Chances are you're probably breathing wrong. Take this simple, quick test to find out. Take a full breath and start to blow out the air slowly through your lips, as if you were blowing into your mouthpiece with no buzz. Count silently, "1001, 1002, etc." until you completely empty your lungs.

How many counts? Often it's somewhere around 15-16. Some people can do 20-25-30-35-40, even 50-60 if they're in great shape and have the physiques to do it. Whatever your number, you can probably improve it dramatically and get in outstanding shape to blow the horn well.

As a trumpeter, you're an athlete. You must develop, strengthen, tone, and train the necessary muscles to play well. It's not that hard, if you start with some proven ideas of what to do and how to do it.

Fill the bottom of the lungs first, and then the upper lungs. Do not gulp in so much air that your shoulders rise. Most of us expand our chest to draw in the air. Instead, what we want to do is first draw down the diaphragm and then expand the chest in one quick, continuous motion.

Stand in front of a mirror with your shirt off. Below your rib cage, separating your chest from your abdomen, is a large, thin, curved sheet of muscle called the diaphragm or midriff. It curves upward from the sides. You can easily find diagrams and images of it online. 

When you draw down your diaphragm to breathe, your stomach pushes out. When you reach capacity with that move, then you expand your chest and fill your lungs--not to the point of feeling like you're about to burst, and not by lifting your shoulders. If you get too full, tight, and tense, you become a bit shaky, and you will not have good breath control.

It's as easy as opening and closing a billows. You expand it to draw in the air, and you compress it to blow it out. It's called abdominal breathing.

Now, from the resting position in front of the mirror, put both hands high against the sides of your chest. Fill your lungs from the bottom to the top--diaphragm first, then chest. Let your chest expansion push your hands outward, away from each other, as far as possible without raising your shoulders.

Slowly blow out as you did when taking the test. But now it's an athletic exercise. Do this in front of the mirror for ten minutes every day for one week. You'll be surprised by how much higher your count goes in such a short time.

This is the right way to breathe to play the trumpet well. You must make it normal. It must become natural and habitual, the way a baby breathes, so that you do it automatically, without thought, every time you play. And you know what researchers have learned about forming a new habit--it takes a minimum of 21 days of continuous repetition and training; i.e., practice!

Does that mean only doing this exercise for three weeks? Well, you may do that, and that's good, but that's just a drill. You want to apply the drill to actually playing the horn. So you form the new habit by training yourself to breathe correctly every time you play--in practice alone and in every group with whom you play. Make it natural. Create this good habit. Do it over and over until you do it always.

Is it the only exercise you can do to strengthen your abdominal, chest and back muscles? No, of course there are many other exercises that would help. In general, the better your overall fitness, the better and longer you can play with good stamina, consistent control, and beautiful results.

Now this: when you expel the air through your trumpet, think of the air as being contained in one sphere (not two separate lungs). It's a big ball of air inside your middle. Fortunately, gas is compressible, and that's what you want to do. With your now-stronger muscles, you want to compress this sphere of air steadily, with even pressure, from all directions--above, below, both sides, front and back. Your diaphragm will rise, your stomach will flatten, and your back and chest will contract. As you do so, a steady air stream will be forced through your throat, mouth and lips into the mouthpiece and through the trumpet.

Eventually, it will feel almost as if the horn is not there. Or, in other words, it will feel as if the horn is part of your body. The air simply emerges into the atmosphere from the trumpet bell, not from your face. And the tone you produce is full, fat, round, and whole, whether you're playing ppp or fff. That's one of the fundamentals of mastering the trumpet.

You'll be amazed at your new sound...and so will others. And you can take that whole sound into all registers, as did the late, great Bud Brisbois, versatile lead trumpeter and high-note specialist, whose ideas and experience I have incorporated into this article.