Spot the Embouchure Issues and Guess the Crazy Fix

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-19 6:51 p.m.

The trombonist in the video below is a professional musician with a doctorate in trombone performance. He has a couple of issues in his embouchure mechanics that are causing his upper register to choke off here. Watch this video and see if you can pinpoint what is going wrong and what mechanical things he should do to fix it.

<YOUTUBE id="2Qy5xn9e5nc">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/2Qy5xn9e5nc</YOUTUBE>

This one might be difficult to guess, unless you know what you're looking for. If it helps, I will say that this player was aware of the problems but had been having trouble getting the corrections to happen. Over years he's been good at disguising them, but it took a good warm up to cover them up and when fatigued the issues could creep back.

I should also mention that this particular subject is particularly intelligent, well liked by everyone who knows him, and handsome. And modest. Did I mention modest?

OK, rip me to shreds. After enough people have taken a stab at this I'll describe Doug Elliott's suggestions and post how things have proceeded from here.

Dave

PosauneCat · 2021-02-19 7:38 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]The trombonist in the video below is a professional musician with a doctorate in trombone performance. He has a couple of issues in his embouchure mechanics that are causing his upper register to choke off here. Watch this video and see if you can pinpoint what is going wrong and what mechanical things he should do to fix it.

<YOUTUBE id="2Qy5xn9e5nc">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/2Qy5xn9e5nc</YOUTUBE>

This one might be difficult to guess, unless you know what you're looking for. If it helps, I will say that this player was aware of the problems but had been having trouble getting the corrections to happen. Over years he's been good at disguising them, but it took a good warm up to cover them up and when fatigued the issues could creep back.

I should also mention that this particular subject is particularly intelligent, well liked by everyone who knows him, and handsome. And modest. Did I mention modest?

OK, rip me to shreds. After enough people have taken a stab at this I'll describe Doug Elliott's suggestions and post how things have proceeded from here.

Dave[/quote]

I’ll take a stab and say too wide an aperture when ascending.

Mike

tmarco97 · by **tmarco97** » 2021-02-19 8:14 p.m.

Just taking a stab at this, but is his lower lip rolling under his upper lip as he ascends? I know that poses some problems for me as I try to play in the upper part of my register.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-19 8:23 p.m.

I am not an embouchure expert -- this is just what my untrained eyes see, and what I hear.

To me it looks like your placement is unusually low for the angle your horn is at. It looks like you're an upstream player, based on your jaw moving back for the lower notes.

At 0:46 we hear just air passing through two lips that aren't vibrating. I think this indicates pinching and an embouchure that is too tight over the teeth, or puckered too tightly.

I don't think you are letting the interaction of the air going into the trombone vibrate your lips, and you are trying to artificially create resistance there to cause them to vibrate (like buzzing a mouthpiece or free buzzing).

You are very brave to put yourself out here like this. You said to rip you to shreds, so while trying to use tact, I will say that if you are an advocate of buzzing a mouthpiece or free buzzing, and you teach your students to do so, your video is perfect evidence against doing those things. Too much tension!

So yes, if you are indeed an upstream player, the mouthpiece looks very low -- perhaps a smaller rim size to minimize the excessive shifting I see up/down/left/right. It should be low, but shouldn't the horn angle for that type of playing be more perpendicular to your face or even the opposite of what we see, rather than down and away from your nose?

The bottom lip should dominate the vibration, so I think the horn angle is too low. It should go more up towards your nose as you ascend, even as the lips shift down over your teeth, away from the base of your nose.

Rather than increase tension and anticipate the upper register (you were trigger shy), you should increase the offset between your upper and lower lips (ie pivot), and let the resistance of the horn do the work.

Watch, I am 100% the opposite of what an expert sees going on. I apologise in advance!

timothy42b · by **timothy42b** » 2021-02-19 8:42 p.m.

I hear tension somewhere but I don't know enough to describe what. It just sounds like you're forcing something that should be more relaxed. When I listen hard to your example I feel my upper lip want to shorten and my corners rise slightly. But I play downstream and you up.

Are you maybe rolling in?

Doubler · by **Doubler** » 2021-02-19 10:29 p.m.

I've never been enthused nor convinced about upstream/downstream discussions. To me they're two ways of playing inefficiently. I say you need a balance of upper/lower lip within the rim, and the angle has to be neutral in order to access all registers with minimal change in embouchure and instrument positioning.

I see Wilktone relying almost exclusively on his lower lip to accomplish everything, and I think that this is partly because his mouthpiece rim is too large to adequately frame his embouchure. As a result, the lower lip is overworked, inducing fatigue, while the upper lip is restrained by the pressure and limit of the rim itself covering it, preventing it from vibrating, also causing inflexibility and fatigue.

A smaller mouthpiece rim, combined with more or less centering it on the lips and easy, relaxed exercises focused on tone production, resonance, and moderate, slow lip slurs will go a long way toward improving things, IMO. I can almost guarantee that improvement will not happen overnight, but progress can be made and felt in a relatively short period of time.

WilliamLang · by **WilliamLang** » 2021-02-19 11:21 p.m.

This is a super interesting question to me. There are maybe some slight mechanical issues, but to my eyes and ears I don't know if they stem from the muscles or from the mental approach. It's hard to get into here for a few reasons, but I would try to take a more holistic approach as opposed to a embochure-based approach and see what can be achieved, because the embochure doesn't look too off to me, and once the sound is established it doesn't sound too bad.

baileyman · by **baileyman** » 2021-02-20 8:47 a.m.

Seems to be focusing on horn angle. Dunno why. Sounds to me like the mouth resonance isn't tuned to the higher note when attempted. I'd suggest blowing through pursed lips listening to the whoosh and get it tuned to the higher note and try again.

And maybe try smaller intervals. Fourths seem pretty good for not prompting unexpected chop changes.

And try it upside down, prolly in fourths first, if the higher note will sound.

baileyman · by **baileyman** » 2021-02-20 8:48 a.m.

Seems to be focusing on horn angle. Dunno why. Sounds to me like the mouth resonance isn't tuned to the higher note when attempted. I'd suggest blowing through pursed lips listening to the whoosh and get it tuned to the higher note and try again.

And maybe try smaller intervals. Fourths seem pretty good for not prompting unexpected chop changes.

And try it upside down, prolly in fourths first, if the higher note will sound.

AndrewMeronek · by **AndrewMeronek** » 2021-02-20 8:58 a.m.

It's not his low placement, per se. Some great players have very low placements and are fine - the great Dick Nash comes to mind. Actually, I remember in college a euphonium player who had a pretty similar placement: low and also with the downward horn angle, and she was fine. Because it looks different, this is a setup that can easily be misinterpreted by people though.

I noticed one thing: compared to middle B-flat, both going up and going down involve the horn angle generally rising a tad. My suspicion would be to try lowering the horn angle for the upper B-flat, so the movement from low to high is more consistent. Keep the left-right movement, that doesn't look inconsistent to me.

I'd also ask to see the same slurs done on a different horn - maybe with a different slide width or a baritone horn or something. Sometimes with narrow slides, the neck restricts getting to just the right angle for a high or low range.

Neo_Bri · by **Neo_Bri** » 2021-02-20 9:33 a.m.

Obvious IV-A (in old money). I'd like to see some buzz-ins to determine what the placement is like, and to prevent any of the "wind-ups" that are happening before the slurs. My guess is that a wind-up is occurring before execution and it's shutting things when ascending.

Also, although the placement is low (IV-A), I'd like to see what happens when it's a little higher, giving you room to pull a little more in the high range.

Someone mentioned the aperture possibly being too wide in the high range. I feel it could be the opposite problem where the placement is so low that the aperture mechanically starts to cut off when the downward pull happpens.

Don't pull so hard?

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-20 9:40 a.m.

All interesting ideas, everyone. Thanks for sharing them. Someone did hit the nail on the head above (although whacked around on the sides of the nail some too), but first I want to comment on some of the above ideas.

[quote="PosauneCat"]I’ll take a stab and say too wide an aperture when ascending.[/quote]

That could cause similar symptoms. But while you're in the right ballpark, your playing for the wrong team (does that analogy work? I don't do sportball).

[quote="tmarco97"]Just taking a stab at this, but is his lower lip rolling under his upper lip as he ascends? I know that poses some problems for me as I try to play in the upper part of my register.[/quote]

It's certainly possible to roll the lower lip too much while ascending, but in my case that would be very hard to do. Notice how low on the lips my mouthpiece placement is. For players like me, with the lower lip predominating inside the mouthpiece, the lower lip won't really roll in to ascend, it sort of flattens out. Here are a couple of photos that show what I mean.

That's me playing the F above high Bb. You can't really see the aperture too well in this photo (my friend who took that photo for me didn't get the right angle for that), so here's a player with a very similar embouchure playing the same note.

Those are both upstream embouchures, meaning the lower lip predominates inside the mouthpiece and the air gets directed towards the top of the cup as the player blows. Downstream players can roll the lower lip, but to a degree this is normal. I prefer to think of an excessive lower lip roll as more of a symptom of something else not working correctly.

[quote="harrisonreed"]To me it looks like your placement is unusually low for the angle your horn is at. It looks like you're an upstream player, based on your jaw moving back for the lower notes.[/quote]

I wouldn't focus on the jaw moving forward or back as a way to distinguish upstream/downstream, it's the amount of upper to lower lip inside the cup that determines it. It is true that most upstream players have a horn angle that is closer to straight out, but some do have a lowered horn angle, like myself and the other player in the photo above.

You are very brave to put yourself out here like this.

No, I just have no shame.

. . . perhaps a smaller rim size to minimize the excessive shifting I see up/down/left/right.

I play with one of Doug Elliott's "N" sized rims, meaning it's narrow at the outer diameter, in order to get a little more space on the chin. The inner diameter, however, works better for me as larger (N103 Elliott rim, for those of you who understand that, Doug explained this to me a while ago and I've forgotten the details so he'll have to correct me). Several years ago I was playing on a 101 rim. Doug had me try a 102, then the 103. As I went bigger on each rim things improved a bit - until I went to the 104 when it got too big.

[quote="timothy42b"]I hear tension somewhere but I don't know enough to describe what. It just sounds like you're forcing something that should be more relaxed.[/quote]

Sort of, but that's pretty vague. As a teacher I'm fine saying, "I don't know yet, let's try working on X and let's see what happens and we'll come back to this later." Sometimes the problems will go away on their own by working on other elements of good technique. But sometimes that just covers up the real issue, which causes problems down the road.

[quote="Doubler"]I've never been enthused nor convinced about upstream/downstream discussions. To me they're two ways of playing inefficiently. I say you need a balance of upper/lower lip within the rim, and the angle has to be neutral in order to access all registers with minimal change in embouchure and instrument positioning.[/quote]

If you take the time to look at how brass embouchures actually function I think you will find that a "balance of upper/lower lip within the rim" just doesn't exist, at least not without the embouchure having some dysfunction. All well functioning brass embouchures are either upstream (less common) or downstream (more common). And minimal change in embouchure form and function can look quite different from player to player. There needs to be the correct amount of change, not too much or too little.

A smaller mouthpiece rim, combined with more or less centering it on the lips and easy, relaxed exercises focused on tone production, resonance, and moderate, slow lip slurs will go a long way toward improving things, IMO.

See above for my experience with smaller rims.

I will agree that your suggestion of exercises would be useful overall, but in and of itself wouldn't really take care of the mechanical issues.

[quote="WilliamLang"]There are maybe some slight mechanical issues, but to my eyes and ears I don't know if they stem from the muscles or from the mental approach. It's hard to get into here for a few reasons, but I would try to take a more holistic approach as opposed to a embochure-based approach and see what can be achieved. . .[/quote]

It's very common to approach embouchures issues like that, from a holistic mental approach. I don't want to come across as suggesting this is bad, especially if we don't really know what's going on and how to best fix it (see my thoughts on "I don't know yet, but let's work on something else first" above).

. . .because the embochure doesn't look too off to me, and once the sound is established it doesn't sound too bad.

Well, just to show some more, here is a clip from the same day, same practice session, about 45 minutes or so later. After warming up I'm able to get around the issues, but I'm really just covering them up. You can still see (and hear) the problems if you know what to look for.

<YOUTUBE id="1pK1OhUlbQ8">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/1pK1OhUlbQ8</YOUTUBE>

Can you see it yet? I'll come back later today and clarify what is going on. Just to offer a clue, someone above did get there, but it was sort like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Dave

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-20 9:43 a.m.

[quote="Neo Bri"]Obvious IV-A (in old money).[/quote]

Yes, Reinhardt embouchure type IVA. Doug and I both agree that there's really no need to distinguish a difference between IV (low placement, upstream with horn angle close to straight out) and IVA (lowered horn angle). They both effectively function the same and you can also see similar horn angle differences between the other embouchure types.

You posted while I was writing my lengthy post just above. I'll comment more on your thoughts later.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-20 9:46 a.m.

So... The crazy solution is to bring the slide crook up above nose level as you ascend? As you move your jaw forward? Because you're upstream? Joke. And stop buzzing. Joke. But seriously.

Must be Andrew. He was the only one you didn't mention. He talked about moving the horn left/right over your face.

Could be me. I threw a lot of spaghetti but you agreed to almost all of it. Spaghetti is good.

If the answer is "move the horn further and further right as I ascend" I'm out.

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-02-20 10:13 a.m.

I had a tough nut to crack once, but it was going down instead of up. What worked for me was to approach it from what I could do well and then work to extend it downward in small increments; stopping when it didn't work and even retreating back to firm ground if necessary. It took me about 3 months to get to where I needed to go. Maybe it involved muscle training as well as the chop membranes actually having to regrow to vibrate correctly.

So, following that train of thought, I would start where I was solid. I wouldn't repeat failing attempts, hoping for a different outcome with each effort. Why re-enforce failure? I would always work from solid ground. I think you are trying to slur an octave from middle Bb up one octave. Perhaps you are solid somewhere else - like middle G in 4th position, up an octave. If that was me, then I would slowly work up the slide, even in 1/8th step increments, if that's what it took. It might take me a while with this approach, but I think eventually, I would make it.

