again, you know, I’m sure I’ve made the right choice. Uh absolutely love it. You know, opera’s opera’s been fabulous. Yeah. Opera’s amazing. Op- Everybody needs to play opera. Every horn player, every musician has to play opera. I miss it so much. Uh Mark to say that’s not to say, though, I haven’t had lots of medical issues whilst being a musician.

I think musicians as a whole quite tend to be hypochondriacs, so I’ve had so many questions from musicians. That’s the thing. People also um you’ve been on tours, and you’ve had There’s been people collapsing on stage, and everyone looks at you. You’ve been You’ve been playing in the section, and people just think, “Well, you’re a doctor. Go and help them.” No? Yeah, that’s that Yeah. Fortunately, that that bit’s only happened once. Usually, it’s in rehearsals or backstage somewhere, but yeah, there was one instance where I was on tour uh where yeah, someone collapsed right behind me at the end of Mahler 9.

Um and the curtain the curtain came down. Everything stopped. Well, actually, the cur- before the curtain came down, everyone just looked at me and says, “Well, you’re a doctor. Sort it out.” I was a medical student at the time, and I was like, “Okay.” But it was one of those nightmare moments where you imagine walking on stage like with your your trousers on or something. Cuz like standing up in front of 3,000 people and doing something which isn’t playing the horn is really weird. Yeah. Yeah, I went back and and sorted the guy out, but uh as soon as I went back, the the the side doors opened, and all these Portuguese neurosurgeons and stuff pushed me out of the way, and I was Pushed you out of the way.

You’re just a horn player. Um there’s all these questions Some Ricky just said amputation is brilliant. Not brilliant, but if somebody needs it, then that’s what we need. Um the Bolton Symphony Orchestra said, “Hi, Mark, from all of us here at your old BSO horn section.” Isn’t that lovely? I love those guys, you know? I think I’m Yeah, I miss I’ve not been back to Bolton, my hometown, for absolutely ages, but um oh yeah, growing up in that orchestra was fabulous. Absolutely lovely. lovely that you’re watching.

Welcome, everyone, from the Bolton Symphony Orchestra. Um there’s somebody that knows your teacher, Les- Lester. He said he’s played together with Chris Wormald, or he knows Chris Wormald. Or what what was the connection there? Oh, Chris Well, so yeah, Chris taught me the horn. He he taught me since I was like eight and stuff. Uh but I still speak to him now after 20-odd years. Absolutely fabulous teacher and fabulous player, as well. So, yeah. Hi, Chris. Lovely. Hi, everybody is watching really. It’s fantastic. And Mark will go back, and he will see all your messages in the chat, and I’m sure you’ll try and answer some of the ones, won’t you, Mark, that we don’t get to today.

Um I have my own questions. I’m really excited. I’ve got questions about a girl’s lung size and and and also I’m I’ve I’ve been asked by a friend to ask about aging lungs, not for me, of course. Um also, I think we should address the the COVID thing as well, but let’s First of all, I think understanding your body really helps in understanding the playing the horn. And where better to start? Because in masterclasses, I say, “Why do we play the horn?” And people think about it, you know, is it to make money?

No, definitely not. Um is it to have a peaceful life? No, definitely not. It’s because we love the sound. I think really 99% of us would say that. And what do we need to make a good sound? Yep. Can we learn something about the lungs, please? You certainly can. You certainly can. So, should I try and share my screen with this little So, what I’ve what I’ve done is I’ve got this sort of mini lecture. Uh I apologize if it’s condescending and patronizing. Please stop me if it is, but it should be um it’s pretty quick, uh and it just takes you through the basics.

So, let me try and share this screen. Hold on a second. Let me know if this works. Um share. Is that working? It’s perfect. Okay, great. Let me move that horn out of the way. We don’t need that. Respi- respiratory medicine for horn players. Right, I’m going to shut up unless I don’t understand anything. So, as I said, why do we need to know any of this? Do you Do the top professionals actually think about this when they’re playing? No, it’s an automatic thing. But let’s take um like a car analogy.

So, you know, driving a car’s horn playing, and the engine is breathing. You don’t think about You don’t think about the engine when you’re driving a car. It just happens. But what happens when it breaks down, if things stop working? Um you know, you take it to a mechanic or a teacher. The teacher or the mechanic better know how it works, otherwise you’re going to have problems getting it fixed. So, yeah, it is about song and wind in that when you’re playing, you should be thinking musically.

Um but it’s important you do have some basic understanding of it, I think, so that if things go wrong, you can address them in a sensible manner. So, bit of basic stuff. This is a skeleton. Okay, so bones. Um We’re just going to cons- Can you see my cursor there? Yes. So, we’re just We’re just going to focus in on the middle bit here. So, you’ve got your thoracic cage, and you’ve got your pelvis and a spinal column here. So, um the curvature of the spine is really important, and I’ve heard a lot on your hangouts about how important posture is, and it’s so true.

In fact, I’m sitting here with a dreadful posture right now. Um this If you’re If you lose this um cervical lordosis, if you hunch over, or if you sag at the back, you’re just really inhibiting the ability of the rib cage to open up. And so, you’re you’re not going to maximize your potential uh lung capacities. So, how do you sit properly? Well, that’s a you know, that’s a long topic, and I’m not an expert in that. But a simple basic thing would be, you know, the simple principles of Alexander technique.

You know, was it neck free, head forward and up as if you’re on a string, sitting up in with a tall manner. And then, if you just put your hand on your lower back before you sit down, you can feel that curve, that lumbar lordosis. And if you just bend at the knees and sit straight down, you should be sitting in the right way. Now, I know when you’re playing, you know, if you’re doing a long opera or something, you know, it’s you feel a lot more comfortable sitting back, but that’s just a learned habit, which is bad.

So, you should really be sitting down and maintaining these curves in your spine. So, that’s enough about bones. Where are the lungs? Everyone knows where the lungs are. Everyone always talks about abdominal breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, or you know, expand the back. Your lungs are really high up. In fact, they go up above your clavicles up here. They go right up here, which is a lot higher than you think. They go up above your first rib, and then they stretch out to the side about the eighth rib.

How big are they, Mark? How big are they? Cuz we saw them on the horn hangout uh heart working. How big are lungs? Yeah. Yeah. Um how big are the lungs? Well, um by capacity, um sort of a total lung capacity is about 6 L. So, in terms of what it can hold, that’s what, three 2-L bottles, isn’t it? So, that’s 6 L in a man, and about 4.5 L on average uh in a lady. But the shape of the lungs is also interesting, because, you know, when you think about the shape of lungs, you see all these analogies about well, blowing up a balloon.

So, people think think of balloons. Or if you draw a pair of lungs, people draw triangles and stuff. But they’re conically shaped, but you’ve got to remember, in the middle of your in the middle of the two lungs, you’ve got a heart. So, the inner surfaces, they’re really concave. And also, the bottoms are really concave, as well. Um and they’re thick at the back, but they actually go quite thin at the front. Um anyway, so those are pictures You’ve got You’ve got three lobes on your right, and two on your left.

