How Long Can Wind Players Play Without Taking A Break?

I've been working on a piece for wind quintet and was wondering if it was necessary to build in rests so that players can take breaths. I heard it can be hard for wind players to play for a while without stopping and taking a quick breath. Is this something I should consider/worry about?

You do need to consider breathing by wind players. Always. Just like you would have to consider bowing on strings.

You need rests or else the wind player will insert them into the music for you - this can be problematic in an ensemble piece.

Some players develop excellent circulat breathing which is a technique forwind players to hold very long breathes without passing out. It takes quite sometime to do it and you really don't want to write a piece which requires that technique all the time.

My advice - for windmusic sing your lines to estimate the breathe required. At worst you will overestimate the amount of breathe they need - so you can ask if they could connect the phrases in one breathe or hold the note longer when working with the performer. Post it on works in progress in the meantime to ensure you don't write anything ridiculous.

Circular breathing is very specialized and absolutely cannot be expected of even the more experienced players.

yes, please please please, I'm in a concert band and I've played both flute and oboe, which are pretty much opposites in how long they can last. Based on how much resistance in the instrument there is, flute would last 4 bars at 60 bpm and oboe at the complete other end would last around 8, again, that's at 60 bpm. This is taken largely from personal experience and is different for everyone, but this is usually the norm.

also, with circular breathing, a wind player would fist learn

double tounging, triple tonguing, quadruple tonguing, tonguing upside down, triple tonguing with a perfect sound quality while constantly being stabbed at the lungs, circular breathing...aka, it's hard, never assume the player can do it.

Hope this helps!

but also, if there is more than one person on that instrument, they could find away to work it out. Usually if there's something that must be constantly repeated, you can dovetail it, (clarinet 1 plays 2 bars, clarinet 2 plays 2 bars, clarinet 1 plays, etc)

I've seen "stagger breathe" marked on parts where an instrument is expected to hold a note for decades.

professionally I only play 1 wind, the sax, but sometimes I play clarinet and requires less breath, but the problem is not how long the breath can last, sometimes I mistakenly take more breath of what I need (used to the sax) and I could hold very long, the problem is not if I have remaining air or not, the problem is that I have to keep breathing, so I have to release is and take new breath, so is not only matter of how long breath can last, for a trombone player a breath could last for 3 minutes in a recorder, just the guy must breath...

circular breathing is for experts, and you can use it a few times, not the entire concert.

I've seen "stagger breathe" marked on parts where an instrument is expected to hold a note for decades.

yeah, but that's in a band setting, not for a wind quintet, that's when one person breathes when the people around him don't, so it sounds like they're not breathing, but it won't work as easily in a wind quintet

Oh lol. Idiot didn't read the OP.

Just watch their faces. If they turn purple or dizzy, it's enough.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'll keep these things in mind.

yes, please please please, I'm in a concert band and I've played both flute and oboe, which are pretty much opposites in how long they can last. Based on how much resistance in the instrument there is, flute would last 4 bars at 60 bpm and oboe at the complete other end would last around 8, again, that's at 60 bpm. This is taken largely from personal experience and is different for everyone, but this is usually the norm.

also, with circular breathing, a wind player would fist learn

double tounging, triple tonguing, quadruple tonguing, tonguing upside down, triple tonguing with a perfect sound quality while constantly being stabbed at the lungs, circular breathing...aka, it's hard, never assume the player can do it.

Hope this helps!

depending how you play it it can last even longer.

Usually about 7.63 seconds. I got sciences to prove it.

That sounds fascinating. Can I hear these sciences?

oceanography is the one.

good stuff

oceanography= ocean-ography= study of the ocean? that makes noooo sense to me.

I'm not surprised: it's smart stuff.

haa haa haaaaa.