There may be a quicker way, however.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-20 11:04 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Must be Andrew. He was the only one you didn't mention. He talked about moving the horn left/right over your face.[/quote]

Oops, I missed Andrew's post too. As you might guess, it took a while for me to get my earlier post written and edited, since it's so long. I think he posted after I started too and I only noticed Neo Bri's post after I submitted.

Could be me. I threw a lot of spaghetti but you agreed to almost all of it. Spaghetti is good.

Mm, I think I know what I'm going to cook for dinner tonight now that you mention it.

[quote="ArbanRubank"]I had a tough nut to crack once, but it was going down instead of up. What worked for me was to approach it from what I could do well and then work to extend it downward in small increments; stopping when it didn't work and even retreating back to firm ground if necessary.[/quote]

Yes, that's a good strategy, but I think it's better if we do this with a complete understanding of what is causing the problem in the first place. Sometimes the mechanical issue is starting in another range and not breaking down until it gets to another spot. See below.

[quote="AndrewMeronek"]I'd also ask to see the same slurs done on a different horn - maybe with a different slide width or a baritone horn or something. Sometimes with narrow slides, the neck restricts getting to just the right angle for a high or low range[/quote]

That can sometimes be an issue for me and other players who place best towards the left side and who need to bring the horn angle towards the left. Back in 1998, when I interviewed Doug Elliott for my dissertation and grabbed a lesson, he had me flip my horn left handed so that I could feel my ascending horn angle change to the left working.

[quote="Neo Bri"]Also, although the placement is low (IV-A), I'd like to see what happens when it's a little higher, giving you room to pull a little more in the high range.[/quote]

That's not a bad suggestion, although I don't think that's really the case here. It's a good idea to not assume that a player's placement is ideal always and it's worth trying out some different things.

I think two or three of you have gotten close enough that I'll go ahead and spill the beans.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I think this indicates pinching and an embouchure that is too tight over the teeth, or puckered too tightly.[/quote]

Yes! Too much pucker. This seems to be the biggest problem of the inconsistencies, to me.

[quote="harrisonreed"]minimize the excessive shifting I see up/down/left/right.[/quote]

I wouldn't use the term "shifting" to describe the embouchure motion of pushing/pulling the mouthpiece and lips along the teeth and gums as well as any accompanying horn angle changes, but you're correct in that it's not working so efficiently.

[quote="baileyman"]Sounds to me like the mouth resonance isn't tuned to the higher note when attempted. I'd suggest blowing through pursed lips listening to the whoosh and get it tuned to the higher note and try again.[/quote]

That's indeed part of the issue, but a little hard for me to show on video without going into an fMRI and all that. But that's exactly one of the things that Doug had me working on to make corrections.

[quote="Neo Bri"]I'd like to see some buzz-ins to determine what the placement is like, and to prevent any of the "wind-ups" that are happening before the slurs.[/quote]

Buzzing in with an upstream embouchure is problematic. Free buzzing upstream really doesn't target the correct muscles for playing (the area just under the mouth corners). But that is something that Doug had me try out just to see what happened. It really didn't work. Good insights, though. I'll write more about this in another post.

[quote="Neo Bri"]Someone mentioned the aperture possibly being too wide in the high range. I feel it could be the opposite problem where the placement is so low that the aperture mechanically starts to cut off when the downward pull happpens.[/quote]

Yes, it's too tight because my embouchure formation is too puckered too quickly.

[quote="Neo Bri"]Don't pull so hard?[/quote]

Yes, my embouchure motion moves too quickly towards ascending. If you watch my octave slurs closely you can see my embouchure motion is to pull down and to my left to ascend, push up and to my right to descend. The horn angle needs to follow the shape of my teeth and gums and go left to ascend and right to descend.

The overall track of that is too far on the ascending side in the middle range. Look at the amount between low Bb and middle Bb and compare how much there is between middle Bb and high Bb. There's not really any room to keep that going as I ascend. The middle range needs to be further towards the lower register side of things.

Combined with the excessive pucker (and a tongue position that's probably too high), I have a tendency to overshoot notes between F above the staff and high Bb. When I'm not warmed up (like in the first video above) or getting tired, that range can completely choke off.

I've been aware of these problems for a while now, but it's been tough to make the necessary corrections habitual. Now that we have identified the three areas that need work (not puckering so much, keep the middle register embouchure motion closer to the low register, tongue position too high), how would you go about fixing these issues?

Just to be clear, I've recently made some good progress on these things with some help from Doug. The practice that I used to get there was . . . interesting. I'll post about that experience in a while, but I want to give you all a chance to throw out some ideas and see what sticks.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-20 11:39 a.m.

Tongue & Blow?

Song & Wind?

Gin & Tonic?

Tomato & Basil?

Salt & Pepper?

Persimmons will make you pucker....

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-02-20 11:50 a.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]<QUOTE author="ArbanRubank" post_id="141332" time="1613834006" user_id="4907">
I had a tough nut to crack once, but it was going down instead of up. What worked for me was to approach it from what I could do well and then work to extend it downward in small increments; stopping when it didn't work and even retreating back to firm ground if necessary.[/quote]

Yes, that's a good strategy, but I think it's better if we do this with a complete understanding of what is causing the problem in the first place. Sometimes the mechanical issue is starting in another range and not breaking down until it gets to another spot. See below.
</QUOTE>

Fair enough. I learned a lot about my particular embouchure mechanics in the process and it still took a long time.

So while embouchure mechanics might well be THE primary driver, I still assert that the muscles, tissues, etc sometimes need time to regroup after whatever changes a correction in embouchure mechanics necessitates. At least they did for me.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-20 12:11 p.m.

[quote="ArbanRubank"]So while embouchure mechanics might well be THE primary driver, I still assert that the muscles, tissues, etc sometimes need time to regroup after whatever changes a correction in embouchure mechanics necessitates. At least they did for me.[/quote]

Yes, absolutely! Any time a correction is made (in breathing and tonguing too) you need to adjust things and often that means building strength and control.

The point I was trying to make was that in my particular case I might try working up to the high Bb from low or middle Bb, but since middle Bb has been too far towards the ascending side of things, that working up from there without getting the middle register towards where it needs to be won't really fix the problem. I prefer to approach these things from a point of understanding what I'm doing and what the cause and effect is.

That might seem like a no-brainer and should be assumed, but a lot of brass pedagogy approaches this from the standpoint that you shouldn't think about how you're playing. Case in point:

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Tongue & Blow?

Song & Wind?[/quote]

That's not to suggest that these approaches are always bad. In fact, I would argue that some of our daily practice time should be devoted to that. But again, that's sort of like throwing the spaghetti against the wall and hoping that something sticks. You still end up with a mess to clean up.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Gin & Tonic?

Tomato & Basil?

Salt & Pepper?[/quote]

Mmm, I know exactly what I'm going to have with my spaghetti for dinner tonight.

harrisonreed · 2021-02-20 12:15 p.m.

I'll revisit some of the stuff I mentioned earlier, now that we sort of know what is going on.

1. How do you know that your mouthpiece diameter is not too big, as I suggested? If these changes you talked about with Doug are new strategies, and these videos are the result of your progress, then you were possibly worse off before, technique-wise, when you were using the smaller rims. Things getting better moving to bigger rims may have just been you getting better at coping.

Think about it, the jaw is what controls most of the pivot, however you go about it, upstream or down. It's the only part of your head that is able to control the physical angle of the aperture. I thought it was pretty much an accepted fact that blowing air angled closer to the bore of the mouthpiece (ie nearly straight in) produces the airflow and compression needed for the low register, and angling the air closer to the rim is the pivot needed for the upper register. With the right size mouthpiece this change in airflow can be accomplished with almost no motion of the instrument, and very small movements of the jaw and tongue. In your video, your horn has to move everywhere to change registers. It's not like it's a bad habit, but I think it's necessitated out of your equipment. You actually have to do those things to play. Bear with me:

If your aperture is above the throat of the mouthpiece and you are upstream to begin with, the larger the cup diameter you use, the further below the aperture the bore will be (you're not going to change where the mp feels right on your upper lip), and the more of a pivot you will need in order to move into the lower register. I would not be surprised if you had to switch to downstream to blow a pedal Bb. To visualize, imagine the same placement on your upper lip but using a sand bucket -- the bore would be below your chin and you could never ever hit it without switching to downstream. If you put a trumpet mouthpiece on the same spot, the bore would probably be above the aperture.

With such a low placement, your aperture is extremely close to the target you need to hit for the upper register, namely right inside the rim. However, you probably learned to play from the middle register, and so your natural setup is unnaturally pivoted to direct air closer to the middle of the cup. A larger mouthpiece moves that target further away, making your basic "natural" embouchure more and more unnatural.

Likewise, for me, placing most of the mouthpiece on my upper lip puts my aperture below the bore. In this case, the larger the cup diameter, the closer the bore is to my natural, comfortable placement. On a 5G I have to go from down stream to upstream in order to get the air close to the bore and play a pedal tone. On a 2G I just blow straight in.

So, I'm willing to bet that your jaw is forced into an unnatural, receded position just for normal mid register playing and you've gotten used to that. You are pivoted in your basic register before you even start, giving yourself less usable use motion to go away from the basic middle notes. You are moving the horn up on your face to get the bore closer aligned with the aperture, rather than just changing the direction of the air with your tongue and jaw (changing the shape of the aperture).

With a smaller rim, the bore would be closer aligned with the aperture while your jaw is in a relaxed position. THEN you can utilize your jaw to direct the air. Pivot into the upper register, and relax into the middle register.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-20 12:30 p.m.

2. You say don't focus on the jaw movement forward and backwards, and only focus on the way the air goes. See 1. above. I think the only mechanism to control the aperture and how the air goes into the mouthpiece is the jaw. It dictates the correct embouchure type.

3. Now that we know that you're puckering too tight, I think it is worth going holistic and thinking about resistance. How can you just use your jaw to control an otherwise relaxed embouchure? How can you leverage the resistance of the trombone to "complete" your buzz as your air hits it, rather than forcing the buzz?

MTbassbone · by **MTbassbone** » 2021-02-20 12:46 p.m.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Tongue & Blow?

Song & Wind?

Gin & Tonic?

Tomato & Basil?

Salt & Pepper?

Persimmons will make you pucker....[/quote]

Beans & Rice creates Song & Wind..... :good:

PosauneCat · 2021-02-20 1:06 p.m.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Tongue & Blow?

Song & Wind?

Gin & Tonic?

Tomato & Basil?

Salt & Pepper?

Persimmons will make you pucker....[/quote]

Perhaps the best post on any trombone forum ever. I am using number three quite liberally.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-20 1:21 p.m.

[quote="MTbassbone"]Beans & Rice creates Song & Wind..... :good:[/quote]

Why didn't I think of that...

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-20 1:38 p.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]How do you know that your mouthpiece diameter is not too big, as I suggested?[/quote]

Good question. I still have my Elliott 101 rim. I'll screw it on and try it out later. I just got finished practicing something pretty strenuous and want to rest for a while before I play again.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Think about it, the jaw is what controls most of the pivot, however you go about it, upstream or down.[/quote]

Let's not use the term "pivot" here. It means different things to different people, so I don't want to muddy the waters. My preference is to use the term Doug used when he first taught this concept to me, "embouchure motion."

All players, whether or not they are consciously aware, will push the mouthpiece and lips together along the teeth and gums while changing registers. This motion will be generally in an up or down direction, but most people have at least a little bit from one side to another. The track of my own embouchure motion is to pull down and to my left to ascend and push up and to my right to descend.

As the mouthpiece rim moves along the teeth and gums it's necessary for the horn angles to change around to keep the foundation of the teeth/gums underneath the rim/lips consistent. So as I ascend and pull down and to the left, I also will bring my horn angle in that direction to keep it consistent. Some players will have a horn angle change that goes more up/down, but often they are doing that in place of the embouchure motion. Think of the left hand as a fulcrum, as the bell moves down the mouthpiece comes up. You see this a lot with trumpet players, I think, who have their left hands further away from the face compared with trombonists.

The jaw also does come into play. I believe it's probably best to not drop/raise the jaw (or minimize that as much as possible). It will move forward/back and also left to right, but this should probably be pretty minimal. There also seems to be a correlation between side to side jaw motion and side to side horn angle changes as well. If the horn angle needs to move to one side, the jaw will move slightly to the other side. So as I ascend I'm pulling down and to my left, bringing my horn angle towards the left, and moving my jaw slightly forward and to the right.

Doug can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most players will bring the jaw slightly forward to ascend. At least that's something Donald Reinhardt wrote. I'm not sure that this is universal, though, and you might find variations with all embouchure types. Doug?

So where you say the jaw is controlling all this, I think it's more of a coordination of these different interactions together (along with tongue position and breath control too).

[quote="harrisonreed"]It's the only part of your head that is able to control the physical angle of the aperture.[/quote]

The lip compression and the embouchure motion also contribute to the angle the air stream will be directed. With an upstream player the lower lip will flatten and get drawn in to ascend. When an upstream player pulls down to ascend that also helps to align the aperture correctly. With downstream players it's different, depending on the type, but the lower lip will tend to roll in. ~~[url=https://youtu.be/NZYuiPLSuPw]~~Lloyd Leno's film is a pretty good look at these things.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I would not be surprised if you had to switch to downstream to blow a pedal Bb.[/quote]

Here's my pedal Bb. Granted, this photo was taken while working on my dissertation, so sometime around 1999 I think. I'll try to grab some video of me playing pedals into a transparent mouthpiece later and we can see what I'm doing now, but my guess is it will look pretty similar.

[quote="harrisonreed"]So, I'm willing to bet that your jaw is forced into an unnatural, receded position just for normal mid register playing and you've gotten used to that. You are pivoted in your basic register before you even start, giving yourself less usable use motion to go away from the basic middle notes. You are moving the horn up on your face to get the bore closer aligned with the aperture, rather than just changing the direction of the air with your tongue and jaw (changing the shape of the aperture).[/quote]

I'm not sure I'm fully following you here, partly because of what you may or may not be meaning by "pivot" and "moving the horn up on your face."