Okay, so that’s enough about where they are. That Is that all I I’m I’m a bit embarrassed, but is that always the case? Three on the right, and two on the left? Why is that? Um yeah, no, that’s just that’s just that’s just the structure of that’s just the the lobar structure. So, you’ve got your windpipe in the middle here, your trachea. And then that breaks breaks down into your right and left main bronchus, which and that that sort of splits into two at this point here.

This notch you can feel at the top of your sternum, called the manubriosternal angle, and that’s where it breaks into the two different bits. Um so, that’s that, which brings you to the diaphragm. Now, everyone’s always talking about the diaphragm, diaphragmatic breathing. And it is the most important respiratory muscle. And I think it’s pretty much common knowledge that it’s a thin, dome-shaped sheet of muscle um which attaches to the spine and the lower ribs. Um so, uh just for the medical students out there, that’s that’s supplied by the phrenic nerve, which comes from your spine comes from your spinal cord, C3, 4, and 5.

And if every If you’re a medical student, C3, 4, 5 keeps you alive. Um it’s important to note that the diaphragm um it only contracts and pulls downwards. You can’t push upwards with the diaphragm. I think again that’s common knowledge, but just to clarify, you cannot push with the diaphragm. It’s common knowledge, but it’s sort of like people often don’t know what it is. We sort of you can a lot of people I think it’s so important as teachers especially and a student you just have to know how this works because you might have someone coming with you with a problem um and and you say you know use your diaphragm support and you just get this look as if like okay, what’s that?

Well, exactly and I think I think uh there’s a lot of danger with telling students how they should feel. You know, these are subjective sensations that teachers feel themselves and they’re trying to impart those to other people. So um we should really focus on the end point which is the air flow which we’ll come to a little bit later. But the diaphragm when you’re breathing quietly, it only goes down by 1 cm. 1 cm. Um so that brings us to oh this is an interesting thing which you should be interested in having done your MRI scans.

Um the mouth. So again you see lots of people um on videos here and there using tubes or straws uh to sort of open the throat up to get a good sound. golf balls, all sorts of things. And the the the the focus of using the small tubes is to open up your throat. Um but you can do that and I think that I think they’re great. If you’re having problems you they’re they’re really good, but you can sort of do it on yourself. If you just put your tongue to the the backside of your lower teeth, that lowers your tongue and opens up that space as if you’d you know eaten some sweet corn and you’ve got some a bit of corn stuck in the bottom of your teeth and you’re trying to pick it out with your teeth.

If you put your tongue down there, keep it low it opens everything up immediately. You know, you don’t that? Can we try that together? So it’s you put the tongue down, you flatten the tongue. Flatten the tongue and put it behind your lower teeth at the front. And then you go oh wow. Yeah, and it’s immediate immediately open things open things open things up. So I think people a lot of people do the finger breathing and I think that’s great. I think it’s great. I think that works fabulously, but I think this works as well.

So you just want to you want to keep your oral cavity as open as possible on the inhalation. Cuz that’ll really help cuz it minimizes resistance and friction and that gives you the feeling of an open throat. So what happens when you’re actually breathing? So there are two types of breathing. There’s quiet breathing at rest which is what you’re doing now. And then there’s exertional breathing which is what you need for horn playing or if you’re doing exercise and the two mechanisms really differ. Um so when you’re breathing quietly your brain does it automatically.

It sends signals from your ventral respiratory group in your in your brainstem down to your external intercostal muscles which in between the ribs they run down and forwards. And so when they when they contract, it lifts your ribs up and out and people say it’s in a sort of a bucket handle motion. So that expands your chest in an anterolateral direction. Hang on. Bucket bucket handle motion. I’m just trying to imagine that. So yeah, so if you’ve got if you’ve got a if you’ve got a handle on a bucket Yeah.

it sort of comes up and it goes out. So it increases the anterior dimensions of the thoracic the thoracic cavity and also the lateral dimensions. And then also your phrenic nerves send signals down to the diaphragm and as I said uh inhalation in quiet breathing is an active process. I e. muscles contract. Your external intercostals and your diaphragm. Now um exhalation or expiration in um quiet breathing is a passive process. No muscles are involved. It’s just muscles relaxing. Your lungs are elastic tissue. They contain um collagen, fibrin, elastin and they’ve got lots of surface tension um because of the liquid in there and the lungs just want to collapse.

They want to go like that. Um and so when you let go of the tension from the diaphragm and the external intercostals, the lungs just collapse on themselves and that elastic recoil is enough for you to breathe out. So that’s passive. Um now that’s no good for horn playing because one of you want to play the short call and you try to do that and you get to the last note and it just goes There’s there’s not enough there’s not enough air flow there, not enough pressure.

So that brings us to active or uh exertional breathing. Um and this requires different muscles. So um take a deep breath in and if you just let it go the lungs collapse again. You’ve got that elastic recoil. But if you take a breath a deep breath and then blow out against your hand and keep a really constant flow and just keep it going until you feel sort of some abdominal uh discomfort or tension. What you’re feeling there is at the top the external intercostals are acting as brakes on the elastic recoil of the lungs.

So you’re controlling the air flow. Um so those those are acting as a brake and then your abdominal muscles which are down here, your rectus abdominis, external oblique, internal and your transverse abdominis, those are contracting and those are pushing in on your abdominal organs which are pushing them up and forcing the diaphragm up and that’s what’s giving you that It’s a sort of it’s a squeeze feeling. I find like you know in you know in Mahler 1 the beginning of Mahler 1 first and second horn.

If you’ve got a nasty conductor it’ll ba da da and you’re everyone’s trying to say the da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da to squeeze, you know, because you’re out of air. So but I have the feeling Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Well it’s just it’s your body’s automatic reaction to keep you’re keeping a constant air flow or you’re increasing the air flow to get those higher notes and it’s just your body doing it automatically and that’s the key that’s the key thing.

If you can’t just concentrate on the air flow um and keeping it constant at whatever speed you require whether it’s a high note or a low note, your body does it automatically. So um you don’t all there are lots of there’s lots of talk about oh you should have a really there’s the the rigid gut sort of theory. You should have you should I should be able to punch you in the stomach and it should be rock hard, but anything like that is just you’re inhibiting flow and movement which is required.

If if you want to squeeze the air out of your lungs, you need to contract your abdominal muscles. If you’ve got rigid abdominal muscles, that’s not going to work for you. No, but there’s that moment, you know, Mark when when you’re running out of air and you know you’ve still got some air in there somewhere, that’s when that’s when I know there’s some sort of reserve in there. Oh yeah, but that’s that’s your little bit but that’s not that’s not a painful squeeze. That’s sort of like literally okay, looking for the air where I still have it.

