Breathing: Positive vs. Negative Space

If you'll allow me a brief foray into visual art technique...I promise it will serve to strengthen a useful metaphorical concept for wind players!

The concept of positive vs. negative space is widely known and used in the visual arts, including media design, photography, and basically anything that you are meant to look at in a scrutinizing manner. We call the positive space the figure and the negative space the ground. If you are not familiar with the concept of negative space, it is briefly and very basically this:

The background of an image that is in focus.


So for a simple example, in the picture below it is very clear what is the positive space (the Ferris Wheel and cabins), and the negative space is a meaningless background (sky and clouds).

A problem occurs when we artfully design the negative space to be more meaningful, and in the very famous example below, what is called a figure-ground reversal occurs, and the negative space may take on meaning to the eye. An interesting note of human limitation: if the reversal is executed perfectly, it can be impossible to see both meanings simultaneously. You may know it is there, but our eyes may only focus on one figure at a time.

Some visual artists have taken the concept to an incredible extreme, creating masterpieces of figure-ground reversal. One of the most famous artists to toy with the notions of physical dimensions and positive-negative space was M.C. Escher.

All this to bring us to the veritable art itself that is breathing technique for wind musicians. Breathing is one of the "ground floor" slabs on which the stability of the entire structural development stands. Breathing is so useful a concept in general musicality that non-wind musicians are often taught to breathe in cooperation with the music they are playing, to bring the concept of a good phrase to the realm of our natural physiology.

So how does this relate to positive and negative space?

For analogical purposes I'll say that both the inhale and exhale actions are our figure in wind playing. They are the positive and purposeful actions that we focus on, and on which we spend hours of practice perfecting. The negative space is everything else that may occur that is not either an inhalation of exhalation. Essentially, the ground in our case is holding our breath, or performing a Valsalva Maneuver (defined as an attempt to force exhalation through a closed airway, like when we "pop" our ears on an airplane).

In the painted picture called A Wind Player Breathing, we have a very strong focus on the nature of the positive space, and unfortunately I think too often do we ignore what might be happening in the cracks of the picture. Little instances of breath-holding and Valsalva are hiding there, contributing meaninglessness to the art that you are trying to create. In most cases, the meaninglessness actually contributes negatively to the picture-painting process.

The act of playing an instrument should be 100% full of the positive breathing actions. We either exhale or we inhale. Either/or is a very important distinction because without it we leave cracks for the negative space to fill. I find that when I pay very careful attention to my breathing I notice tiny moments of something else, and those little moments can be disastrous to a brass player should they occur inopportunely.

I think you'll find that the feeling of breathing with only inhalations and exhalations to be different. It takes some practice to feel natural, but it is an important springboard for the musical development of wind players.