I can bring my jaw forward and align the teeth, but playing that way with an upstream embouchure doesn't work for me. I know a trumpet player with the same embouchure characteristics as mine who has told me he has the exact same issue if he brings his jaw forward and horn angle up. He's a pretty good player (<YOUTUBE id="lyxXOcHhYV4" t="2906">https://youtu.be/lyxXOcHhYV4?t=2906).</YOUTUBE>

[quote="harrisonreed"]You say don't focus on the jaw movement forward and backwards, and only focus on the way the air goes.[/quote]

Did I say that? I didn't mean to imply that. See above.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I think the only mechanism to control the aperture and how the air goes into the mouthpiece is the jaw. It dictates the correct embouchure type.[/quote]

There are other factors that come into play in addition to the ones I mentioned above. The relationship of the length of the lips to the teeth and gums are another factor that I think help determine a player's best embouchure type, but certainly the anatomy of the jaw come into play as well. But again, I don't think we'll find the jaw moving forward/backwards will determine the embouchure type alone.

Here's a downstream trombonist playing a low Bb.

Here's the same player playing a middle Bb.

And a high Bb.

He's also protruding his jaw to ascend (probably too much, but I don't recall how those notes sounded). You can also see how much he's relying on a lower lip roll to direct the air stream.

Here's another upstream trombonist playing a low Bb.

Middle Bb

High Bb

I think his jaw drop on the low Bb is disguising the overall jaw position somewhat. Here's his F above high Bb.

You can see the lower lip flattening out here as he ascends. His jaw position moves forwards slightly as he ascends too.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Now that we know that you're puckering too tight, I think it is worth going holistic and thinking about resistance. How can you just use your jaw to control an otherwise relaxed embouchure? How can you leverage the resistance of the trombone to "complete" your buzz as your air hits it, rather than forcing the buzz?[/quote]

That's a pretty good suggestion (although I don't want to be too "relaxed"). It mirrors some things that Doug had me try out and I'm at a spot now where that sort of practice is helping. But at the time I recorded the above video that sort of practice wasn't really working for me. The habitual puckering was particularly hard to get rid of. So assume you have a student that that recommendation isn't clicking with. What other things might you try?

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-20 5:23 p.m.

Another thing you could try, isolate the tongue's role in changing registers. Focus on the back of your tongue, and work on slow octave leaps. The lower note is a regular "ta" or "toh" articulation. When the note is established, using a "gah", "gohh", or "gee" (like geek) articulation, move up an octave without anticipating or shifting too much. Which sound depends on which octave you are in.

Then go back down the octave, by just sitting the tongue to move back to where it was before.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-20 11:30 p.m.

I commented on this elsewhere alread, but I felt the need to jump in to correct the terrible advice from someone named "Doug Elliott". Persimmons will not work here, I know from personal experience! Low placement players should be eating kumquats, instead. So I'll copy my notes here:

My take is that, perhaps, there is over-pivoting happening: too much adjustment for the lower octave doesn't leave enough room to make the upper octave cleanly. It looks like Dave is struggling a bit to find the right "spot" for the upper note here, with a little bit of an inconsistent motion, and that could be from having moved too far on the way "up" to there. But I think there may be other things going on, as well - this is a tricky one.

I'm looking forward to hearing the remedy and how it is applied!

timothy42b · by **timothy42b** » 2021-02-21 9:07 a.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]

I wouldn't use the term "shifting" to describe the embouchure motion of pushing/pulling the mouthpiece and lips along the teeth and gums as well as any accompanying horn angle changes, but you're correct in that it's not working so efficiently.

Yes, my embouchure motion moves too quickly towards ascending. If you watch my octave slurs closely you can see my embouchure motion is to pull down and to my left to ascend, push up and to my right to descend. The horn angle needs to follow the shape of my teeth and gums and go left to ascend and right to descend.

The overall track of that is too far on the ascending side in the middle range. Look at the amount between low Bb and middle Bb and compare how much there is between middle Bb and high Bb. There's not really any room to keep that going as I ascend. The middle range needs to be further towards the lower register side of things.
[/quote]

I see something else happening and I wonder if it contributes.

When I watch trumpet and trombone players, I see mostly the head still, and the horn moving. When i watch tuba, horn, or euphonium players, who are more constrained by their instrument, I see the instrument still and the head moving. Obviously either one can work.

Watching you I see a little of both. Could that be hurting consistency? Sometimes you adjust with your head, sometimes with your horn.

I think you teach both jazz and classical (did I almost say legit? <smiley>) A microphone player may be training himself to keep the horn still and move the head, while a classical player the opposite. If you do both, do you get confused?

Oslide · by **Oslide** » 2021-02-21 11:20 a.m.

...shot out of the blue...

Open your downward angle a bit and open the "back of your head".

"Reason": When I see your pucker I feel my throat contricting low down at the root of my tongue.

What I wrote might help you - at least in my fancy.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-21 11:29 a.m.

Here are some things I don't want to let slip through the cracks:

Doug, do you agree with what Reinhardt wrote about the jaw always coming forward very slightly to ascend and coming back very slightly to descend for all types? It's the case for me (with some side to side) and it seems to be the case for many other players as well, but I don't know necessarily how universal this might be.

Harrison, do the photos and videos help show how lip compression, embouchure motion and jaw position interact to help a player adjust the air stream direction? In practice, I don't think about directing the air stream further upward as I ascend nor do I think other players should, although I know that some people find it helpful to think this way. I also know that there are others who swear that they blow straight down, but I don't believe them. At least not if things are working well.

Speaking of which, Doubler, do the videos and photos above help show upstream/downstream in a good enough context to better understand how brass embouchure actually function? While some players might fell like a 50/50 placement and the sensation of blowing straight down the mouthpiece shank works, that's not advisable in practice. One lip or another needs to predominate and the air stream must be blown generally in one direction or another to function well. When it doesn't there are problems that you can see and hear if you know what to look for. I have some video that I can post that demonstrates this if you want to see.

[quote="Oslide"]Open your downward angle a bit and open the "back of your head".[/quote]

I don't fully follow you. "Open" my angle and back of my head?

[quote="harrisonreed"]Another thing you could try, isolate the tongue's role in changing registers.[/quote]

Harrison, for someone who claims to not be an expert you've been pretty insightful in this thread. This is also something that Doug had been recommending to me.

[quote="PaulTdot"]I commented on this elsewhere alread, but I felt the need to jump in to correct the terrible advice from someone named "Doug Elliott".[/quote]

Yeah, I know. Just wait until I tell you exactly what crazy experiment we tried to get me moving in the right direction.

[quote="PaulTdot"]My take is that, perhaps, there is over-pivoting happening: too much adjustment for the lower octave doesn't leave enough room to make the upper octave cleanly.[/quote]

Let's not use the term "pivot" here. I'll use "embouchure motion" instead.

Yes, that is spot on. In the videos I posted above if you look closely you might notice me "fishing" around a bit for the right spot on the middle Bb. I am aware that it's usually too far towards my ascending side, so when I catch myself doing it I will bring it back.

[quote="timothy42b"]Watching you I see a little of both. Could that be hurting consistency? Sometimes you adjust with your head, sometimes with your horn.[/quote]

What do you know, I hadn't noticed that really but you're right. I'm not overly concerned about it now, it's fairly minimal, but it would probably be better to keep my head still and do it more with the left hand. Little things like this that go unnoticed can sometimes turn into bigger problems later.

So fine tuning my embouchure motion and tongue arch are two things that can be improved here. Doing exercises that focus on them or isolate them can be very helpful. For example, Harrison's suggested exercise for tongue position. His idea of just using my jaw to change registers also is a good way to train ascending from low Bb up to middle Bb while keeping my embouchure motion minimal.

The excessive lip pucker has been a tougher nut to crack, though. It's interesting because this is the exact opposite problem that a lot of upstream players have. It's fairly common to see Low Placement embouchure type players who pull the mouth corners back to ascend (smile embouchure). I'm finding that like many players who do that, it hasn't been possible for me to fix that problem just by looking at a mirror while I play and paying attention to it.

The typical solution for this problem has been alluded to by a couple of people above already, I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on how you might help a student fix the smile embouchure or an excessive lip pucker? How would your advice change for an upstream player compared to a downstream player?

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-02-21 12:12 p.m.

Going back to the title of your thread, I see the words "crazy fix". So here's a crazy idea. For the purpose of this exercise to correct a problem - adopt a very high placement downstream embouchure. If you can even play, work the problem using everything you know about embouchure mechanics. When you think you have made a break-through, revert back to your usual upstream embouchure and flip everything you learned upside down. How's that for crazy?

Warning to all others: don't try this at home. Dave is a professionally-trained musician in a closed studio.

imsevimse · by **imsevimse** » 2021-02-21 1:24 p.m.

Well I'm a little late to the discussion. From the first video it sounds like the cavaty of the mouth does not match the frequencies played and the sound on middle Bb and low Bb is not a relaxed free sound. It could also be caused by tensions in the tongue or in the throat. It is very hard to guess but there is a lot of air that leaking. I mean air that goes through the instrument and not creates a sound. This can be caused by tensions in the emboushure where tension is not wanted. Right were the sound creates on the lips the emboushure must be relaxed to give a free sound. Right were the aperture is, where the hole is there can not be tensions. The tissue should work as free as possible. It must be soft and free to vibrate. Around the hole the muscles need to do the right things. This is what I hear. Then what to do about it?

I think long tones and soft playing in a more comfortable register would help the situation more than more of what is not working . Relaxed sounds in comfortable registers is how I have helped myself and to gradually expand this up in register and down.

If you feel you need to angle left for low notes and right for high notes or vice versa, and this helps I think you should keep it. I do a little of that too but only in the low register on the valve and not as much as you do, but I have also noticed that helps me.

I'm no expert on emboushures except my own emboushure so I can not help much there and apologise for any wrong conclusions, but to me this does not sound and look like an emboushure problem. It sounds more like suffeeing from fatigue and tensions. Fatigue can make us forget basics and we might build up tensions at places were there are no tensions when we are fresh. If this happens to me I put the horn in the box. Is that the crazy fix?

I remember I had days when nothing worked when I was young and then I just took the day off. It happened when I had practiced too much. Today I never get that tired and my emboushure has become much more efficient and robust. I never thought I could double on trombone, french horn, trumpet and flugelhorn and for certain I could not imagine to do all those instruments every day with my emboushure, but that's what I've done now for more than half a year and it works. Something did change because when I was a teacher on all brass and had students I could not play all the mouthpieces so I concentrated on trombone but now when I'm free to experiment and take this in steps it acctually works.

/Tom

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-21 1:27 p.m.

ArbanRubank got it right!

I knew that Dave would be up for an experiment, so I suggested a week or so of downstream, but being careful to use the Very High (IIIA in Reinhardt terms) placement and motion. That had a good chance of stabilizing his corners in a better place.

Dave's corners were too far forward, too puckered, and had been heading that direction for a while. I went through that myself a long time ago with similar problems, so I'm familiar with the feeling.

Upstream embouchures seem to have a particular problem with finding the best location for the corners. Many of them either pull back too far or are puckered too much. Upstream can work really well when it's right, but sometimes it's a challenge to get there.

I'll let him tell the rest of the story.

Oslide · by **Oslide** » 2021-02-21 1:35 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]<QUOTE author="Oslide" post_id="141459" time="1613924423" user_id="2947">
Open your downward angle a bit and open the "back of your head".[/quote]
I don't fully follow you. "Open" my angle and back of my head?
</QUOTE>

Not a big surprise :)

Singers work a lot with such pictures, e.g. "imagine to drink your tone".

My impression is that your pucker causes you to constrict your throat low down, and the imagination of blowing your tone not through the lips but through the "back (or top) of your head" might help you to achieve a better shape of the tongue, oral cavity, and throat.

But I see the experts going in a different direction. Not a big surprise either :)

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-21 1:51 p.m.

[quote="ArbanRubank"]Going back to the title of your thread, I see the words "crazy fix". So here's a crazy idea. For the purpose of this exercise to correct a problem - adopt a very high placement downstream embouchure.[/quote]

Awesome! I really didn't think anyone would get there without many more big hints!

Here's a video montage that shows some clips from before I started playing exclusively with a Very High Placement embouchure type for 10 days, and then a couple of days after switching back. It's about 7 minutes long, skip to 5:02 to see the first day back with a Low Placement embouchure.

<YOUTUBE id="qxSYvDTQrEY">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/qxSYvDTQrEY</YOUTUBE>

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-21 1:56 p.m.

[quote="Oslide"]My impression is that your pucker causes you to constrict your throat low down, and the imagination of blowing your tone not through the lips but through the "back (or top) of your head" might help you to achieve a better shape of the tongue, oral cavity, and throat.[/quote]

Analogies and mental imagery is good. An awful lot of trombone playing is knacky and you just need to do it until you figure out how to make it click for you. Unfortunately it doesn't always work the same for different players. Sometimes they can be taken too literally.

I think one of the things that got me into this downward spiral in the first place was taking something too literally, or at least too far.

But I'll try out your analogy some and see how it works. After the 10 day experiment to get my mouth corners working better I'm in a place now where making the corrections to my tongue level and embouchure motion are working better.

biggiesmalls · by **biggiesmalls** » 2021-02-21 3:19 p.m.

Thanks for the video Dave, it's great to be able to follow the experiment and see the results of this divergent collaboration between you and Doug.

[quote="Oslide"]My impression is that your pucker causes you to constrict your throat low down, and the imagination of blowing your tone not through the lips but through the "back (or top) of your head" might help you to achieve a better shape of the tongue, oral cavity, and throat.[/quote]

Interesting. Recently, I was finally able to address some lingering tensions in the left side of my throat and tongue by imagining that my sound was emanating from the center of my forehead/third eye. This visualization (really just an adaptation of a meditation technique) had a centering and balancing effect that allowed me to identify and release the tensions in the left side of my breathing system. My tone, flexibility, tongue speed, legato playing and high register consistency all improved. Once the correct "feel" had been established, I no longer needed the visualization, but I still sometimes find it helpful in the high register, and when my high register is really clicking, I'll get a little tingle in the center of my forehead, as if it's telling me "Yes! That's right!. Just relax..."

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-21 3:28 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]An awful lot of trombone playing is knacky [...][/quote]

Now isn't that a sentence!

Meanwhile:

Dave, I can't thank you enough for documenting this process. Quite the fascinating journey! I hope you will continue to keep us in the loop (I don't know how long ago this all was, or if it's entirely "current".)