Yeah, and that but that’s your abdominal muscles doing what they need to do. That’s not you starting a phrase and going and squeezing down cuz you’re just going to end up Valsalva-ing uh which will Valsalva-ing. We’re getting to Valsalva. Um that when we get to Valsalva, I mean this one myth that I’ve been I was told by quite a few male teachers when I was um when I was studying was that this feeling of pushing down like you’re on the toilet, you know, like that and that will give you good support.

I couldn’t get any air in at all if I did that. Yeah, well I I think I think that’s the thing as well. I when I was when I was a bit younger, I went to I went for a couple of lessons with with someone uh and they they were focusing they would keep telling me to expand your back, expand your back, expand your back. And I was just I just it totally messed my breathing up because I wasn’t focusing on air flow. You know, Ian Bousfield always he says uh it’s about blowing Oh, is he?

Oh, fabulous. Well, you know, he he’s he’s done some fabulous things on on YouTube and stuff and um he would say it’s about it’s about blowing not breathing and it’s so true. If you focus too much on where the air is going, you’re just going to end up in a mess. Um so that brings me to uh breath support. What is breath support? What is breath support? This girl’s doing a great job of what you should be doing which is maintaining a constant air stream. And I think Arnold Jacobs uh in his books talks a lot about this.

He says it’s about concentrating on the air flow at the lips. And she’s doing a great job because those bubbles they’re sort of about the same size. They’re evenly spaced apart. And if you just do that, blow on your hand, uh keep it going as long as you can, you feel the change from the brakes of your external intercostals to the pushing or the tensing of the abdominal muscles and you get this controlled release of air. I hope everybody’s doing that right now. I’m imagining all the horn hangout friends just going and just just observing what is happening because it’s so useful.

Horn playing should I mean of course we have to play high and low and and and get lots of air in and get lots of air out, but actually basically the the easier you make it for yourself, the the more the more easier your life will be will be as a horn player, you know, none of this because then your throat tenses up and then then your sound goes and you’ve had it. Yeah, and now I’ve put I’ve put on this picture as well. I’ve put a I’ve put some batteries down here, some DC batteries.

Why have I done that? Because when you’re blowing out it’s like it’s like um you’re you’re you’re taking a very flat wave a power and you’ve got to transfer that wind power into sound power and that happens that change from a DC current to an AC current happens at the lips. And if you don’t keep a constant supply to that then the whole system just dies down. So you need to be like a battery just keeping a constant flow. Obviously, you know, you turn up you turn up the flow or you slow it down depending on where you are in the range etc.

But there always needs to be flow over the the sort of the control oscillator which is the lips. So don’t teach muscles teach about air flow. Oh yeah now this is another great now this is this is That’s a COVID that’s a lockdown photo. That’s not me just to clarify. Now pseudo expansion now this is an Arnold Jacobs phrase which I really like. There are so many ways to to pretend you’re taking a deep breath without doing it. You know, the top photo you can stick your belly out without taking any breath at all.

I’m not going to I’m not going to get up on camera and and show I’m sticking mine out. I’m not going to show my quarantine belly. But you can push it out without taking any breath in and that’s your pelvic floor muscles helping with that. You know, you can shrug your shoulders. You can shrug your shoulders. You can do all sorts of actions and which like make you think you’re taking a big breath but you’re not. And also if you tense your abdomen which people say the rigid gut you’re not blowing any air out.

If I tense my abdomen now no air is coming out in addition to what’s normally coming out from for me to speak. So yeah this fabulous Arnold Jacobs phrase breathe to expand don’t expand to breathe. I think that’s really important. Ah somebody might My boss my ex-boss. I’m sure he would never do this but isn’t it great every horn player knows this. When you get a conductor and they’re like oh let’s go from figure whatever and they go three four and you take your breath and then they go and then they go oh and one other thing and you’re like Every conductor does that.

That’s what the Valsalva feels like and the Valsalva maneuver is fabulous for certain things like you know if you if you’re having a baby it’s very good it’s good it’s used for expelling foreign objects. Can you Mark sorry could you just explain what exactly it is? Of course yeah. So you take a deep breath and then rather than just blowing it out you close your glottis and then you apply pressure. And so you’re you’re applying pressure against a closed glottis. Now that’s great for supporting. If you’re doing heavy weightlifting that’s really good for like core support.

Now and I can explain another way. See this tennis player I put there put her there for a reason. So people talk about the backswing with with breathing. Now if you take it’s okay if you take a breath so and hold it there you can hold it there that’s fine and then you can blow out. And you you don’t necessarily you don’t have to close your glottis to do that. You can take a breath and keep it open throat and then go back out. But the Valsalva maneuver is literally like taking a backswing but then getting your other hand putting it there and pushing against it.

And see how much tension that creates. That’s what the Valsalva is in effect. here here here here everywhere. Yeah so that’s why people say avoid avoid the Valsalva and also you know anything that really increases your abdominal abdominal pressures you know you get problems in later age with hernias and prolapses and all sorts of things. There there are some people that really struggle with with this they they get a sort of block you know and and I’ve I’ve had teachers say before take a breath and then wait and then play you know.

That never ever worked for me. I could always ever only take a breath in the rhythm of some whatever I’m playing. You know what I mean like Yeah totally. Totally. I understand I think you can take a breath and you can breath hold without Valsalvaing. And I you know there can be some value if you want to know what a full breath feels like and to help stretch things out you can take a really full breath and hold it without and hold it for like four four beats before you let it out without Valsalvaing.

You can do that and some people teach that and I’m not here to say oh you shouldn’t have a pause before you play something because I think everyone to some degree does sometimes. If you’ve got a really pearly high entry some people do have a little pause you know understandably just to change things but you just need to be aware of it and make sure you’re not doing it in inappropriate inappropriate times. Yeah. We’ve all I think we’ve all learned a new word today Valsalvaing. Oh yeah Valsalvaing.

I’m not sure that word actually exists but you know let’s pretend it does. Let’s pretend it does. Oh oh yeah so Hang on hang on. You’re going past the one I was supposed to ask for for a friend or should we come back to that? This is no we can come well I was I was thinking we could talk a little bit about exercises you can do both away from the horn and with the horn to help with your breathing and then we can talk about the depressing thing of aging.

Okay. That’s good idea. Okay so oh well for teachers again what so what should I teach about breathing? If I don’t want to mess someone up and overcomplicate a natural process how do you do it? Keep it simple. So inhalation okay get the tongue out of the way minimize noise and friction. And I’m not suggesting people do this for when they’re playing but it’s really hard to muck up a slow nasal breath. That’s why they do it in yoga all the time. You can get a really full feeling and you know you can’t you can’t expand your chest without getting air into it.

You know, so it’s it’s just something you if you can feel the upper part of your chest expanding you’re getting air in there. It’s not so a nasal breath is really good for just simplifying everything and it’s really good for relaxing you as well and when you blow out It’s a good trick on stage if you’re feeling a little bit nervous. Yeah totally. Nose breathing is great. Yeah nose yeah and you know it’s the exhalation that slows your heart rate down and chills you out before that you know pearly high entry.

