Hi, and welcome to my site!
I’m Aralee Dorough and I’m principal flutist of the Houston Symphony.
Right now I’m on a mission to provide aspiring musicians like you with ways of working on your own breathing that will help you achieve your next milestone.
Whether you want to win an orchestral job, or are already playing professionally, you can make tweaks to your breathing habits that will have a profound effect and make your playing stand out.
“Breathing” may sound like a boring fundamental and something you don’t need to work on anymore, but you are wrong!
I attribute getting hired for my orchestra position to the breakthroughs I had within just a few months of being introduced to new breathing concepts by my mentor, Keith Underwood.
Even though I already had 5 years of professional experience at that time—I was not beginner!—I was stumped on how work on certain things. We all get stuck at various times along our way, but I can attest that learning to link your air directly to your music is one of the most powerful tools available to you.
And it’s also kind of fun!
Many of the breathing techniques I use with my students are easy and silly-looking but effective. For instance, we might blow in and out of a tube, or some kind of special gadget, and then immediately take that tactile learning to the instrument and get instant results. Any difficulty can be targeted for improvement this way: a phrase or a group of phrases, articulations, rhythms, dynamics—the applications are endless.
That’s why on any given day, backstage before a rehearsal or a concert, you might find me reaching into my pocket for my breathing bag or doing a quick exercise with a straw as I warm up.
I’m really excited about sharing the breathing concepts that have become so indispensable to me, because many people don’t even know about them or don’t know how to put them into action to play better, make faster progress and achieve consistently good performances.
But there’s even more to it than that. Anyone who is drawn to play a musical instrument has the impulse to say something with music, and I think that’s very important.
I used to harbor the notion that some players are inherently better at playing expressively, but I’ve seen that disproved many times when someone is shown how to harness the power of their air.
Our air is truly the key that unlocks the music we all have inside.