As I've mentioned to you privately, it's very hard for me to imagine having any issues with over-puckering (my natural tendency was always to smile), so watching this is absolutely fascinating to me.

Doug, do you know how you ended up over-puckering, and were the results similar to what we're seeing here?

Thank you both for sharing this incredible little piece of brass journalism.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-21 3:37 p.m.

I'm also curious about the use of the elasticity routine.

I would think that if anything might tempt a player to over-pucker, it would be that. Were there risks involved, or is there some reason it's particular useful here?

grgryrock · by **grgryrock** » 2021-02-21 3:54 p.m.

Doug, do you know how you ended up over-puckering, and were the results similar to what we're seeing here?

I’d like to understand this as well. I’ve recently have gone back to modern trombone after about ten years of playing historical trombones and I’m finding that the mouthpieces, being a bit different than my modern mouthpiece, has changed some things For me. I’m doing a lot of puckering. Interesting thread, I’ve been following it with much interest!

baileyman · by **baileyman** » 2021-02-21 4:34 p.m.

Bummer the whatever-type-it-is-embouchure cannot freebuzz very well. Maybe the temporary setting would do it better? Experience indicates, if a note can be buzzed, it can be played, with some exceptions for the crazy lows in partial 0.5 and down (still working on that though).

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-21 6:36 p.m.

I don't think the the jaw comes forward to ascend for downstream players. For me it moves up and back, as the tongue moves forward towards the back of my top teeth. You're describing upstream playing, where the jar moves the aperture to face towards the rim by moving forward.

Dave, from the videos, I have to ask -- are you hitting some sort of initial stage of focal dystonia? I realize that the videos of the "crazy fix" were a fight the entire time. But even after switching back, there's a fight going on there.

Everything, even after the switch back, sounds pinched, where there is air going through lips that do not want to vibrate freely.

I don't think the freebuzzing you are doing as the mouthpiece moves onto your face is helping you here, even after you stop doing it and switch back to upstream. I think it is hurting you. The tone sounds like someone buzzing into a mouthpiece, instead of letting the horn resistance create the buzz. Again, though I know it is a spear thrown, but your last video illustrates how buzzing helps you practice putting tension into the system and create a pinched tone. Compare to this:

<YOUTUBE id="Fz5fow-pf68">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/Fz5fow-pf68</YOUTUBE>

With a further explanation after people lambasted him:

<YOUTUBE id="d7XnY4wjF74">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/d7XnY4wjF74</YOUTUBE>

The tone in your videos sounds close to the mouthpiece buzzing sound Lindberg says buzzing causes.

It would be interesting to see a video where you are not experimenting and you are just playing something to compare the other videos to. I want so badly to know, oh, he is having these troubles because he is just experimenting. I truly hope you are not having this struggle in your normal playing!

timothy42b · by **timothy42b** » 2021-02-21 7:16 p.m.

I notice two things completely unrelated to the original topic. Sorry!

You keep a read pBone on a stand with the mouthpiece in. I don't do that because on my red one, as the friction fit wore, it became unreliable enough sometimes the weight of the mouthpiece would make the slide detach and bash the mouthpiece on the floor. Since most mouthpieces cost more than a pBone that seems like a bad idea.

You do Warmup 57 like someone else who posted here recently.

Okay, returning you to your regularly scheduled topic.

Oh wait. I watched your video all the way. When you switched back to upstream, your first Bb was slightly lower pitch to my ears than it had been earlier. I didn't check with a tuner, I might be wrong, or it might have been a cold horn, but if not then there's a slight difference in tuning here. Either mouth cavity or where you're playing in reference to the slot. Also when you started your downstream journey and were playing fifths, your F was more sharp than I expected.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-21 8:46 p.m.

[quote="timothy42b"]You keep a read pBone on a stand with the mouthpiece in. I don't do that because on my red one, as the friction fit wore, it became unreliable enough sometimes the weight of the mouthpiece would make the slide detach and bash the mouthpiece on the floor.[/quote]

Thanks for the heads up.

[quote="timothy42b"]You do Warmup 57 like someone else who posted here recently.[/quote]

Yes. I've always liked the circuit training idea behind it. For those of you who don't know about this routine, there are some long tones/lip slurs, flexibility exercises, and ascending chromatic patterns. In this routine you play through a number of sets of these exercises that keep expanding the range as it goes further.

Doug has mentioned that this exercise was probably originally designed for what he calls the "Medium High Placement" embouchure type. I chose to use that routine because my range with a Very High Placement wasn't good enough to play much over F above the staff, so I liked how it stayed in the middle range longer.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I don't think the the jaw comes forward to ascend for downstream players.[/quote]

Maybe, maybe not. As I mentioned above, I don't really know how universal this feature is. Regardless, you will find downstream players who do move the jaw slightly forward to ascend. You might be different.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Dave, from the videos, I have to ask -- are you hitting some sort of initial stage of focal dystonia? I realize that the videos of the "crazy fix" were a fight the entire time. But even after switching back, there's a fight going on there.[/quote]

Thanks for your concern, that's so sweet!

Well, especially the first day back it was challenging because I had just spent 10 days playing with an embouchure that is upside down from what I'm used to. That was 5 days ago.

[quote="harrisonreed"]It would be interesting to see a video where you are not experimenting and you are just playing something to compare the other videos to. I want so badly to know, oh, he is having these troubles because he is just experimenting. I truly hope you are not having this struggle in your normal playing![/quote]

Ask and ye shall receive.

<YOUTUBE id="5J5MDmYQ6MY">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/5J5MDmYQ6MY</YOUTUBE>

Yes, a lot of upstream players have more trouble getting a darker and resonant tone. It's something I continue to work on. My tone kind of reminds me of Kai Winding's at times, who was also an upstream player. I'm aiming for more like Dick Nash, another upstream player.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-21 9:40 p.m.

I feel better! A total difference from the other videos taken out of musical context. Phew!

The crazy fix though... What did that fix? If you're upstream, you're upstream, right? It's like making a lefty write with their right hand.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-22 8:17 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I feel better! A total difference from the other videos taken out of musical context. Phew!

The crazy fix though... What did that fix? If you're upstream, you're upstream, right? It's like making a lefty write with their right hand.[/quote]

My excessive lip pucker had gotten to the point of where it was a conditioned response to putting the mouthpiece on the lips. It was just too hard to not put the corners forward and inward. In one of my lessons with Doug while working on this I commented that if I were a downstream player I would be buzzing into the mouthpiece. While free buzzing my corners are where I want them to be while playing.

We tried it, but it requires flipping the lip position as the mouthpiece contacts the lips and it wasn't working. Switching to downstream allowed me to buzz into the instrument (the very thing you were feeling was hurting me). I also think the strange playing sensation of having everything upside down also changed the feel enough that the conditioned response to over puckering when the mouthpiece was set on the lips was eliminated. If you compare the before and during clips carefully you might be able to see the corners stay further back when I play with the Very High Placement type. All that time playing upside down like that helped to train my mouth corners to stay where I want them to be for my Low Placement embouchure. Now that I've switched back I'm hyper aware of when the corners begin to pucker and the feeling of them staying back is something I can more easily capture and return to.

The opposite embouchure motion (pushing up to ascend, rather than pulling down to ascend) also may have helped me similarly. As we worked out above, I have a tendency to be too far in my ascending direction (downward, for my Low Placement type) in the middle register (and probably then for the upper register too as I continue to move that way to ascend). While playing as a Very High Placement I had to remain conscious to do the reverse motion and started to get used to it. After switching back I'm again hyper aware of when I go too far.

I don't want to give the completely wrong impression of my playing before and after. The earlier clips I posted here were chosen precisely because those were the times I got caught with my pants down, so to speak. Some folks might not notice much of a difference between clips of me blowing over some changes before and after, but it certainly feels better to me now.

With the pandemic I don't have any real playing obligations right now, so it was a good time to do this. Probably I could have worked it out during normal times eventually, but I think it would have taken more time and I would have been able to play any gigs downstream and switching back and forth for practice and performing would have bee difficult.

Thank you, Doug, for the help. Thank you everyone else for the interesting discussion and I hope you've found it interesting and helpful.

Dave

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-02-22 9:42 a.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]Thank you everyone else for the interesting discussion and I hope you've found it interesting and helpful.

Dave[/quote]

I did.

I have been periodically attempting to play a Doug Yeo replica mouthpiece on my single-trigger bass. Why? Because it is capable of a really nice sound. But it has been a struggle for me. The vids of you buzzing into the mouthpiece gave me a concept. I applied it this morning with excellent results.

Thanks!

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-22 1:31 p.m.

As I have commented elsewhere, this has been an incredible study and I commend your bravery, both for trying something so unorthodox and for standing naked before us and showing us the journey.

I look forward to hearing about the longer-term effects!

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-23 10:12 a.m.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Mon Feb 22, 2021 12:36 am

I don't think the the jaw comes forward to ascend for downstream players.

I did look up what D Reinhardt wrote in his famous book

Indeed he wrote that downplayers jaw moved forward to ascend. He wrote the same for upstream players.

My believe is that he made amisstake in his writing.

I taught trombone playing at music gymnasium for 30 years, a instirut for teachers of music for 26 years, the Royal School of Music for 25 years. I did see "downstream" players move their jaw forward for high range. But very few. Most Swedish trombone players who place the mpc high do the opposite. I say at least 90 %.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-23 10:56 a.m.

I agree that Reinhardt made some mistakes.

But I also think that what a player does (no matter how great they are) is not necessarily indicative of what they should do. Consistency issues, bad days, chop breakdowns, and "dystonia" come from doing things that are inefficient, inconsistent, and sometimes harmful - or NOT doing the right things that continue to build consistency.

Jaw manipulation is a very individual thing, and generally should be very little, if any.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-23 8:51 p.m.

From what I've seen, the majority of players do recede the jaw as they ascend...

The *best* players, however, do not, or push it forward. They have stronger and fuller upper registers and more consistent mechanics. (As Doug says, what a player does is not necessarily what's best for them.)

It can be hard to tell with a Medium High Placement/IIIB, though, especially if their horn angle is relatively low. I can't see why they wouldn't benefit from solidifying their jaw support.

Mind you, this is anecdotal - I don't have any kind of solid evidence for this.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-23 9:22 p.m.

I do it to as I ascend to angle my aperture down, towards the edge of the rim. The cup shoots the air at different speeds into the bore depending on the angle you direct it in. For pedals, it is going towards the bore, towards the throat of the mouthpiece. This gives you more volume of air at a slower rate. For the upper register, a smaller volume of air is going in towards the edge of the cup, very fast. It hits this edge and shoots in to the bore very fast.

This is why shallow mouthpieces are easier to play in the upper register -- the target near the edge of the cup is a lot bigger, and you don't need to angle it as much.

If you are a high placement downstream player, it makes little sense to push your jaw forward as you ascent, as this angles the aperture towards the bore, just like for the pedal register. In fact, for players like me, before I had the right sized mouthpiece, my jaw would have to come so far forward for pedals that I would go to upstream playing for that register. The reason being, no matter what size rim I use, where I put the mouthpiece for me is based on the same spot on the upper lip. The smaller the mouthpiece, the higher up the bore goes in relation to my aperture. To the point where I can't hit my air close enough to the bore to play a pedal on a 5G without flopping my embouchure type.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-23 11:21 p.m.

Yeah, that's exactly what the players who did it in reverse do. I used to do this, too.

I no longer think it's a great approach. (At least, for me, it's clearly inferior to the alternative.)

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-24 7:11 a.m.

"The *best* players, however, do not, or push it forward."

Who are those best players?

I know some good players who do push it forward. Not to many. I know many best players where you can´t see any difference in horn angle. You can maybe ask them what they do, you may not get an answer.

Som "best" players do exactly what harrisonred does. I am not talking about what is correct to do, I am talking about what Donald wrote.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-24 7:46 a.m.

Yeah, I'm sorry. It makes no sense. Why would you go against the embouchure, fight nature and physics, and blow towards the bore of the instrument in the upper register? Are you sure you just didn't mistake their embouchure type? I'm not confident in my ability to identify it even in a clear cut embouchure like Wilktone's.

Here's a pretty good example of a downstream player, at 2:24, moving the jaw forward and down for the low register, and the jaw back and up for the upper register, the opposite of what you describe. It is not a drastic movement, but it is very obvious:

<YOUTUBE id="6UDy1viqTJA">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/6UDy1viqTJA</YOUTUBE>

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-24 8:51 a.m.

Well, I say yes of course. J Allesi is a fantstic player. As a typically downstream player he behaves like a typcally down stream player. Why wouldn´t he?

What I like to see one of those "best players" that does the opposite.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-24 8:56 a.m.

I think we can agree that different players do things differently, and sometimes that is correct for the individual and sometimes it's in spite of what they should be doing (that was part of the point of me starting this topic in the first place).

Harrison, I don't think you can tell an individual's embouchure type by their jaw position. I don't think that we can tell what a player's jaw is doing by horn angle either. Jaw manipulation should probably be minimal and when it's working well it's often difficult to see it unless we're looking at very large interval changes.

The reason we went off on this particular tangent had to do with the idea that the jaw movement is what "controls the [embouchure motion]." Or maybe that particular reference was intended to mean the jaw movement "controls the [horn angle]." Harrison will need to clarify what he meant, because I want to avoid the term he used in order to be fully clear about what I'm talking about in this discussion.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-24 10:06 a.m.

[quote="Basbasun"]What I like to see one of those "best players" that does the opposite.[/quote]

If I did this right the following embedded video should start right on a downstream player that brings his jaw slightly forward to play higher. He's no Alessi, but he was a pretty excellent trombonist.

<YOUTUBE id="CoxnhjLMVBo" t="383">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/CoxnhjLMVBo?t=383</YOUTUBE>

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-24 10:11 a.m.

How about if we agree on trying to avoid the upstrea-downstream vocabulary? It is silly and makes missunderatndings. Alessi does place his mpc high on his mouth. Many players don´t change the angle as it shows, but he does. And it is natural for him.

Why do I react? Because there is a not so uncommon missunderstanding that just popped up.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-24 10:19 a.m.