Again with teaching inhalation avoid phrases like stick your belly out expand your back. That just confuses people in my in my humble opinion. Exhalation again if if you’re having problems start away from the instrument if you’re having problems. I think I’m a huge fan of this blowing notes on your hand and getting used to what it feels like and the student should learn what it feels like for them to blow a fast a fast air stream. It feels different in your belly as opposed to playing a really low slow notes you know and you should get used to how it feels and changes between up here and your abdomen.

But don’t teach the students their subjective sensations. And again avoid phrases like push from the diaphragm tense your tummy muscles support your breath because support people think support hold something up. And yeah they mean they mean don’t let the air stream sag but support also has all these physical sort of implications which I think can complicate things. But when people a lot of students say to me where is my support? Where is your support? Yeah. Well the technical answer is the support is from your abdominal muscles.

But then people will tense their abdominal muscles which they don’t need to because it happens automatically. You know so if they focus on the sound and keeping a constant stream then you know that that’s what your body does what it needs to do. So couple of breathing exercises. So um I don’t do this. I should do it. I don’t do it all the time. I wish I did and then I wouldn’t have shoulder problems. But you know Mark it’s also something I feel if people play and they’re doing this right they’re doing these exercises every day anyway aren’t they?

You know sort of That’s that’s the thing again. I think this is more for people who are having problems with breathing. I’ve had students come in and like they they just paralyzed by breathing. I’m like it’s you know and then people are paralyzed by the complexity of the horn. You know, they see all the valves and and all the tubing and stuff but at the end of the day you know, it’s just you blowing air through a mouthpiece into a tube you know and need you need to simplify everything if you’ve got a problem.

I remember when I was teaching medicine if I had an incredibly complicated topic like you know, the classification of idiopathic interstitial lung disease which is really complicated. Pardon? Yeah exactly. It’s complicated. I’m going to avoid that question on which I’ve seen on the on on the chat and that’s a really hard one. If um if when you’re teaching medicine you want to simplify everything and you start with the absolute basics. I always say it’s like teaching it’s like a tree. So if I’ve got a really complicated topic I’ll start with the trunk of the tree and then I’ll I’ll add a layer of complexity I’ll add the branches then I’ll add the twigs and then I’ll add the the leaves to make get the full the full topic.

And I think if you’ve got problems you need to go back right to the basics. So you know, you want to get rid of anything that impinges your thoracic cavity so stretch your shoulders stretch your chest. You know, they’re really good to really good to do. I see loads of string play you see string players all the time. Doing this against the wall. I do that now too because I had really bad tendonitis in my in my wrist. So I do that before I play. By the way can I just say a big shout out to Gail Williams who’s watching who’s one of the best breathers blowers I have ever met this tiny little wonderful lady who can just breathe better than any of us.

So hi Gail. Well I’d love to chat to her about all the Arnold Jacobs stuff at some point you know I really would. You definitely should. We’ll have both of you on I think. We’ll have that’s that’s that’s part two. Okay, so we’re teaching nasal breath. So, yeah, again, if you’re prob- if you’re having problems, just at the start of your session, just some slow nasal breaths up to you up to what you feel is really full. You can’t mess it up, and then just either let it go or blow against your hand at constant speeds, different speeds.

Feel the different levels of muscular involvement. Should we should we blow like the little girl with her with her um with her bubbles? Should we go What should we go with a tense, you know, what what what’s what’s good to pretend to be an embouchure or to just go Well, you prac- you you prac- I think well, you know, the the embouchure provides a level of resistance, which is im- is important, but I wouldn’t you’re you’re there to get your breathing muscles working and getting to the rhythm, so that when it comes to the embouchure, it just works.

So, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t bother sort of trying to form a an embouchure. I would just focus on either fast stream or a slow stream or something in between like you’re going to play a piano note, a forte note, fortissimo note, a high note, low note, and just focus on keeping it constant. Or deliberately have a always have a deliberate shape to what you’re doing. So, don’t let a note just wave in and out. So, okay, well, I’m going to do a constant note, and your air flow is totally constant, and you feel it pushing.

Or you go, “Well, you know what? I’m going to do a an eighth note. I’m going to go get louder, and then and then I’m always going to taper it.” But never just be lazy when you’re doing it. Never just go Yeah, you can’t be lazy when you’re doing this. Um once you’ve done that, you can do some slow oral breaths with a low tongue. So, just like in for three, out for three. Uh you can add breath holds if you want to, but I don’t tend to do that.

And then again, there’s a there’s an Arnold Jacobs exercise I’ve seen. Um sorry, Gail, if I’m saying this totally wrong. Um but, you know, um breathe out for four beats, and then in on the last beat, uh and then do the same thing, but down to Hold on, I’m confused now because I’m in America, so I’m going to say eighth note. Uh 16th and quavers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then 16ths or triplets, etc. Um it’s important as well, don’t let your tongue your tongue chop off the air stream.

It’s really important. Uh tongue stopping, some people call it. So, when you’re blowing out, don’t go It’s It’s hard to do it to be heard, but don’t blow out and chop the air off with your tongue. It’s important to sort of flick the air it sounds like this Like that, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um devices I’ve I’ve mentioned devices. Like, you can buy all sorts of devices. Um you don’t need them, but um again, I you know, I I like the breath builder one, which is the one with the is the little tube with a ping pong ball.

I like that because it just it helps you open up things and blow up blow off the cobwebs, and you can visualize it, but keep it clean, otherwise they will get disgusting after a few months. Um Oh, now this is a good cheat. This is a good cheat. I’ve nicked this phrase, although this phrase is uh described in many, many books. So, I’ve got it here. So, in Dale Clevenger’s book, uh like it’s a red book. I think it’s like his beginning exercises for the horn.

He talks about this. Gunther Schuller’s book, James Morrison talks about this. Ian What Ian’s mentioned this on his videos, and this guy Bill Caballero is a fabulous principal horn of Pittsburgh. He talks about cleansing and tanking. So, what is this? Is this is a cheat to get uh a really relaxed breath. It’s not a It’s not a bigger breath, but it makes you feel like it’s a bigger breath, and that’s one of the things with breathing. It’s not all about physiology, there’s a lot of psychology involved as well.

So, what you’re looking at here with this little chart um is a tracing from a spirometer. Uh when you breathe in normally, in and out, that’s your tidal volume, they call it. So, just a normal breath, and that’s about half a liter. So, when you’re playing the horn, you know, you’re just you’re just breathing normally. You’ve got an entry, and then you take a deep breath, and you go up to here, which is the top, the total lung capacity, and then you blow out, and you’ve got all this bit here to play with.

