Support and Wind-Playing

What Is Support?

A Progressive and Fresh Approach to the Building Blocks of Brass Playing

Let’s talk about “support," specifically while playing a wind instrument.

Nope, this post isn’t about the usual pedagogical cues like “use more air,” “tighten your abs,” or “blow harder.”

I’m talking about accessing sustainable support. The kind that holds up under pressure, during a difficult passage, a high-stakes performance or audition, or even just a long practice session where you want to feel grounded and free, and establish flow.

Support Isn’t a Cue. It’s a Behavior.

Here’s how I define it:

Support is a behavior that involves the coordinated use of breath pressure, self-organization (body alignment), and muscular control to regulate airflow during playing.

Support isn’t one isolated action. It results from multiple systems involving breathing, posture, and muscular engagement. These work together to create efficient and stable airflow.

In essence, support is a reflection of the state of the body!

However, we don't want to think about this when we perform actively.

Why Does This Matter?

When we perform or even just practice with intention, our attention is limited. Plenty of research supports this idea, so I will not cite sources for this claim: we can only consciously focus on a few elements at once before quality, attention, focus, and overall bandwidth decline.

So, if we’re actively trying to manage breathing, posture, tension, interpretation, phrasing, and expression all at once? That’s like trying to juggle eight items at once. Sure, you might be able to juggle for a while, but once you drop one, others start to fall too.

Instead, we want support built into our playing, not something we must consciously micromanage in the moment. We want to focus on the music and trust our bodies to show up.

A Few Perspectives from the Pedagogy Community

I recently asked the Trombone Pedagogy Facebook group how they explain “support” to students. Here are some responses that stood out:

• “Support involves the constant and consistent stream of air to the end of a phrase and the end of our air supply.”

• “Sound production = controlled deflation > active blowing.”

• “Support is balancing two opposing forces: the resistance of the instrument and the air you’re delivering. When these two are balanced, resonance is achieved.”

• “I use the analogy of rolling a toothpaste tube gradually rather than squeezing it hard in the middle.”

• “Support is what happens, not what you try to do.”

Others described exercises to help feel support, such as blowing against resistance or pressurizing air with a blocked mouthpiece to activate the system.

These analogies and methods simplify the concept and get students out of their heads. They shift the focus from over-cueing to helping students experience the behavior.

But what happens when a student is still struggling?

Here’s the part that often gets missed: What if a student is doing all the “right things” and still struggling?

What if you’ve exhausted every cue in the book, and the breathing challenges still show up week after week?

What if breathing cues help initially but also introduce new tension, like elevated shoulders, tight necks, rigid backs, or discomfort?

That’s when we tend to reach for vague fallback cues: cues:“Just relax.” “You’re trying too hard.” “Give it time.” And in some contexts, these cues are beneficial! However, like everything in life, there is a yin and a yang.

These may be well-intentioned, but they rarely create lasting change. Because support is happening, but there is also the presence of adaptive positioning, accessory muscle tension, and compression throughout the body, their access to support is limited.

Stay with me, and I'll explain why.

Support Is State-Dependent

Breathing (and therefore support) is a state-dependent behavior. It reflects your body’s ability to manage internal pressure, gravity, internal and external stresses, and, most importantly, survive.

Several factors influence this:

• Nervous system state (fight/flight vs rest/recover)

• Posture and alignment (center of mass and gravity)

• Resting muscle tension (impacted by posture, load, lifestyle, etc.)

• Movement availability (can the body rotate, expand, create force?)

• Force production and absorption (can the body effectively yield (absorb energy) and overcome (produce force?)

Let’s take posture, for example.

Posture is primarily subconscious, a response shaped over time by your environment, body structure (ISA and ribcage configuration), and movement history. Conscious postural cues can be helpful, especially in the context of somatic or fitness-related cues.

But here’s the kicker: as things get complex, conscious cues become ineffective. For example, during high-pressure performances, auditions, or going outside your comfort zone, those conscious cues may vanish as you focus on the task, resulting in subconscious patterns reemerging.

If not properly trained, your body defaults to the most efficient strategy, which may include a postural, breathing, or movement pattern that affects your ability to support efficiently and sustainably. You could do the same thing you've done daily on your instrument, yet due to these adaptations, you could feel tight, tense, or have trouble navigating your instrument.

So... What is the Answer?

Suppose you or a student consistently struggle to “support” without excess tension, such as recruiting the neck, shoulders, upper back, or gripping through the lower back. In that case, the body is likely working harder than it needs to due to subconscious adaptations.

This means:

• The ribcage no longer expands in all directions (front to back, side to side, top to bottom)

• The abdomen doesn’t expand posteriorly or in sync with the ribcage.

• The pelvic floor is restricted, limiting overall movement, rotation, and overall breath mechanics.

• Due to A-P (front and back) compression, the overall movement of the diaphragm and pelvic floor becomes limited. Specific limitations will depend on your ribcage and pelvis structure (more about this in a future post).

• Resting muscle tone increases, leading to reduced tidal volume (the quiet, passive breathing we do while sitting), thus limiting your ability to access the extremes of inhalation and exhalation without accessory breathing musculature.