[quote="Basbasun"]How about if we agree on trying to avoid the upstrea-downstream vocabulary? It is silly and makes missunderatndings.[/quote]

I would argue it's not silly and certainly very relevant to the discussion at hand. You're correct, it's often misunderstood so we could discuss them in terms of more upper lip inside or more lower lip inside.

The specific term I'm trying to avoid here is "pivot" because some people will use that term to mean how the horn angle is changing and others will mean the way the mouthpiece and lips slide along the teeth. Again, this is relevant to embouchure technique and I feel worth discussing.

What did you think of the Watrous video clip?

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-24 10:20 a.m.

Well I think Bill W is a very good exampel of somebody who is not a typically player. I meet both Alessi and Bill and did talk about playing with both of them. They are nice people and fantastic players. I think it is good ides to watch Bill clinic, <YOUTUBE id="RzTrAfjhg9c">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzTrAfjhg9c</YOUTUBE>

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-24 10:31 a.m.

Here is a player who do raise hi trombone angle for higher tones. <YOUTUBE id="5CipEsgT1uQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CipEsgT1uQ</YOUTUBE>

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-24 10:44 a.m.

[quote="Basbasun"]Here is a player who do raise hi trombone angle for higher tones. <YOUTUBE id="5CipEsgT1uQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CipEsgT1uQ</YOUTUBE>[/quote]

Nice find, I haven't seen that video before. Bollinger is a player with the same embouchure type as me (more lower lip inside). Upside down of Watrous, who has more upper lip inside.

So can we agree that horn angle/jaw position isn't a good indicator of embouchure type?

ithinknot · by **ithinknot** » 2021-02-24 12:30 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]If I did this right the following embedded video should start right on a downstream player that brings his jaw slightly forward to play higher. He's no Alessi, but he was a pretty excellent trombonist.

~~[url]~~https://youtu.be/CoxnhjLMVBo?t=383[/quote]

The Leno videos are great.

Full disclosure - I'm a pretty lousy player in many respects, but I think I understand the following:

I'm also a IIIA, and the Bb4-Bb5 gliss looks and feels exactly like the Watrous clip - the jaw comes very slightly forward. I think it's important to note that we're only dealing with the extreme high register here - his jaw looks very neutral beginning on Bb4, and personally I'd say I feel the slight jaw engagement begin only after perhaps D5.

Actually, I don't think that this is 'to do with the jaw' per se. If I exaggerate, encourage or tense the jaw motion in any way, it doesn't help at all. Instead, the jaw is being slightly 'brought along' by upward and forward motion of the tongue root.

Ascending across the range of the instrument involves a change in vowel (ie tongue shape and position) from ah thru ee. Between Bb4 and Bb5 it's more like a change from ee to eeeeeeeeeee...

You can demonstrate this easily with singing:

With a finger or two on your chin to gently monitor movement, gliss up and down across an octave in a middle-to-high area of your range, holding an 'ah' vowel throughout. You should be able to do this with zero jaw movement.

Now try ah - ee - ah across the same octave. (Ah at the bottom, ee at the top.) The jaw comes (slightly) forward to ascend.

Now do the same thing, forcing yourself not to move the jaw at all. You can't get all the way to a really bright, resonant 'eee', and if you try to do so you'll instead be singing through a closed 'ng' sound. This is an option in singing, but it closes off the airflow to the lips - you can sing 'ng' with your hand covering your mouth, and only pinching your nose will stop the sound - so this obviously isn't an option for brass playing.

The small forward jaw motion is a necessary part of allowing the tongue to move into its smallest resonant chamber position (ie the brightest possible ee vowel) while still allowing airflow through the mouth.

ithinknot · by **ithinknot** » 2021-02-24 12:32 p.m.

Actually, what I'd really love to see is Watrous doing the lower range examples shown by others elsewhere in the video. (Is there more Leno footage somewhere?) In the few videos where he's (briefly) playing low, he has to re-place the mouthpiece considerably lower, and that would be my experience too playing IIIA on an 11C.

This is a really interesting topic, and let me pre-empt any 'Watrous was great/shifting is bad so he mustn't have done it/how very dare you' responses by saying that no one is criticising the end result, but that doesn't make analysis of any of the greats inherently unseemly. His technique worked perfectly for what he wanted to do, but that doesn't make its characteristics universally applicable to others (with the same or different embouchure types). And, of course, there's a creative feedback loop here - 'what he wanted to do' was naturally encouraged by what his technique (and equipment) did best. I'd guess certain variations are perhaps more obvious amongst jazz players, where there's more scope to 'choose your own adventure' and play/improvise to your technical strengths, though Harrison made a similar point recently about the different areas of difficulty in CL vs JA commissions/premieres.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-24 12:43 p.m.

Excellent observations

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-24 1:16 p.m.

My somewhat unqualified impression (I'm just making guesses; this isn't based on research) here is that, for a downstream player, it's possible to increase compression and get the "sharper" angle of the airstream we see in downstream players as they ascend in a variety of ways.

Moving the jaw up and back coordinates nicely with tongue movement (especially if your jaw is receded to begin with), so I think that's why a lot of people do that.

Moving the jaw forward (and, for some, to the side) increases compression by, perhaps, pushing the bottom lip forward against the top lip (you can see in the Watrous clip how the jaw moving forward does not push the airstream closer to the shank of the mouthpiece, but helps him increase compression).

What I can say is this:

For me, the advantage of the latter is clear (a fuller, more powerful sound in the upper register, with less motion), and I've seen many great players do this, as well. For example, Marshall Gilkes clearly raises his horn angle as he ascends. (I've watched him play closeup on hundreds of occasions, and you can easily see it in videos, as well.)

However, experimenting with some advice given to me by Doug, I'm finding I can get many of the same benefits without moving the jaw at all, so long as it is forward enough to begin with. This seems even better. (However, receding the jaw for the upper register does not do this - that is a much weaker, less consistent way to play for me.)

I agree that this is becoming a bit of a sidetrack from this conversation, though.

I'd like to hear more about "our trombonist's" progress here. Has the playing been consistently better since the "10 days" experiment? How much did the 10 days playing on a different embouchure hurt or help, in terms of consistency or endurance (aside from corner position)? Does it feel like the same muscles are being worked, or more like they were left unused for 10 days, for example?

Having said that, I do wonder whether there has been any adjustment to the jaw position as a result of this, as well, Dave. I tend to think of the lower jaw as the "support" for the mouthcorners (since they are, effectively, engaging against the teeth, the position of the lower jaw is really key to their engagement), and so I do wonder whether any shift in the position of your corners might be reflected in a change in jaw position, too.

ithinknot · by **ithinknot** » 2021-02-24 1:31 p.m.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Excellent observations[/quote]

Thanks boss :good:

For anyone else interested in this stuff or in any need of help, have a lesson with Doug. Can't recommend it enough.

I've been reading the Reinhardt Encyclopedia recently, and it's great, but you really really want to have had Doug explain the basics first. There's quite a lot in there that could be expressed more simply. It's not necessarily hard to understand once you've been shown how you relate to it, but if you dive in unfamiliar with the language you might decide you're a IVB with a type 12 forked tongue and roughly a 5 on the Kinsey scale, but you'll be unsure where to go from there.

Also, if you're not interested in this stuff, have a lesson with Doug anyway. The terminology is optional!

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-24 1:51 p.m.

Reinhardt's terminology and the way he wrote is a big turnoff to a lot of players... But he did know a tremendous amount more than anybody else about the way chops work. I got lucky, I read his books and then had roughly 100 lessons with him over 10 years.

These discussions are great, dispite the fact that some of the posters have strong preconceived ideas they can't get past.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-24 4:06 p.m.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]These discussions are great, dispite the fact that some of the posters have strong preconceived ideas they can't get past.[/quote]

I'm sorry that you guys can't get past the fact that upstream trombonists are objectively better looking than downstream players. It's not my fault.[quote="PaulTdot"]I'd like to hear more about "our trombonist's" progress here. Has the playing been consistently better since the "10 days" experiment? How much did the 10 days playing on a different embouchure hurt or help, in terms of consistency or endurance (aside from corner position)? Does it feel like the same muscles are being worked, or more like they were left unused for 10 days, for example?[/quote]

Things are going well, thanks for asking.

The first couple of days or so after switching back to my Low Placement embouchure type I was getting tired pretty quickly. I'm not feeling that way any more, possibly due in part to practicing Reinhardt's "Endurance Routine" every day since Friday (at Doug's suggestion).

Someone listening to me before and after might not notice much difference, but it feels easier to me. I have some audio of me practicing before and after, I'll have to go back and see what sort of difference I can hear.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Consistency issues, bad days, chop breakdowns, and "dystonia" come from doing things that are inefficient, inconsistent, and sometimes harmful - or NOT doing the right things that continue to build consistency.[/quote]

Since Harrison also brought up embouchure dystonia earlier, I thought I'd offer the hypothetical scenario that I hadn't been studying with Doug. Even with my background already I was having trouble getting my issues fixed. Sometimes players, like me, just get better at covering up their problems - until they can't any longer. I strongly suspect that a lot of players get diagnosed with a neurological issue when they have problems in mechanics that they just don't know about.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-24 5:29 p.m.

Great post, Dave, and excellent observations.

For what it's worth, I've dealt with a handful of musicians suffering from dystonia-like symptoms. In a few cases, it wasn't clear what was going on (and, sometimes, whether the player was willing to genuinely try the fixes), but in all the others, principled application of the understanding and concepts we're talking about here allowed a quick and effective "fix".

I have a question for you and Doug:

After reading this thread and pondering it, I was lip buzzing today (I was about to say "free buzzing", but I'm trying to adopt Doug's much clearer "lip buzzing", so I'll use that) and I tried to adjust my mouthcorner position. I did find that I could buzz with the corners closer in to the center of my mouth, although it wasn't clear whether there was any improvement or deterioration, nor did I try to see if I could transfer it to the mouthpiece. Is that something either of you has any experience with?

It would be interesting to experiment a bit and to develop an awareness of this issue, for me, and I wonder what I can try to see, feel, and hear the differences.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-24 5:29 p.m.

Great post, Dave, and excellent observations.

For what it's worth, I've dealt with a handful of musicians suffering from dystonia-like symptoms. In a few cases, it wasn't clear what was going on (and, sometimes, whether the player was willing to genuinely try the fixes), but in all the others, principled application of the understanding and concepts we're talking about here allowed a quick and effective "fix".

I have a question for you and Doug:

After reading this thread and pondering it, I was lip buzzing today (I was about to say "free buzzing", but I'm trying to adopt Doug's much clearer "lip buzzing", so I'll use that) and I tried to adjust my mouthcorner position. I did find that I could buzz with the corners closer in to the center of my mouth, although it wasn't clear whether there was any improvement or deterioration, nor did I try to see if I could transfer it to the mouthpiece. Is that something either of you has any experience with?

It would be interesting to experiment a bit and to develop an awareness of this issue, for me, and I wonder what I can try to see, feel, and hear the differences.

harrisonreed · 2021-02-24 6:00 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]<QUOTE author="Basbasun" post_id="141817" time="1614180665" user_id="196">
Here is a player who do raise hi trombone angle for higher tones. <YOUTUBE id="5CipEsgT1uQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CipEsgT1uQ</YOUTUBE>[/quote]

Nice find, I haven't seen that video before. Bollinger is a player with the same embouchure type as me (more lower lip inside). Upside down of Watrous, who has more upper lip inside.

So can we agree that horn angle/jaw position isn't a good indicator of embouchure type?
</QUOTE>

Well... Is Bollinger an upstream player? Looks like he is to me!

It's hard to see what he's doing because the camera is moving a lot, but if he is an upstream player, I think the horn angle and jaw motion I was able to lock down in the video further validates what I'm saying. It's the opposite of what Alessi was doing -- great examples of the opposite placements and opposite embouchure types, right?

He has the same embouchure type (or at least placement) as Dave, but is angling his horn the opposite way as Dave. I think the key point is that Dave is the one having playing troubles and Bollinger is not. Maybe my idea about the crazy fix for Dave being to raise his horn angle as he ascends is not crazy at all.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-24 6:23 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]

The reason we went off on this particular tangent had to do with the idea that the jaw movement is what "controls the [embouchure motion]." Or maybe that particular reference was intended to mean the jaw movement "controls the [horn angle]." Harrison will need to clarify what he meant, because I want to avoid the term he used in order to be fully clear about what I'm talking about in this discussion.[/quote]

In the Sarah Willis video, at 3:55 to 4:10, you can clearly see the difference in jaw position between low register and mid register. She has to move her jaw so far forward that she switches to upstream. You can clearly see that she is a downstream player, because you can see the air column between her lips shooting down.

<YOUTUBE id="MWcOwgWsPHA">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/MWcOwgWsPHA</YOUTUBE>

You can see her moving her jaw significantly up and every so sightly back to ascend on the ascending scales. I think it's not such a drastic motion because the French horn mouthpiece is already so small. She's also on her back, and not holding a horn to manipulate so this motion may not be exactly what she would do if she was seated and able to hold her instrument. She's also not the *best* -- she was only able to get 4th horn in the Berlin Phil....

So.... Let's look at someone who plays a bigger mouthpiece, where the bore and rim edge are further apart...

<YOUTUBE id="KdFPYojfkF8">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/KdFPYojfkF8</YOUTUBE>

The motion here is pretty obvious. Again, this player only managed to get 3rd chair in the BSO.

All these players are trying to do, boiled down, is change the speed and flow volume and direction of the air into the cup. You do it with the jaw, the tongue, and the back of your throat (though I would avoid consciously trying to manipulate anything with your throat). All your chops are doing is holding and shaping the aperture over this underlying structure. The horn angle is just a side effect of this "pivot".

That is what I meant. I think Reinhardt was using pivot to mean this same thing.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-24 7:07 p.m.

"She has to move her jaw so far forward that she switches to upstream"

I see no evidence of switching to upstream. That's a common misconception. Jaw position is completely unrelated to air direction. There are receded-jaw upstream players and protruding-jaw downstream players.

And yes Blair Bollinger is an upstream player. It's too bad the facial hair and camera movement don't give any real view of his chops. On the old TTF I had posted a picture I took of his embouchure in a clear plastic mouthpiece.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-24 7:21 p.m.