This is your vital capacity. And then you go back to doing a normal breath. So, we we don’t we only use our vital capacity when we’re I mean, the the the other bits are just the resting, you know, or if you’re if you’re nervous, then it might go up a bit, probably, but uh but our our vital capacity What happens if you’re playing like constantly on on on on maximum capacity? Is that very bad for you? Uh no, it’s not It’s not bad to take deep breaths.

It’s great to take deep breaths, but um if you’re if your breathing’s jittery, and you’ve got a scary solo coming up, um what people what people what I do sometimes is I blow out first. So, you start from a resting state. So, this um the line here, which I’m highlighting here, this is your resting state. If you blow out first, you feel this tension down here. That’s your abdominal muscles tensing. But then, take a deep breath, and you get this huge relaxed breath. And remember remember what Mark said earlier on.

If you’ve just joined us, then we’ve got a fantastic tip, and that is to to lower your tongue again put press your tongue against the bottom teeth, but lower it like ah ah like that. Ah, and your breathing will never never be never be labored again. It’s just makes everything so open and so dark. You can’t You can’t take a high breath by doing that. And people talk about having a a cool sensation of air along the bottom of your tongue. And if you flatten your tongue, I can’t do it I can’t do it wrong.

So, so this is a this is a cheat. So, if if you if you’ve got a a long phrase to do or a scary solo, if you breathe out first, and then it’s just a huge relaxed breath. And psychologically, it’s not a bigger breath. You know, you’ve still got the same vital capacity to play with, but you’re starting from down here, and you’re using the natural elastic recoil of your chest wall to help you take that big breath. So, that’s why that works. Um and that’s why so many great brass players sort of use that or have written it down in a book somewhere.

Yeah, that’s a great a great tip. Great tip. Uh and then Oh, and then yeah, exercises with the horn. Again, you don’t really need to do specific exercises, but if if you’ve got a good You need to be disciplined with with what with your breathing when you’re playing. You know, it’s very tempting when you’ve got a horn lying around and just pick up your horn and just noodle. Just play anything. Um but, you know, if you’ve got problems with your breathing or things aren’t quite working, you should start everything in rhythm.

In rhythm for everything with a low tongue. Even your beginning noodles, you know, you do your Stamp exercises or your Clark exercises. And then end each note, especially for the start of your session, just end everything with either a constant note, so you get this beautiful constant flow of air, or a nice tapered note, so you get that feeling of control. I love that, Mark. That’s a fantastic way because I start actually every single day with a with the Stamp exercise. You know the one that the the trumpet players like to da da da da da da da da da da da with a bend.

Da da da da da da and I just find it so it’s so important to have the throat open and to end on a beautiful note rather than you know, that doesn’t help the air really. Exactly. And also, what I find what I find with a lot of students as well is that people are incredibly lazy. Like, you ask them to say “Okay, play a C major,” and they go “Bom ba da bom ba da bom ba da bom ba da bom.” I mean, like that’s useless.

It’s you know, you know, it should It should have a decent tone, and but you should always end everything beautifully cuz it really helps with your breathing. And again, if you if you’re if you’re emptying out and hit going towards that residual volume, then you take a more relaxed breath in next time. Um other things you can do, you know, playing on the air side, flutter tonguing cuz that’s another vibrating surface to keep the flow moving over. Uh Gunther Schuller, his long tones. He’s got an exercise.

Um I think actually Stefan uh Jozefs Yeah, Jozefski? Is that Jozefski? He uh in his warm-up with you guys, I think he had had that actual exercise where you play a minim, then you blow out for a beat, and then you breathe in again. Minim, blow out, breathe in, and then um a whole tone. Um creepy chromatics. So, this is a Jeff Bryant exercise, which is absolutely fabulous. I like exercises which um if you’re doing them right, you’re breathing right. You can’t mess them up. So, this is just really simple um playing chromatic scales, but starting them with sort of semitones.

So, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da Sorry, I never thought I’d have to sing on this. Dreadful singing, I apologize. But, to get that change between those semitones, if you’ve got If you’ve got good air flow, it won’t be it can’t be If you’re playing it smoothly, it can’t be it can’t be you can’t be messing up your air flow. It’s got to be correct. And again, with natural harmonic exercises, bo di da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da People do those.

Okay, people do it for embouchure, but if if it’s smooth, your air’s working. You’re doing You can’t muck it up. You know, if it sounds right, you’re doing it right. Yeah. Uh and then one final thing, um subdivision as well. If you again, if you’ve got long phrases, if you do legato tonguing, it just helps you it helps reinforce the constant nature of the air flow. Um sorry, lots of lots of lots of ranting there. No, it’s it’s fascinating. You’re getting I mean, so many people are writing.

Simon de Souza’s watching. Beth Randall is watching. Um yeah, there’s there’s Joe Joe Meuron from the DSO is watching. There’s really a lot of really great horn players out there all all saying it’s fantastic. There’s just a quick question. This Let’s get on to the to the What did you just have healthy? You had another something Oh, yeah. Just just some tips for healthy lungs. Yeah, because someone Henry’s just asked What about smoking and horn playing? No. No, don’t do it. Just no. It’s like I understand I understand people smoke for for stress and for enjoyment, but just no.

You can’t I I know loads of horn players smoke. I know loads of horn players smoke, but you can’t do it. You shouldn’t do it. I’ve seen I have looked after so many people who have died from smoking-related lung diseases, and it’s horrible. And it’s sort of You know, and if you stop, the rate of decline in your lung function. So, if you’re smoking, your lung function’s going down like that. Okay, if you if you stop smoking, you really slow the gradient of that decline. And you know, when we talk about aging, you know, your lungs lose elasticity as you get older.

And if you’re smoking, you’re just destroying your lung tissue and increasing your chances of lung cancer. So, you know, the amount you can blow out in a second, which is a really important thing you need for horn playing, is going to it gets destroyed. So, you don’t notice it when you’re young, you know, you’re smoking in your 20s, 30s, 40s, but then you know, you hit your 50s and you’re like, “Oh, I’m a bit out of breath.” And you hit this You hit this symptomatic level.

And you hit it a lot sooner. Most people don’t hit it cuz they don’t smoke and they’re healthy and stuff, but if you You’re going to hit it. And horn players, you don’t You know, aging is Aging has its own issues. You don’t want to make it worse with smoking, so stop it. Amen. Thank you, Mark. lots of help. If you need help stopping smoking, just see your physician. There’s tons of help available. Great. Thank you for that. Um there’s a question about asthma that’s come in as well.

Um asthma and horn playing. Um how That that must be really tough to to deal with that um and be a good horn player as well. Well, I think Well, I think there are a lot There are lots of brass players out there with asthma who you know, you would never know they had asthma from how they play their instruments. Um I think Well, number one, you’ve got to make sure all the pharmacological treatments for the asthma are optimized. And you need to make sure they actually have a diagnosis of asthma and it’s not something else.