These aren’t “bad habits," they are complex and natural adaptations that happen over time based on factors such as stress, load, injury history, movement patterns, and even emotional state.

Common Signs These Patterns Are Present:

• Increased sympathetic breathing during daily activities (also might be present with a high resting heart rate or low heart rate variability - for those that track this data).

• Elevated resting muscle tone that affects specific movements such as rotations, arm/shoulder movements, or lower limb/pelvis movements.

• Reduced breathing capacity, leading to increased use of accessory muscles during all forms of breathing.

• Trouble switching into a parasympathetic state (difficulty relaxing, recovering, or sleeping)

• One of the following postural patterns represents someone who has undergone a series of adaptations such as a forward center of gravity, anterior orientation of the pelvis and thorax, and compression on the front and back side of the body, thus limiting the overall range of motion.

But Wait, Does Everyone Need to Change?

Nope!

Some musicians move through life without issues. They breathe freely, support efficiently, and don’t run into these roadblocks.

If that’s you, amazing. If it ain’t broke, you don’t need to fix it (unless you want to work on reducing tension, improving posture, improving movement, and building a breathing foundation for a long life of music making!)

But if you’re like me or like the 100+ musicians I’ve coached, these adaptations compound over time and begin to affect breathing, movement, and ultimately, your ability to access efficient and sustainable support while you play.

Rebuilding Support from the Ground Up

So what’s the path forward?

The first step is to restore relative motion in the ribcage and pelvis.

This allows you to:

• Access a true 360° cylindrical breath

• Switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic states more easily

• Train advanced breathing patterns without defaulting to accessory muscles

• Support your instrument using primary breathing systems, not tension-driven compensation and accessory breathing musculature.

In short, we need to retrain support as a system.

Not through force or micromanagement, but by reducing compression on the front and back of the ribcage and pelvis. This restores relative motion, granting you access to true movement, and allows you to train breathing in more intense and demanding ways.

To summarize, we want support built into our playing, by focusing on building and training support away from our playing! Again, this is not something we must (or want) to consciously micromanage in the moment. We want to focus on the music and trust our bodies to show up based on our training. If your body starts to break down (aka - breathing becomes tense, posture starts to compress, muscle tension ramps up), take it as a sign to start exploring these concepts.

Like anything, building support is a skill that takes time and is a daily practice. Because the body is constantly adapting, and breathing is a behavior that also reflects how our body is managing the environment, touching base with exercises that restore relative motion (like below) and ultimately training them in higher intensity settings (such as cardio, strength training, breathwork, etc.) will help you better access your true breathing capacity in high-stress situations.

What Does Real Support Feel Like?

Want to experience it for yourself?

Try these simple breathing resets before you play, during a break, or if you feel tension ramping up. You can also test it mid-practice. Start by playing a short passage before and after the exercise to see what changes. (This is called a test–retest, one of my favorite tools for gauging real-time feedback.)

What might you notice?

• Easier inhales or exhales

• Clearer sound production

• Smoother articulation or flexibility

• A stronger connection to the floor

• Feeling taller, more relaxed, or better “supported”

As you try these exercises, make sure you:

• Start each exercise as relaxed as possible. If any tension occurs before you begin, check your alignment, adjust, and see if you can get comfortable. If there is no way you can get comfortable, these exercises are not the appropriate choice for you at the moment.

• When inhaling through the nose, make it as QUIET and even as possible.

• When exhaling through the mouth, aim for a controlled, soft exhale, and avoid letting everything "go" and spew out. Controlled, even, and smooth exhale is the name of the game for these exercises.

Try This:

Exercise 1: Side-lying Breathing

Start on your right side, feel your right pelvis, ribcage, and supported head relax into the ground. Slowly and softly exhale through the mouth, pause for 1-3 seconds, then slowly and quietly as possible inhale evenly through the nose, inhaling up to about 80% full. Repeat for 2-3 minutes, then switch to the left, following the same process.

If you cannot access this position without tension, experiment with supporting your head with a pillow or item, putting a pillow between your knees, or putting a small mat or flattened towel under your lower ribcage (or a combination of all three!).

Exercise 2: Hooklying Coordination Breathing

Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat. Put your hands on your sternum and belly button. Breathe here for 2–3 minutes, focusing on quiet, slow inhales through the nose, and soft and even exhales through the mouth. As you get comfortable, see if you can coordinate the expansion of your hands at the same time while you inhale. It may be not easy at first, but once you get it, spend a minute or two here, then go back to your horn and see if you notice a difference.

Last note - these are just starting points, but they can offer immediate insight into how restoring relative motion can quickly reduce tension and improve how you feel while playing.

Want the Full Experience?

Are you a wind musician struggling with breathing-related issues such as tension, hesitation, or posture?

My 4-week beta program gives wind musicians the tools to restore full-body breathing, reduce unnecessary tension, and build lasting, sustainable support.

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Acknowledgements

Concepts talked about in this post are from United Health and Performance Network Model. For more information, you can learn more about https://uhp.network/