I'm basing it on this:

F

<ATTACHMENT filename="Screenshot_20210225-091403.png" index="1">~~[attachment=1]~~Screenshot_20210225-091403.png</ATTACHMENT>

Pedal Bb

<ATTACHMENT filename="Screenshot_20210225-091426.png" index="0">~~[attachment=0]~~Screenshot_20210225-091426.png</ATTACHMENT>

There may be a terminology issue, or I might be seeing this wrong.

That said, the jaw motion in all three videos is very apparent. We have three world class musicians here, all downstream players, doing the same motions.

Blair Bollinger looks upstream, the opposite, and from what I can see, he is doing the opposite motions. I'm not as familiar with upstream playing. His playing is awesome.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-24 9:05 p.m.

I'm not sure I'm seeing the same motions, in the Sarah Willis video, that you're seeing. (And many/most brass players will adopt weird or non-typical embouchures for the extreme low register - something french horn players have to do more than anyone, in order to manage on those tiny mouthpieces.)

However, there's lots of food for thought here. And I agree on your observations of the Doug Yeo clip. I can see a bass trombone player having less to gain, perhaps, from the kind of jaw action we're talking about. It will be interesting to learn more.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-24 9:34 p.m.

[quote="PaulTdot"]I'm not sure I'm seeing the same motions, in the Sarah Willis video, that you're seeing. (And many/most brass players will adopt weird or non-typical embouchures for the extreme low register - something french horn players have to do more than anyone, in order to manage on those tiny mouthpieces.)

However, there's lots of food for thought here. And I agree on your observations of the Doug Yeo clip. I can see a bass trombone player having less to gain, perhaps, from the kind of jaw action we're talking about. It will be interesting to learn more.[/quote]

No, he has more to gain. The motion is visually larger in the bass trombonist. If the goal is indeed to blow closer to the bore for the low register (my experience, not gospel truth), and close to the rim edge for the upper register -- those targets are further apart on a Doug Yeo mouthpiece than a French horn mouthpiece. It is even more exaggerated the higher the placement is (for Yeo's embouchure type). The higher you place a fixed size mouthpiece on a face, the higher the bore goes above the aperture, the bigger the jaw movement to direct the air up towards the bore.

This is why I believe very high placement players do better with large cup diameters - their embouchure is already close to the rim edge. Increasing the diameter minimizes the jaw and embouchure motion needed to direct air towards the bore. It physically lowers the bore, keeping the same placement on the upper lip.

Likewise very low placement players like Dave are the opposite. They will put the mouthpiece on the same spot of their upper lip no matter what size mouthpiece they use. decreasing the size of the mouthpiece move the bore closer in line with the aperture.

This all hinges on accepting that the direction and speed of air into the mp is what dictates the register. If you don't accept that, then there is not much more to be gained from talking to me or me babbling about jaw motion. I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to go further, just observations from these videos.

Low

<ATTACHMENT filename="Screenshot_20210225-113010.png" index="1">~~[attachment=1]~~Screenshot_20210225-113010.png</ATTACHMENT>

High

<ATTACHMENT filename="Screenshot_20210225-113030.png" index="0">~~[attachment=0]~~Screenshot_20210225-113030.png</ATTACHMENT>

It's a big difference. Don't be fooled by the pointy tissue over his chin. Look at what the teeth do.

FWIW, these ideas and nearly identical drawings are in Ian Bousfield's book, "Unlocking the Trombone Code". As is the idea of different targets in the mouthpiece for different registers. He is a downstream player and doesn't talk about upstream playing or represent it in his book.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-24 10:13 p.m.

We're closer to being on the same page than you think, but we're also miscommunicating a little. For instance, I should have clarified that by "more to gain" I was referring to professionally - a professional bass trombonist isn't usually going to be terribly concerned about their projection in the extreme upper register, for instance.

I agree with your observations on airstream direction; that's pretty well established. And we're in agreement about what we're seeing in the video.

There's also the issue of the MRI machine - some of these small modifications (like jaw position) could be quite different with an instrument in hand. I'd be curious to see how they set this up at the facility. (I know Sarah Willis used a long tube, connecting a mouthpiece to the horn bell, outside the machine.)

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-25 5:08 a.m.

I used the Bollinger youtube link as an typically player who place the mpc low. Douglas Yeo is a typically player who place the mpc high. Bill W is placing the mpc very high, he is not a typiclly player though. There are allways exceptions. We can talk all day long about exceptions. But I think we started this talking about what is typically.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-25 11:10 a.m.

My practice time on week days is restricted by my wife's work schedule, so I haven't really been able to get to trying out some of the things Harrison asked to see. I'll try to post some video of me playing with different mouthpieces, different horn angles, and a shot of my current pedal Bb over the weekend. But I don't know why I should be the only one having fun with this stuff. Why don't some of you guys take some video footage of your chops too? No pressure, of course, but I already intentionally posted some stuff where I'm not at my best to demonstrate problems.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]Jaw manipulation is a very individual thing, and generally should be very little, if any.[/quote]

So let's start from here. It depends on the individual and so we can only really discuss this in terms of what the specific player does, and maybe whether or not that's working correctly for them.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Think about it, the jaw is what controls most of the pivot, however you go about it, upstream or down.[/quote]

[quote="harrisonreed"]All your chops are doing is holding and shaping the aperture over this underlying structure. The horn angle is just a side effect of this "pivot".

That is what I meant. I think Reinhardt was using pivot to mean this same thing.[/quote]

You're leaving out the pushing/pulling of the mouthpiece and lips together along the teeth and gums. Also lip compression that manifests inside the mouthpiece as how much the lips are drawn back against the teeth and gums to reduce the amount of vibrating surface. And how much upper to lower lip is inside the cup in the first place and where the mouthpiece shank is in relation to the lip aperture.

But yes, all those things interact with each other as part of the larger whole.

[quote="harrisonreed"]She has to move her jaw so far forward that she switches to upstream.[/quote]

It's too bad that we can't see how she's placing the mouthpiece, which would help give a clearer picture of that pedal tone. A lot of high brass players do something similar to this to play pedal tones, which doesn't relate to how they play the rest of their range.

[quote="Basbasun"]Bill W is placing the mpc very high, he is not a typiclly player though.[/quote]

Recall from above that jaw manipulation is very personal, but are you familiar with the expression, "moving the goalpost?" Watrous is an example of a Very High Placement embouchure type who (at least in that clip) was moving his jaw forward to ascend. It really doesn't matter in the end if he is "typical" or not, just that we can say that some really fine players are doing things differently. I'm certainly not a "typical" player, even for an upstream one.

That said, I was curious and have looked at the videos of different players that I happen to have already up on YouTube (and labeled by embouchure type) to look for their jaw positions, just to see what I would find. I won't embed them, but will post links for you if you want to look for yourself. Many of these players have very minimal jaw motions or I didn't have a very clear look at their jaw in the video, so it's going to be hard to infer exactly what they're doing. These are just my best guesses (and I'm also blasting through these quickly and just watching enough to guess).

Low Placement Types (upstream)

<YOUTUBE id="pTyj0mF-y8w">https://youtu.be/pTyj0mF-y8w</YOUTUBE> Hard to infer, but jaw is moving slightly forward and to the right to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="lgaypIZAp2U">https://youtu.be/lgaypIZAp2U</YOUTUBE> Too hard to tell. I think I have some clips from the side and maybe I'll look later

<YOUTUBE id="kWS6LQsUoH0">https://youtu.be/kWS6LQsUoH0</YOUTUBE> and <YOUTUBE id="9JG0b2zzmY4">https://youtu.be/9JG0b2zzmY4</YOUTUBE> Brings he jaw forward to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="YfLUEhbiuR0">https://youtu.be/YfLUEhbiuR0</YOUTUBE> Hard to tell because he flattens his chin as he ascends (who chin is out of frame), which makes it appear as if he's receding his jaw to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="30NDlfq8mqY">https://youtu.be/30NDlfq8mqY</YOUTUBE> Brings her jaw forward to ascend

Medium High Placement Types (downstream)

<YOUTUBE id="hP6tl1ZaJy4">https://youtu.be/hP6tl1ZaJy4</YOUTUBE> and <YOUTUBE id="ANWImoLFKzg">https://youtu.be/ANWImoLFKzg</YOUTUBE> Pretty minimal, maybe recedes jaw to ascend, horn angle is definitely tilting the bell up to ascend, though

<YOUTUBE id="dESbTvnbmAY">https://youtu.be/dESbTvnbmAY</YOUTUBE> Brings his jaw forward to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="rD1_w9Rpn0Q">https://youtu.be/rD1_w9Rpn0Q</YOUTUBE> Brings his jaw forward and to left to ascend

Very High Placement Types (downstream)

<YOUTUBE id="qoo0vF7WfPs">https://youtu.be/qoo0vF7WfPs</YOUTUBE> Recedes his jaw to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="ZAtbXiHIc88">https://youtu.be/ZAtbXiHIc88</YOUTUBE> Recedes his jaw to ascend (but it's mostly out of frame)

<YOUTUBE id="Q20n5HYItK8">https://youtu.be/Q20n5HYItK8</YOUTUBE> Recedes his jaw to ascend (but it's mostly out of frame)

<YOUTUBE id="LwxH2RoAxEk">https://youtu.be/LwxH2RoAxEk</YOUTUBE> Hard to tell (particularly with jaw drop on low Bb), but protrudes jaw to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="Hu55m_vSg20">https://youtu.be/Hu55m_vSg20</YOUTUBE> Brings his jaw forward to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="kGvd-VjOIns">https://youtu.be/kGvd-VjOIns</YOUTUBE> Somewhat inconsistent, but mostly recedes jaw to ascend

<YOUTUBE id="q5YQ4viIgCQ">https://youtu.be/q5YQ4viIgCQ</YOUTUBE> Inconsistent

If you want to keep score:

Low Placement (upstream) ascending - 3 forward, 1 receded, 1 unsure

Medium High Placement (downstream) ascending - 2 forward, 1 recede

Very High Placement (downstream) ascending - 2 forward, 3 recede, 2 inconsistent

Some of the above players are professionals and some are students, for what that's worth. I'm not controlling for whether or not things are working well for them and whether or not they are doing something that might be less than ideal for their anatomy. Consider this a thought experiment.

But can we now agree that jaw position and manipulation is personal and not necessarily indicative of a player's embouchure type?

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-25 12:27 p.m.

Great post, Dave. You've covered the bases well.

That mirrors my thoughts on Sarah Willis's "pedal tone embouchure" as well; I don't see any reason to assume that this motion is present in her normal playing range.

Another thought: if Bill Watrous's approach to playing isn't "typical" of a High Placement Player, is it possible that the "typical" High Placement Player isn't playing optimally? We have to consider all the options.

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-26 7:00 a.m.

I did experimented some yesterday. Normaly I place the mpc medium high, my jaw recede going up.

My experiment was to move the mpc up extremely high. Trying to match Bill W:s placement. Placing the mpc rim high on the lowerlip on the red part.

When I was going up (very high) I found the the mpc found anohther contact on the teeth. Now I could easily mowe my jaw forward, and it worked very good for very high range. That is not how I normaly play, but it was interesting to try.

I watched your clips Dave.

Two trumpeters are moving their jaw up and down. Sometimes I do ask if the players could do better another way.

Do you think you prove anything with the clips? I wounder what.

Paul T.

Actually we are all different, so we can agree in that nobody is "typically". In the attempt to put different embouchures in categorys I say we have to go after how the typiclly player for different types work.

There are many trombone players doing things that is not what many others do. There will allwayts be exceptions. There are many "best" players around. Bill is one of the best players. His mpc placement is very rare. If you can play very good it is good for you. If what you do is the opposite from what is very common, it is still good for you. Many very good players do thing that some say is not the best, but it works for them. Methodollogy is difficult.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-26 8:26 a.m.

[quote="Basbasun"]I watched your clips Dave.

Two trumpeters are moving their jaw up and down. Sometimes I do ask if the players could do better another way.[/quote]

Yes, please note what I wrote in that post:

[quote="Wilktone"]I'm not controlling for whether or not things are working well for them and whether or not they are doing something that might be less than ideal for their anatomy. Consider this a thought experiment.[/quote]

[quote="Basbasun"]Do you think you prove anything with the clips? I wounder what.[/quote]

I posted that originally because Harrison has a hypothesis that air stream direction is controlled mainly through the jaw position. He offered a suggestion that I should change my jaw position earlier based on this idea. According to this idea, an upstream player should protrude the jaw slightly forward to ascend in order to make the air stream go further up while a downstream player would do the opposite.

Later you had asked to see a fine downstream brass player who protruded the jaw to ascend, so posted the Leno clip of Bill Watrous doing that. Afterwards, you keep mentioning that his embouchure is not typical.

I see how "typical" Watrous's embouchure was as irrelevant to the discussion. It is one (of many) examples of a downstream player effectively ascending by protruding the jaw slightly.

So again, please note what I wrote in the post:

[quote="Wilktone"]But can we now agree that jaw position and manipulation is personal and not necessarily indicative of a player's embouchure type?[/quote]

That is the point I'm trying to make.

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-26 10:36 a.m.

I see. Well I do agree with that jaw position and manipulation is personal. However for some embouchure types certain jaw movements are so common that I say they are typically for the type.

And, as I allway say, there are exceptions. I do see the reason for posting those clip.

I was more into the talk about what "the best" players do, I still clame that most "best" players do is what is typically for their type.

Here is one of the best players, enjoy!

<YOUTUBE id="GO0i3xCtEtM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO0i3xCtEtM</YOUTUBE>

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-02-26 11:14 a.m.

Yes, Dick Nash is amazing. And that video is a clear example of the typical sound of a perfect upstream player... Huge and bright.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-26 1:01 p.m.

I'm always for listening to Dick Nash more! A welcome remedy for many a rainy day.

As far as we can tell at this point, jaw position does not determine airstream direction. Various jaw manipulations can affect the compression at the embouchure, but it's certainly not as simple as "if you're downstream, recede the jaw to play higher", even though many players do this. It's quite individual, and it's possible to find different ways to work with your particular anatomy.

