I am trying to explain to someone how to circular breathe but without success.

My explanation is essentially this:

- Breathe out through your mouth (i.e. play your instrument normally)
- Breathe in through your nose while expelling air out of your mouth as if you were squirting water (but maintain your emboucher)
- Repeat

How can I improve this explanation?

you could try to explain how to keep the airflow steady while changing from the "breathing IN while expelling air through the mouth" and then really breathing OUT again. I mean, that's where I screw up trying to play my didgeridoo. I know I'm almost there but just not quite.

thanks in advance.

I was made aware of a technique to aquire and practice circular breathing......this involves the use of a bowl of water and a straw.....fill your mouth with air place the straw between your lips...straw into water....now squeeze your cheeks with thumb and finger whilst inhaling through your nose.
the idea being that bubbles will appear in the water. Although this is mechanically aided with the fingers, it gets you used to the idea of air out, air in...(like putting a carrot on a ciggie ... Straining).... practice this technique regularly and sucess is sure to follow.
   As well as being silent to practice, the visualness of producing bubbles instead of sound acts as good encouragement....have fun..let me know how you get on.

Hal9000:  Hurray!  That's a good way to demonstrate the concept

PuppetXeno:  Try a smaller didg that's easier to control.  For example I can do this for flute mouthpiece but the assembled flute requires so much air that I can't maintain the sound.

I play trumpet, and have never needed circular breathing. I've never understood the concept, either. But I have learned to take extremely quick breaths, and play for a long time without new air.  Maybe I am doing circular breathing and just don;t understand that I am, because it doesn't seem possible that a single set of lungs could pull in and push out at the same time.

I can hold a flute for a bar or two.  It takes practice, I'm told.

i went to an indigenous music session at the university.  there were two aboriginals from Australia showing us how to play didgeridoos.  i still can't do it, but they suggested (like above) that you start with a small mouth tube - like the plastic tubes they sell to put your golf clubs in.

the process is: exhale from the lungs (like normal) when you  have to take an inhale, you keep the flow of air going by closing the back of your throat (like you would if your mouth is full of water and you are squirting a stream of water thru your lips, while breathing in through your nose) squeezing your cheeks and throat to keep the air flow going, and taking a quick inhale through your nose, then opening your throat to continue the air flow with lung power. etc...

the trick is keeping the pressure up using only your cheeks and throat while you quickly inhale through your nose, then smoothly transitioning to lung power.

if you watch an energetic didgeridoo player you can see the cheeks and neck working the pressure when there is a quick inhale to the lungs.

the guy next to me said to practice in the shower where it's easy to fill up on water.  squirt a stream of water while breathing through your nose to get the hand of using your cheeks and throat to make pressure.  i can do this, but the transition from cheeks to lungs back to cheeks i just can't get down.

im sure uv got all the information u need by now but if not try this..

http://aboriginalart.com.au/didgeridoo/dig_background.html

i found this when i first got my didgeridoo and it was basically all i needed

what went wrong when my face becomes blue?

lmfao

I never could get the hang of circular breathing, I was marginally able to do it on trumpet.

Anyways, I think the most important thing, at least to me, is explain that you have to puff your cheeks out as much as humanly possible. When you are approaching the end of your air supply begin storing some in your cheeks, then start breathing in through your nose but squeeze the air stored in your cheeks out. In other words you aren't actually breathing in and out at the same time, you are breathing in, and squeezing air out of your mouth that's stored in your cheeks, not your lungs.

hey! i give lessons on the didge and circular berathings since approx. 8 years now. theoretically its not an easy thing to explain. especially without any pictures. practically you can teach it yourself with alot of try and error:-) thats what i did.
or with the help of a teacher with a little bit less try and error;-)
i have a 80%sucess rate to teach my students with a four step programm, without a didge:
1.inflate your cheeks and keep the air inside. your cheeks are full with air now. visualize the position of the root of your tounge now(most important thing for the basic cb technique). its blockig the upper part of your throat(entrance of mouth). your mouth is sealed now.
2. keep your cheeks inflated while breathing in and out through your nose. that shows you can divide the air in your mouth from the airflow through the nose.
3. always keep the cheeks blown up. now create a rhythm of breathing air in through your nose first, than blow the air out of your mouth and back to breathing in(with tounge root blockade.all with still your cheeks blown up!
4. step four is like step number three but with your mouth slyghtly open all the time. that guarantees your lips are vibrating slightly all the time(for practising with the didge later on).
that way your you guarantees that your cheeks always store enough air to keep your lips vibrating, even when your breathing. its a bagpipe thing, with your mouth as the bag. at the end you anyway only need a tiny bit of air to create a strong drone on the didge and create many sounds at the same time.i think there are about 4 different techniques to use the circular breathing. idont recomand the water and straw practise for the didgeplayers, it still leaves you with the big question of how to create the sound while you are circulating:-)
hope that brought you a bit closer to it!and sorry, the theoretical explanation makes it very complicated. many people think the didge is a simple instrument, thats not true: its easy, yes, but very complex.
please check the song "bear on speed" i posted.
or check www.analogue-birds.com

Check out this video of Kenny G demonstrating circular breathing - its a cool trick.  It's awesome!

I play plastic pipes on work sites......scaffolding polls also work !!! lol

When I first started learning I got so confused once I nearly wet my self !

The trick is that it is indeed not actual circular breathing....it's more like :  blow out with your lungs, block your throat and blow from your cheeks while inhaling through the nose..... blow out with your lungs, block your throat and blow from your cheeks while inhaling through your nose...blow out with your lungs....etc etc

Such a beautiful thing to play .... what a buzz

yeah, In the past I always thought it was literally breathing circularlily, but its basically just cutting off your mouth from everything else, and just holding that mouthful of air and squeezing it out while breathing in