It’s not being misdiagnosed because there is a lot of over diagnosis of asthma. Um but if you do have asthma and you’re on the correct pharmacological therapies, then breathing exercise and you’re still not controlled, breathing exercises can be really good adjuvant therapy to add on to that. Um and you know, it’s fabulous. You know, if you do if you if you play the horn, you’re playing long tones and you know, exercise and breathing, it’s fabulous sort of physiotherapy for your lungs. Good. Okay, so that might be a new a new therapy to actually put on the medical insurance that the the you know Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, buy me a new horn, please. Okay, what have we got? How are we doing with with your How How are we doing? What have we got still? We’ve got some Oh, we’ve got a bit of We’ve got a bit of aging. You want to You want to talk about differences between ladies and gents. That’s right. I’ve got some questions for you. Um but you Can you go back Is this the end of this bit? Uh yeah, that’s the end of this bit. I’ve got Yes, I’ve got some I’ve got some aging lungs.

The tip for healthy lungs. Well, I think we just one of those. Where was that? Oh, there you go. Tips for healthy lung. Ah. Don’t don’t smoke. Don’t smoke. Yeah. Um yeah, um you know, this is this is all common sense stuff, but avoiding where you can avoid exposure to pollutants both indoor and outdoor. You know, just for the for the really nerdy horn people out there that like to buy horns, do them up, strip the lacquer from horns, just be really careful. There’s aircraft stripper which is which people use to get rid of lacquer from horns.

It’s really toxic stuff. And if you go in anywhere near that trying You must You would do it in a really well-ventilated space and use a proper proper respirator cuz it’s nasty stuff. Um Prevent infection. Obviously, at the moment, you know, wash your hands, masks at the moment. But you know, it’s really important avoid infection. Exercising both aerobic, but also, you know, you want to As you get older, your muscles decline and your posture gets worse. You tend to hunch over. So, if you if you are going to the gym and doing exercises, you know, chest exercises, rows for your back, you know, just promotes good posture so you can maximize the potential of what you have.

There’s another tiny little secret that you don’t even have to exercise for. Put your shoulder blades back. Try it. Yeah, no, totally. Everyone is I can see you all You’re all sitting up straight. Exactly. Your interscapular muscles Everyone Everyone Those people just go But yeah, as soon as you do that. But you don’t want to be When when you’re playing though, don’t be don’t be like, “Oh, that’s going to help.” Just release all that tension. Um proper proper diet, drinking water, obviously. Make sure your weight’s okay because, you know, adverse weight can affect things.

And just get get checked out every now and then as everyone should. Um yeah, so that’s that’s that, really. Can we just get mention the C word right now, of course? And your your specialty was actually you you you specialized in did pandemic flu. Yeah, that’s Pandemic flu, which is actually quite a topical thing right now. We’re all doing our very best, and I hope none of you have been sick with the dreaded corona. Um how how would it affect our lungs? And it may might be good for I mean, I know here in Berlin, things are getting back to normal, a new normal, wearing masks in in in shops and on the trains and everything, but people are still getting quite You see them outside on the street, you know, everyone’s sort of forgotten that there was something terrible that happened that happened and still could happen.

So, yeah. It might be good if you actually helped us to understand the severity of of this. Okay, so, you know, the it is everyone’s bored at home. Everyone wants to go back to work. You know, people need to work for money and everything, and I don’t want to get into the politics of that, but uh COVID or the SARS-CoV-2 it viruses can be absolutely devastating. You know, most people Most people who get it, some people don’t know they’ve got it. Some people just get over it very quickly and just have rest at home or have a couple of days of feeling under the weather.

But you know, it is you know, it has killed so many people. And yeah, it can be pretty devastating. Like people think lots Well, I say people think lot There is a misconception, I think, that a ventilator will If you go on a ventilator, you’ll come off a ventilator and it’ll cure you. But it’s not like that. If you end up really really sick on intensive care with COVID, it’s because your lungs are going to be They’re going to be full of inflammatory infiltrates, which then becomes scarred, and you end up with all sorts of complications.

And so, even if you do manage to get off the ventilator, which certainly isn’t a guarantee, then you know, you can be left with really bad morbidity for a long long long time. And so, people should really still be taking this very very seriously. You know, wash your hands, masks, social distancing, really really still very important. Thanks, Mark, especially for especially for everybody, but especially for our horn for our horn playing. Um can you go back to the aging one? I’ve got While while you’re while you’re scrolling, I’ve got a few questions that have been coming in.

Also ones I’ve wanted to know that we can maybe get to quickly once we when we get off your um Yeah. Yeah, sure. aging lung. Now, that that is exactly the thing. Now, having gone just gone back to sort of work, not full-time work. I’m dying to play a Bruckner symphony or something, but we we are rehearsing for the horn quartet for a special event, which I’m going to tell you about at the end of this. Um I’m playing fourth horn, and there’s a very special piece that’s coming as well, a world premiere.

And I couldn’t get the air in that I I was just like, “God, am I getting old? What’s going on?” And I was a bit worried about it. So, I asked Mark about it. And Mark said, “Don’t worry.” He just thinks I’ve got a little bit, you know, lazy. I’m not getting old. Um but it it is it can happen, can’t it? If I haven’t played that loud, and I haven’t needed that much air. Yeah, I just think Where’s that? Yeah, I just I just think that if you’re if you And again, I think this is something for practice rooms as well.

If you’re in a practice room, you don’t project as if you’re filling, you know, a big concert hall. So, you’ll take a breath and you’ll cut off You cut off here, and you’ll go to here. And so, you know, the extremes of your lung expansion, you don’t quite reach. And it takes a little while to maybe blow the cobwebs off. So, I think maybe, you know, as a practical as a practical thing for people who experience that, blow out first, get used to that, and just take the relaxed breath, and then you’ll gradually get back up to But it’s something we have to That does have to be practiced cuz I have the feeling I’ve lost a bit of that ability, and I I need to train it again.

Now, today we had another rehearsal, and I felt a bit better. So, it it is it gets better the more you do it, but it was quite a shock to see how much of my body had sort of not forgotten how to do it, but got a bit rusty, the old lungs. Yeah, well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s like it’s like when you’re practicing a concerto, you practice it in your bedroom or in a practice room for ages, and you thought, “Oh, yeah, I can nail this.

Yeah, no problem.” Then you step out on stage, and you’re like, “Oof, this is hard work.” Cuz you’re just not used to projecting in that, which is why it’s so important to practice in big spaces. You just don’t get used to that projection. So, that was just That’s just because I’m out of practice, not because I’m getting old. Can we go back to the aging thing? Because a lot of people have asked about this. It’s really it’s it’s good for young and old and middle and everybody to know about what can happen cuz we mustn’t take our lungs for granted.

Okay, so, the depressing news. Okay, so, your lungs are developing up until your sort of early 20s, 20 25. That’s when they’re developing. they mature by then. After 35, things start to decline. Which is depressingly early, isn’t it really? Very early. I don’t like that. And in a person in a person with healthy lungs, that decline is mainly due to cardiovascular muscular changes, not changes within the lungs themselves. Um but as you get older, your diaphragm weakens, your rib cage stiffens, and um there’s this picture at the top here.