I agree that whether Bill Watrous has a "typical" embouchure or not really relevant to that question. However, I will note that his embouchure type and mouthpiece placement is not at all rare or unusual (much more common than the way Dick Nash, plays, anyway, at least in modern-day North America). There are many, many players who play exactly like this, in all genres of music.

Basbasun · by **Basbasun** » 2021-02-28 10:02 a.m.

<LINK_TEXT text="https://callumaumusic.com/.../originals ... sed-crime/">https://callumaumusic.com/.../originals/disorganised-crime/</LINK_TEXT>

Many of the best trombonists. If you are interested you can try to figue out their mpc place ment.

I have played with a number of low placement players many more medium high players a few very high.

Bill on this video, <YOUTUBE id="XRlyDo-YG64">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRlyDo-YG64</YOUTUBE>

well looking for placement is not the first thing you do listen to this.

Most players I played with are medium or medium high players, a number of low placement some very high placement, but as high as Bill I can remember one. I never had a student with that high placement either.

Funny enough after that many years.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-28 10:28 a.m.

[quote="Basbasun"]I have played with a number of low placement players many more medium high players a few very high.[/quote]

Please understand when some of us are talking about "Low Placement," "Medium High Placement," and "Very High Placement" embouchure types there is a bit more than the apparent placement from the outside that go into those type designations.

Very High Placement - downstream embouchure with more upper lip inside the mouthpiece, embouchure motion is to push the mouthpiece and lips together up towards the nose to ascend.

Medium High Placement - downstream embouchure with more upper lip inside the mouthpiece, embouchure motion is to pull the mouthpiece and lips together down towards the chin to ascend.

Low Placement - upstream embouchure with more lower lip inside the mouthpiece, embouchure motion is to pull the mouthpiece and lips together down towards the chin to ascend.

The references to the mouthpiece placement are general. Very High Placement types will usually place the mouthpiece anywhere from 70%-90% upper lip inside, for example. Some of them look more like "medium high placements," but because their embouchure motion is to push up to ascend they fit the characteristics of the Very High Placement embouchure type. This embouchure type seems to be the most common by far.

Bill Watrous happened to have a mouthpiece placement that was more upper lip than most Very High Placement players, but I don't really see it as all that unusual. Glancing through the Disorganized Crime video you linked to it looks like most of those players are Very High Placement types, although a couple might be Medium High Placement types. I didn't notice any that looked like Low Placement types. To tell for sure between the Very High Placement and Medium High Placement types it helps to have a clip that has a good angle of the embouchure while the trombonist is playing something that changes register enough to spot the embouchure motion of pushing or pulling the lips with the mouthpiece to ascend/descend. Most of the clips in the Disorganized Crime video don't do that enough.

Steve Wiest is a Low Placement type player who also happens to have a receded jaw and plays with a horn angle that is somewhat down, like me.

<YOUTUBE id="oBvJyCZBc1o">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/oBvJyCZBc1o</YOUTUBE>

I'll try to get some more video of me trying out Harrison's suggested experiments up later today.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-02-28 3:59 p.m.

That's a great find on Steve Wiest - indeed, a very similar physical type here. Fun to see some similarities.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-02-28 4:14 p.m.

So here are some clips of me trying out some of Harrison's suggestions from earlier. He had mentioned a smaller rim diameter and some thoughts about cup size as well. The first part of this video is me playing the same exercise on different mouthpieces. The clips are from the last set of ~~[url=https://wilktone.com/?p=6261]~~this exercise (not the first example, see the ones at the bottom of the page).

Harrison also wondered if I was switching to blowing downstream on pedal Bb. I'm out of the anti-fog solution that I would normally use to keep the transparent mouthpiece from fogging up, but I think you can get a good enough look at my aperture to see generally what's going on. That starts around 2:22.

Lastly, Harrison suggested I try bringing my jaw forward and play with a higher horn angle. This is actually not a bad suggestion to try, but I have been down this road a while back. A trumpet player who is a former student of Donald Reinhardt insists that upstream players with a lowered horn angle (Reinhardt IVA) really need to try to get their horn angle up closer to straight out (Reinhardt IV). I didn't think it would work, but I tried for about a week back in 2008 doing my best. You can see and hear me experimenting with horn angles around 3:53.

Notice that I also demonstrate what happens when I bring my horn angle left and right. Towards the right you can hear the pitch go flat and towards the left it goes sharp. The left/right horn angle change for me is more prominent than up/down (although you should be able to see me bring my horn angle up slightly as I ascend if you look closely enough at the clips in the beginning of the video).

If you don't care to watch the video, it's hard to say with the short clips alone which mouthpiece works best, but I prefer my usual setup (Doug Elliott LTN 103 rim, C cup for jazz, G cup for orchestral). My pedal Bb is upstream. Bringing my jaw forward and my horn angle up pretty quickly chokes off the sound.

Again, those aren't bad suggestions to try, particularly the horn angle suggestion.

<YOUTUBE id="Cp3JJRIgucM">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/Cp3JJRIgucM</YOUTUBE>

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-02-28 4:39 p.m.

I was suggesting that as you ascend, you try moving the jaw forward and horn angle up (probably as you pull down). It looks like you do, a bit, naturally. Of course, now suddenly there are high Fs being played. By the end of this experiment, I'll bet you will drop the "haha the joke is on you" bomb of a video with you playing Bb5s and other crazy stuff.

It's not surprising at all that the mid register notes you were working on with your jaw movements cut out pretty quickly -- each register has a *insert word other than pivot here*.

This thread continues to be so interesting!

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-03-01 12:26 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Of course, now suddenly there are high Fs being played. By the end of this experiment, I'll bet you will drop the "haha the joke is on you" bomb of a video with you playing Bb5s and other crazy stuff.[/quote]

There is no joke here. Dave is just doing an incredibly honest thing and showing us his playing problems, instead of trying to cover them up. That's the way to learn! If we all only ever hear each other playing at our best, it's hard to figure out anything about brass playing... Dave has done a tremendous thing here, and given us a look "under the hood". Kudos, Dave!

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-01 9:12 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I was suggesting that as you ascend, you try moving the jaw forward and horn angle up (probably as you pull down). It looks like you do, a bit, naturally.

...

It's not surprising at all that the mid register notes you were working on with your jaw movements cut out pretty quickly -- each register has a *insert word other than pivot here*.[/quote]

I probably should have described what I was doing and why with the horn angle/jaw position changes. That's a trick that Doug has taught me to use to help players fine tune embouchure motion/horn angle/jaw position/etc. You move the angles around and see how far you can go right/left/up/down and listen for the tone and intonation. When you find the spot where everything works best you check a higher and lower pitch. Ideally, you want to find a track of all that stuff working in a smooth and continuous line.

For me, as my horn angle moves left and slightly up the pitch is going sharp. That would be my natural ascending direction. What I would want to do is find those spots along the path where each note sounds its best. Here's an image I put together to help describe a hypothetical embouchure motion track and how it should probably work between different ranges.

Horn angle and jaw position are probably similar. If the jaw comes forward a slight amount to ascend an octave it should probably recede about the same amount to descend an octave from the same starting point. But then again, this might change as a player develops and according to how he or she is correctly (or incorrectly) utilizing the embouchure motion, tongue position, air, etc.

[quote="harrisonreed"]By the end of this experiment, I'll bet you will drop the "haha the joke is on you" bomb of a video with you playing Bb5s and other crazy stuff.[/quote]

I'll try to post that later today for you. :P

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-03-09 11:41 p.m.

I've been thinking further on this topic, and as I'm doing some reading, I've come across an interesting quote.

"For attaining the higher register, the simultaneous use of the stretching back of the lips and cheeks and the raising of the diaphragm is of prime importance." -Max Schlossberg, 1875-1936

There was a well-known Canadian brass teacher by the name of Don Johnson (Don passed away about five years ago), who was quite methodical and thoughtful in his teaching, and famous for his ability to diagnose and fix "chop problems". (He also studied with Reinhardt for a short period in his formative years.)

Johnson wrote that he was always surprised to see that Schlossberg turned out so many great players if he was telling them to smile as they ascend, while many/most other teachers would never give such advice.

His eventual conclusion was that great players do "smile", but only to a certain point, and never beyond it.

That was where he ended up, finally: that brass players should "smile as they ascend, but only to their natural corner position".

This observation of his (whether right or wrong) reminded me of this thread, so I thought I'd share it.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-10 10:18 a.m.

[quote="PaulTdot"]"For attaining the higher register, the simultaneous use of the stretching back of the lips and cheeks and the raising of the diaphragm is of prime importance." -Max Schlossberg, 1875-1936[/quote]

Yes, I believe that the "smile to ascend" was much more common in Schlossberg's time. It works, to a degree, by stretching the lips tighter, but too much of it limits high range and endurance. Today there's a consensus that it's best to not do that.

[quote="PaulTdot"]His eventual conclusion was that great players do "smile", but only to a certain point, and never beyond it.

That was where he ended up, finally: that brass players should "smile as they ascend, but only to their natural corner position".[/quote]

Like Doug is fond of saying, this depends on what you are already doing and where you need to go. He had at one time asked me to consciously try to pull my mouth corners back to ascend in order to get the back to where they should be, but I had no success at being able to bring them back by smiling. After playing for 10 days on the opposite embouchure type, I'm now able to consciously do this. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the over puckering had become a conditioned response to playing and I couldn't make the correction by simply working on it. Drastically changing my playing around for a time changed how my mouth corners felt enough that I was able to bring the correct sensation and action into my normal playing.

imsevimse · by **imsevimse** » 2021-03-10 11:39 a.m.

I've found that to try to move certain muscles by will is very difficult. To me I need a different mindset, get a different picture to be able to do the change.

I can imagine to reverse ones playing has that same effect, from downstream to upstream or the other way. Not a bad idea to open up ones mind.

/Tom

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-03-11 3:35 a.m.

I understand that you need to smile to attain the higher register, as per the 140 year old advice. But how do you "obtain" the higher register though??

imsevimse · by **imsevimse** » 2021-03-11 6:36 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I understand that you need to smile to attain the higher register, as per the 140 year old advice. But how do you "obtain" the higher register though??[/quote]
When I started to learn the teacher I had could not play trombone or any brass. I was self taught until I came to an Hungarian teacher who was a trombone player. He taught me a lot of technical things but did not say anything about my smile emboushure. I was 16 years old when I came to a teacher who addressed the issue. He did not force the change, he just explained what my issue was and what most successful people did. I did the change myself. He did not talk much about what was wrong, rather what to do and I appreciate that. It worked for me. I had to complete redo everything and relearn from scratch. I could not play in any ensembles for a year, but three years later I was accepted after audition at "The Royal Accademy of Music" in Stockholm. It took years to rework that smile-emboushure.

I have not heard many successful stories of people who did that (reworked a smile emboushure) would be interesting to hear how people like Doug and Dave and others with that kind of experience address that specific issue? I only know what I did. Maybe start a new thread for that specific problem?

/Tom

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-03-11 7:30 a.m.

Whenever I watched Bob Havens perform on the Lawrence Welk show, I thought he had a slightly peculiar embouchure which definitely worked well for him. It looked to me as though it where halfway between a frown and a smile embouchure; kinda straight back.

Here's a clip of him showing it:

~~[url]~~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNLamzHT34

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-12 11:03 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I understand that you need to smile to attain the higher register, as per the 140 year old advice. But how do you "obtain" the higher register though??[/quote]

You can't, really. That's the problem. Back then range above high Bb (or high C for trumpet) wasn't all that common.

[quote="imsevimse"]I have not heard many successful stories of people who did that (reworked a smile emboushure) would be interesting to hear how people like Doug and Dave and others with that kind of experience address that specific issue? I only know what I did. Maybe start a new thread for that specific problem?[/quote]

The quicker you can address it the better. As you note, it's not easy to just simply not do it, particularly if you have been smiling to ascend for a while.

Fixing it can be similar to things that I've been working on to correct my over-puckering. Lip buzzing to strengthen the muscles at and under the mouth corners that should be locked in place. Buzzing into the instrument for downstream players (or in some cases, switching for a bit to a downstream embouchure if the player is upstream). Maybe even practice intentionally puckering to ascend to counter the urge to smile (but don't let it get overdone).

Upstream players, by the way, are quite prone to developing a smile embouchure.

[quote="ArbanRubank"]Whenever I watched Bob Havens perform on the Lawrence Welk show, I thought he had a slightly peculiar embouchure which definitely worked well for him. It looked to me as though it where halfway between a frown and a smile embouchure; kinda straight back.[/quote]

He is a great player. He's still playing, according to his Wikipedia page. I don't see his mouth corners coming back to a full-fledge smile embouchure. Here's an example of a "smile to ascend" player I happened to photograph.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-03-12 11:13 a.m.

Bob Havens is quite interesting to watch. Hard for me to tell what's happening there (at least in this video). I almost wonder if he could be playing upstream inside that mouthpiece... but it's pretty high up for that.

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-03-12 11:33 a.m.

[quote="PaulTdot"]Bob Havens is quite interesting to watch. Hard for me to tell what's happening there (at least in this video). I almost wonder if he could be playing upstream inside that mouthpiece... but it's pretty high up for that.[/quote]

That's why I posted this classic vid of him. Beautiful sound, versatility and musicality and with what I consider to be a somewhat quirky embouchure.

I know of another player who played with what looked like an upstream embouchure at times and yet I had it verified with someone he played with that he blew down into the cup. But with his horn sometimes held straight out, his head angled down, a jaw-forward playing technique and a low-placement on the mouthpiece - he sure gave an impression sometimes of playing up-stream. It's possible he only played like that when he was playing a sustained low passage, which he was remarkably good at.

And so I'm wondering if anyone actually ever switches between down-stream for middle to upper register and up-stream for lower register playing. Probably not advisable and yet I can also imagine some players becoming outstanding even by playing "wrong".

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-12 11:38 a.m.

[quote="ArbanRubank"]And so I'm wondering if anyone actually ever switches between down-stream for middle to upper register and up-stream for lower register playing. Probably not advisable and yet I can also imagine some players becoming outstanding even by playing "wrong".[/quote]

Some players can get quite good at covering this up, but it's still noticeable.