The these These are called alveoli, which are the functional units of the lung. And the tissue between them gets destroyed or disappears degenerates with age. So, remember I said that the lungs have this elastic recoil and they just want to just want to collapse in on them That’s what helps force air out. So, if you lose that elastic recoil, then you get a bit of air trapping when you get a bit older as well cuz you can’t get all the air out. Um your cough gets weaker as you get older, which makes you uh sort of more susceptible to infections.

Your immune system gets a bit weaker. So, you know, it’s important to get your vaccinations when you’re older. Mark, everyone’s complaining. Matthew just said it Say I’m 35. Say it isn’t so. And Emily Salzburg said she didn’t even start playing the horn until she was 35. So, we’re all feeling rather past it. But if you’re healthy I said if you’re healthy, you won’t notice these things. These are just like, you know, I I I’d sort of say you basically your lungs sag and your muscles atrophy.

You know, yippee. And but it’s just you don’t notice it. But if you smoke, you’ll hit you’ll hit a level where you do notice it. You know, um so um yeah, sorry, that’s a bit depressing. That is very depressing. What can we can we should if while we get older, is it is there anything what can we do? Is there any tip? Is there any Just just those No, just those, you know, just looking after yourself. That’s all you can do. As I said, doing a bit of bit of strength training for your chest and shoulders just to maintain posture helps you maximize what you already have.

Yeah. Speaking of that, Mark, there’s a really important question now as a girl because I think Stefan and I some I can’t remember when it was, but our lungs were sort of tested at some point and Stefan ended up with 5. God I can’t remember 4.5.9 something. And as when I had my lungs tested, it was 3.4. And I was quite shocked. Mary Louisa Neuenecker had like, you know, I don’t know, she had about she had the Do you know which Can you remember which number was 3.4?

I can’t remember. I’d have to I’d have to do it again and I really would like to do it again, but I I mean, if you look at Stefan and me next to each other, it’s clear. My lungs are not as big as his. Yeah. Does that matter? Um if you’ve got health If you’re healthy, no, it doesn’t matter. Um you know, there are three things that affect your predominantly three things that affect your lung volumes and capacity. So, your age, your sex, and your height.

And there are there are big differences in the numbers. So, um Let me Let me go back to that that one slide with the with all those volumes in. There There it is. So, your tidal volume’s the same. The amount you can breathe in here, this is your inspiratory reserve volume. In a man, on average These are totally average figures, but on a man it’s 3 L. Uh so male 3 L, female is 2 L. So, it’s a liter less how much you can breathe in there on average.

Then this amount, which is the bit you need for how long you can blow notes, your vital capacity, again in a man it’s about 4.5 L. Uh for a lady, it’s about 3.5 L. So, you know, the total Does that mean we have to work harder? Or does that mean we have to I mean, I sat next to Gerd Seifert who was first horn in the Berlin Philharmonic. He He was very small and he breathed all the all my places, you know? I got quite clever as a second horn to breathe when no one else was um because I needed it cuz maybe cuz I was a bit smaller, but he was breathing in all my spaces.

So, so The thing is though, you know, I’m not saying that um a man playing is not going to necessarily use all this as well. You’re going to use the same amount of air, you know, but you just you maybe need to be more efficient about what you use um and you know, and make sure you’re maximizing your potential, but there’s no reason there’s no reason cuz you’re not it’s not literally like you’re using this entire vital capacity. So, you know, 3.5 L and 4.5 L it should be it should be fine.

Okay. Fantastic. There is I know we don’t want to give medical advice today because Mark is not a practicing physician anymore. He’s a practicing horn player. Um and we’re just so we’re so lucky to have you with all this insight. It this is really just been incredible. And when you go back and read the chat, people are just in awe of you. But there’s a question that’s quite interesting. Would you recommend horn and wind players getting vaccinated by pneumococcal What was that? How do you pronounce it?

Pneumococcal vaccine. Vaccine PCV13 because we inhale a lot of bacteria through our horns. Is that something you feel you could answer? Uh Or would you rather not? Uh okay, I can answer general I can answer a general thing about that. So, the pneumococcal pneumococcal vaccines, you know, if you’re in an at risk group such as elderly or people with uh sort of pre-existing conditions, then yeah, you should be getting that. With regards to horn players, I think it’s very This brings me to the an important point, which is about evidence-based medicine.

In the you know, um if someone’s recommended treatment, ideally it should be evidence-based and stuff. So, this question about uh should I be doing should I be taking pneumococcal vaccine because of the bacteria in my horn? There’s no no one’s done a study on that. No. There’s a lot of bacteria in there, but there’s a lot of bacteria in your horn out when you can. Yeah, so I think so I think with you know, with cleaning horns and stuff, um yeah, you should you should wash your horn out every now and then.

I don’t do it enough. But people who’ve got uh asthma and stuff should do it more because you can get cases where, you know, they’re rare, but there are case reports of, you know, people who have uh allergic reactions to molds that have grown in horns. Uh and they Yeah, yeah. I know how we’re spending our Saturday afternoon. We are all washing our horns. Exactly. So, um so yeah, um Um are you are you done with your presentation? I’d like to I am. Sorry. I shall stop sharing.

I mean, a round of applause. Thank you so much for this presentation. It’s been incredibly helpful. And the good thing is if you missed any of it or didn’t quite get any of it, it’ll all be up it’ll all be up on the website and we can watch it over and over again and and memorize it as well. Um thank you so much. That was so much work for us for the for the horn hangouts. We appreciate it so much. A funny question’s just come in from Alice.

What is the largest vital capacity you’ve ever seen in a patient? Oh, goodness. I can’t actually remember that actually because I only cuz remember when when you’re working in a hospital, it’s really quite depressing cuz I’ve got a very negative view of like lungs and disease cuz I only ever saw sick people. So, you know, I never I never really saw massive vital capacities cuz they’re all they’re all low cuz of sickness. Yeah. Yeah. Um there’s I have to let you go, I know, because your son James, it’s his birthday.

It is. He woke me up at 5:00 a.m. this morning. And he Did he get dressed up for it? Yesterday he had a dinosaur on He was wearing a dinosaur. What was he wearing today? So today So today he was he was Kylo Ren from from Star Wars. He had his lightsaber saber and everything. As everyone should be aged aged six. Yeah, just six today. Aw, congratulations. Um there’s a lot of clapping and thank yous coming in from all over the world. Did we Um I mean, basically Do you have any books?

I mean, I’ve got my Bible up here, the Song and Wind, which all of you I’m sure know. And would you agree this is a good one? Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, I I read that before this and it says yes, it’s fabulous. There’s great great stories in there. Um and then you had a you had a Yeah, I’ve got a couple I’ve got a couple I would recommend. So, um there’s one um Christian Steen Strup, fabulous. yes. I love Christian Steen Strup. He’s a great teacher.

teacher. And I This is a great book. This is a great book, which is really uh approachable. It’s got a lot of physiology in it, but it’s really really approachable. I like this book a lot. the Talking Brass one? Uh Teaching Brass. Teaching Brass. Exactly. Maybe someone could put a link to that on the chat. That would be great. Thank you. So, that’s that’s a great book. Uh and then also So, for the more technically minded, so this book, Respiratory Physiology by John West. This is the focus of respiratory physiology.

Every medical student uh certainly in the UK knows about this book. It’s pretty technical, but uh it’s fabulous. If you want to really get into the nitty-gritty of it, it’s um that’s a great book. Thank you for so much for that. And do people come and and and they they’ll want to know about lungs and for the rest of your life, I think. There’s no way around that. Or people will show you their ailments and the rehearsals and and and stuff like that. That just happens.

I guess Oh, yeah, I I’ve been sat in a rehearsal and had a had a had a bare foot just stuck in my lap. Uh I’ve had various other body parts shown to me at various other parts of rehearsals, etc. So, um Well, Yeah. All in a medical Um Simon de Souza says thank you, Mark. Fascinating and hugely helpful and beautifully presented. Michael Buckwalter says fabulous hangout. Renee and Mark, who were drinking the man the horn Hattons, um said thank you wholeheartedly. Um I I mean, you you Bob Ward was watching.

How lovely. Um Jez Jez was also said give Bolton one more mention, Mark, before you go, says Jez. Oh, Jez was fabulous. He was also taught by Chris. So, yeah, he’s great. The Bolton Symphony Orchestra. They are watching. Bolton Symphony Orchestra, yes. So, I we were happy for that. Um yeah, so thank you so much. Please make a part two. Yeah. Um for yes, there’s a very quick question. Kevin Lopez has has written and he’s a Yeah. I’m a friend of mine from Colombia and he says, cuz you know, that’s another question I’ve seen a couple of times, the altitude problems.

When I was in Colombia, I could hardly play a note. I was literally I was in Bogota, which is where he lives. Um, can you recommend some exercises to regulate breathing in cities that have different altitude? If you go on tour on tour? Oh, yeah, when’s that going to happen? Can Can we How does that adjust? Do you have any quick tips before I before we hop off here? You can’t really because it’s all about the it’s about the it’s about the oxygenation in your environment.

So, you can’t really do much about that. Um, unfortunately. hall in Bogota, they have oxygen backstage, literally. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It looks like It’s a whole It’s It’s a whole area of um, specialized respiratory medicine, the whole um, uh altitude. And also, like if you look at the physiology of deep free uh free divers as well, those people that can hold their breath for like 11 11 minutes underwater, you know, it’s it’s absolutely fascinating. Yeah, it totally is. Well, I I I am totally inspired. I’m going to wash my horn.

I’m going to breathe. And I think the secret to all this is just breathe. Don’t you think? It’s Right. Just don’t overthink things. Don’t Just concentrate on on the flow, maintaining a constant air stream. Don’t worry about what your back’s doing. Don’t tense things. Just blow. Thank you, Mark. Absolutely wonderful. I’d love to have you back and have a have a part two at some point. And um, good luck whenever you start your new job at the San Francisco Symphony. They’re a fantastic horn section. I’d love to have them all on the horn hangouts at some point.

Maybe we can do a section hangout when you when you get there. Um, everybody, thank you so much. I know if if you want to write in the chat, I will I’m sending Mark to the chat right now, to the Facebook chat and to the to the to our dedicated horn hangouts viewers who are all watching. I have a little something I want to tell you about. We have been um, creating a new project um, for for a new little mini concert platform because we uh my colleagues and I think that uh musicians should not be afraid of of charging for their concerts online because there’s been so much free content out.

I don’t know what you think about this, Mark, but there’s been so much free content out there, which has been wonderful in the COVID time, but all of us are at home for who knows how long and those of us with a job, we’re we’re okay, but there are a lot of people without jobs who need to who earn their money with making music. Um, and it’s okay now, I think, to ask for some sort of ticket charge when when you’re playing. Uh, we talked about this yesterday, Mark, and I ran the idea by you and you were so positive.

I was so grateful. I think I think it’s a fabulous idea. I think, you know, I think these these hangouts, you know, um, oh, my my son would disagree because he’s always like, “Daddy, can you stop watching the the horn hangouts and play with me?” But, you know, the the information from these from these sessions is, you know, it’s there’s real gold dust in in there, you know. So, yeah, people should and the concerts you watch, they’re fabulous. People should be uh should be contributing. We will never ever charge for the horn hangouts, but um, the Berlin Philharmonic Quartet are doing a benefit concert for the horn hangouts um, online next Saturday uh next Sunday, the 21st at 2:00 p.m.

in the afternoon, Berlin time. And that’s especially to support our Japanese viewers so that they can join us. Mark, you don’t have to come. It’ll be 5:00 in the morning, your time. And I’m just posting now a link in the chat for um, for you to see where if you any of you can come, we would be absolutely thrilled. Um, have a check it out and you are more than welcome to join us. Um, we’ll be posting some more information about it, but we’re very excited about it.

And I think a horn hangout benefits concert, we we actually, to be honest, quite need it right now. But, um, but Mark, you have been so generous. Um, Ian Ian Bausor has just written again, “Hi, Mark.” So, Ian, it’s wonderful that you joined us. Any of you that that Joe has said, “Episode 30.” This is really we’ve been going for a long time and I know, Mark, you’ve watched a lot of them. So, Yeah, no, you’ve definitely done your civic duty. I love my civic duty.

I love my horn hangout friends. And uh and uh and we’re hoping to go online next week and then and do some good and then and then maybe this platform will help other people be inspired to actually get online and then and then dare to, you know, charge for their concerts. And uh it’s a very minimal amount, but some people really have to live from um, from from concerts. And I mean, all of us do, but some people might have some jazz friends of mine who just can’t basically eat right now because there’s there’s nothing.

So, we have to do what we can to support that. So, we hope you’ll all come. But for now, Mark, thank you. A million thanks. Feeling feeling dying. Thank you from everybody watching. And um, and we’ll see you next Sunday on the horn hangouts benefit concert. There’ll be a a special horn hangout, exclusive horn hangout just on that platform on that day. Maybe you could get up at 5:00, Mark. What do you think? I’m sure my son will try his best. Mark, we’ll keep blowing. We’ll keep breathing.

Thank you for this awesome hangout. You are just the best. I’m in I’m in awe of your knowledge and of your horn playing. Thank you, guys. Bye, everybody. See you soon. See you next week, 21st of June. Bye-bye.

Horn Hangouts are created by Sarah Willis of the Berlin Philharmonic. Brassbanned is a proud long-time collaborator and streaming partner.