<YOUTUBE id="2_Qm8rw7m_4">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/2_Qm8rw7m_4</YOUTUBE>

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-03-12 12:50 p.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]Some players can get quite good at covering this up, but it's still noticeable.[/quote]

Sure - to someone like you! Lol. Others of us? Maybe not so much. Some players have become masters of playing to their strengths and otherwise covering for themselves.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-03-12 12:56 p.m.

It's true: there are some great players who manage to cover up such switches remarkably well. Doug Elliott made a movie a long time ago (not publicly available) which has a really great tubist who also switches airstream direction in various ranges.

However, the distinction will become audible or visible when the player has to fight with that "switch", either in their sound quality, in their inability to perform lines crossing certain registers, a visual detail (e.g. mouthpiece moving to a different spot on their face), or all of the above. So it's definitely "detectable", but it's also possible to play with someone like that and never notice it (especially if they stay out of the problem range or never have to transition in and out of it).

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-03-18 6:05 p.m.

<YOUTUBE id="EmcaBzn9-Fw">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/EmcaBzn9-Fw</YOUTUBE>

Here is my most unpopular video. It probably contains my least musical playing, as I am switching mouthpieces and talking a lot. The only playing I do is to demonstrate what I'm talking about, including how tongue placement and jaw placement can have a negative effect on the sound. I intentionally do a split tone.

I was trying to put together a fun and interesting series and be myself during the worst of the pandemic, but after work picked up again and the very negative response I got to this video, I gave it up.

This video seems like it might add to the conversation. Maybe you can spot my embouchure fix. Ironically, I sound the best in the upper register on the largest mouthpiece I demonstrate, but I know all too well that using it for a recital would be suicide.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-19 11:51 a.m.

Nice! You're not really playing anything musical, but overall it sounds good.

For the record, I only scanned it once and didn't pay attention to what you were saying, just jumped forward to the playing.

Ironically, I sound the best in the upper register on the largest mouthpiece I demonstrate, but I know all too well that using it for a recital would be suicide.

A agree (with the first part), I thought you sounded best on that larger mouthpiece. Is it endurance that would be a factor for you?

Maybe you can spot my embouchure fix.

I didn't notice any specific issues requiring a "fix," so these are just some general observations. Again, I only scanned through your video once. Also, Paul T(dot), Doug, and I have been emailing a bit lately to discuss the downstream types and some characteristics of what can cause problems with those types, so I may be primed now to see things that aren't really a problem for you. Take this with a grain of salt.

I'm pretty confident that you have a downstream embouchure with the embouchure motion of up to ascend (Elliott type Very High Placement/Reinhardt type IIIA).

I think I see a larger amount of embouchure motion to descend into your lowest range compared to how you ascend into your highest range. In general, I feel it's a good starting point to make the amount of motion to ascend, for example, from middle Bb to high Bb the same amount as it would be to descend from middle Bb to low Bb. That's one of the issues you can see in my first video in this thread and for me the problem was being too far in my ascending direction by the middle Bb. For you, I would try to experiment a bit and see if you could either minimize the descending motion or do a little more in the upper register. Maybe both.

Most players have some side to side deviation in the embouchure motion direction, which also translates into some side to side horn angle changes. I am also curious to see what would happen if you experimented a little with pushing up and to one side to ascend, bringing the horn angle over to one side, etc. If you go back and look at what I was doing with my horn angles from Feb. 28th post above, sort of like that, but also including more side to side.

I don't automatically assume that a player's mouthpiece placement is ideal for their face. Often a placement a little (or even a lot) higher/lower/to one side can make for a noticeable improvement. Since you seem to fit a VHP type, if experimenting with a student I might see about a higher placement, just to see what happens, as well as off to one side or another. When I'm working with a student for the first time I will often have them try to play as one of the other embouchure types, just to see what happens. Sometimes a player will inadvertently be playing with the wrong type (I was when I took my first lesson with Doug in 1997).

My two cents. As I said, take it with a grain of salt.

Dave

timothy42b · by **timothy42b** » 2021-03-19 12:49 p.m.

I kept looking for the insulation layer six inches above your head, or the cat to wander in. :idea: :hi:

baileyman · by **baileyman** » 2021-03-19 6:24 p.m.

I keep thinking of Bill Watrous in this context. I've heard separately from two pros, NY and LA, that he could freebuzz anything he could play. Which of course is astounding. So at some time it would be interesting to hear the principals in this thread address how that skill relates to this embouchure categorization routine. Since on the one hand there is neither horn nor mouthpiece involved, and on the other there is. Prolly needs a separate thread.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-03-19 6:43 p.m.

Yeah, Dave it's an endurance thing. I wouldn't be able to play a lineup of demanding recital pieces on that mouthpiece. I appreciate your catch on my motion in the lower register. I've been working on getting more accurate and efficient with those motions, and l have a lip slur exercise that is helping me do that -- basically start on pedal Bb and do an octave slur up, then go to trigger F and continue with an octave slur, then low Bb -- continue this pattern, BbBb, F F, until you hit up to F5, then reverse the pattern back down to the pedal Bb. I try to do it in one breath. Then repeat in 2nd position.

Part of my frustration with that video is that it has to be done in a tiny practice room. There is a whole other discussion to be had for the effect of the room on your perceived horn resistance and feedback.

"Why is the upper register so difficult only in this stupid room?" There is a real reason for that. I think part of the reason the bigger mouthpiece sounds better in that video is that you get better feedback from it in the tiny room. It plays "bigger" and the room sounds tiny. It might have been a more even playing field between the different mouthpieces in a larger hall.

PaulTdot · by **PaulTdot** » 2021-03-19 6:52 p.m.

baileyman,

There are definitely some trends when it comes to embouchure types and free buzzing, which is worth addressing (probably in a separate thread, in case someone else wants to read about it!). You'll note that the "fix" Dave went through here had him switch to downstream playing in part so he could work on some buzzing drills - that's an important element related to that discussion. (Upstream players generally cannot buzz the same way that they play at all, whereas very high placement types like Watrous sometimes get really good at it.)

Harrison,

This is a nice video. I really enjoyed the attention to detail, and the breakdown of brass playing physics is quite accurate. (I'm not sure how useful it is to beginners, but you handle the topic pretty well. It's nice to see someone aware of airstream direction and how it relates to mouthpiece shape, for instance.) I've never heard this explanation for a "split tone" before, but it makes sense! I'll have to go try this in the practice room.

You sound great, too (and I can relate to your comments on mouthpieces and room size here, as well). Nice playing.

One thing I disagree with, though, is your description of airstream direction: it is not based (or not solely based) on the position of the jaw, as you describe it here. It is entirely possible for a downstream player to play with a "steeper" airstream (hitting closer to the rim) while protruding the jaw, as well as vice-versa. (I know, in part, because I experimented with this a fair bit in the past, and I see lots of great players doing it, as well. The clip of Watrous posted earlier is another good example.)

Similarly, it's possible to switch from upstream to downstream without moving the jaw at all (as some of Dave's videos show; Doug's film has an interesting example of a trumpet player doing so, as well).

While the position of the jaw can play some role in controlling the direction of the airstream, I feel your video misrepresents it pretty significantly.

Thanks for sharing this; I am bound to love anyone who opens with "this is my least popular video!" (I'm actually very curious to hear what kind of negative feedback you received on this - at least, I don't see any in the comments.)

After watching this video, I also checked out your videos on instrument maintenance. The rotor maintenance video is particularly well done, and I got some good tips out of it! Thanks for sharing these. Wonderful stuff!

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2021-03-19 7:58 p.m.

Thank you Paul! My "least popular video" received a bunch of thumbs down within an hour of me posting it. The only way that could have happened is for there to have been people subscribed to me, watching what I post and they gave me an immediate thumbs down. I'm not delusional -- really no one is watching my content so I figured it must be my friends here at TC. Also, since my other videos didn't receive a negative response like that, I took it seriously. Maybe I can find the confidence to keep on with my series!

I don't want to hijack this thread any further. Hopefully we can see some other videos or takes on this fascinating subject.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-20 11:10 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I don't want to hijack this thread any further.[/quote]

Yes, enough about me. Let's talk about me.

But seriously, I'm personally cool with this thread going off into other players. If the moderators feel otherwise we can start new topics.

[quote="harrisonreed"]My "least popular video" received a bunch of thumbs down within an hour of me posting it[/quote]

Four thumbs down is "a bunch?" You've got twice as many thumbs up on that video. Besides, haters gonna hate.

[quote="PaulTdot"]One thing I disagree with, though, is your description of airstream direction: it is not based (or not solely based) on the position of the jaw, as you describe it here.[/quote]

I have to agree with Paul here, Harrison. I didn't watch all your comments yet on your video, but I still think you're overplaying the role that jaw plays in directing the air stream. It does have an influence on overall embouchure form, but I think if you watch the Leno film carefully enough you will see the air stream gets directed at its angle into the mouthpiece more or less independent of what the jaw is doing.

[quote="harrisonreed"]I've been working on getting more accurate and efficient with those motions, and l have a lip slur exercise that is helping me do that -- basically start on pedal Bb and do an octave slur up, then go to trigger F and continue with an octave slur, then low Bb -- continue this pattern, BbBb, F F, until you hit up to F5, then reverse the pattern back down to the pedal Bb. I try to do it in one breath.[/quote]

Again, my two cents.

If the low register is too far in your descending direction (which I suspect it is, this is very common), then I don't think starting there is the best way to go about minimizing it. Instead, start on high Bb and slur by octaves down to pedal Bb. Strive to make the the motion the same between all octaves and find where each note is most focused and in tune. I'd also see about minimizing jaw motion as much as possible, just to see how it affects things (particularly dropping the jaw to descend, the main risk for your embouchure type being that it can pull the mouthpiece off the top lip's position).

But I could be wrong. Catch a video lesson with Doug sometime, I can highly recommend them.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Hopefully we can see some other videos or takes on this fascinating subject.[/quote]

Yeah, someone else's turn next.

Trombo · by **Trombo** » 2021-03-28 4:05 a.m.

Spot the Embouchure Issues:

Type IVA do not suit you (IMHO). You have overbite and IIIB or IIIA will suit you better.

Guess the Crazy Fix:

1. Read about embouchure in the book "Trombone Technique" by Denis Vick.

2. Buy Faxx 6 1 / 2AL and practice 5 hours a day.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-28 10:11 a.m.

Thanks for your thoughts, Trombo.

[quote="Trombo"]Type IVA do not suit you (IMHO). You have overbite and IIIB or IIIA will suit you better.[/quote]

An overbite won't dictate the embouchure type in this way. Many upstream players have an overbite.

I'm not sure if you've read all the way through this thread, but it's pretty obvious that I'm not suited to play as a IIIB and IIIA. I've been down the IIIB route for years prior to switching to my current embouchure type. 10 days as a IIIA has been pretty convincing that that type is wrong too.

[quote="Trombo"]2. Buy Faxx 6 1 / 2AL and practice 5 hours a day.[/quote]

I used to play on a 6 1/2 AL. Back in grad school I did get 3+ hours a day of practice, plus rehearsing and teaching lessons. These days I'm getting around 2 hours a day. I've found that by focusing my practice in very specific ways I can often get more accomplished in a shorter amount of time, which is good since I don't normally get 5 hours a day just for practice.

Thanks again, Trombo.

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-03-28 10:39 a.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]...An overbite won't dictate the embouchure type in this way. Many upstream players have an overbite...[/quote]

We all tend to use the word overbite when what we really mean is overjet. Two different things. One can have an overjet and not have an overbite. But one can not have an overbite without having an overjet.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-03-28 12:48 p.m.

I had to look it up:

What’s the difference between an overjet and an overbite?

Some people use the terms overjet and overbite interchangeably. But while both conditions are similar, they’re not the same.

In both cases, your upper teeth will protrude over or in front of your bottom teeth. But with an overjet, the upper teeth protrude past the bottom teeth at an angle.

With an overbite, there isn’t an angle. Although the upper teeth protrude past the bottom teeth, the teeth remain straight or downward.

I don't think the term "overbite" is being misused here.

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-03-28 1:18 p.m.

It's a confusing set of terms! I think Wikipedia does about as good as any source I can find. The pic makes the concept clearer, I believe:

~~[url]~~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overbite

This may also help:

~~[url]~~https://diamondbraces.com/conditions/excessive-overjet/

Look at the two pics about halfway down, just over the caption "What Are the Causes Of Overjets". I think those two pics are revealing.

"Overbite" is more of a layman's term, I believe. An orthodontist might take the more clinical approach to define precisely what he is referring to.

Anyway, that's my "contribution" to this thread, such as it is. Hah!

Trombo · 2021-03-29 3:45 a.m.

Are you suggesting that David turn to the ordodontist to solve his problems? This is not a crazy idea, as it might seem. The great Russian trombonist Anatoly Skobelev (1945-2011) experienced great problems in his youth due to protruding front teeth.

The orthodontist replaced his front teeth. After that, all problems disappeared. He became the winner of the trombonists competition in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1973. He then became principal at the Bolshoi Theater and professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

<YOUTUBE id="7fk2-yHazOg">https://youtu.be/7fk2-yHazOg</YOUTUBE>

Teeth play a huge role in our profession.

Doug_Elliott · by **Doug_Elliott** » 2021-03-29 3:50 a.m.

It's not only confusing but somewhat contradictory as I see it. There's a "normal overjet" (what 99% of people would call "overbite") and "excessive overjet" in which every example shown in a picture has the top two front teeth angled outward... as the description I posted says "with an overjet, the upper teeth protrude past the bottom teeth at an angle.". It's really all about the angle.

I'm OK with using the term "overbite." It still correctly means top teeth in front of bottom teeth.

ArbanRubank · by **ArbanRubank** » 2021-03-29 8:07 a.m.

FWIW, I agree. I believe that for everyday discussions, "overbite" is the term that we all know and since when one has an overbite, the top teeth do stick out over the bottom teeth, it can't be wrong. I just wanted to add a little academician information purely for the sake of it. :geek:

Edit: I almost forgot (actually I DID forget, but I remembered that I had forgotten). The reason I know about these two types of malocclusions is that my orthodontist edumacated me when I had to have a front tooth capped. He was able to straighten it - for what he described as more stable & unified embouchure support. I think he must have had a friend who played trumpet. Turns out I think it did help my playing a bit. At least it didn't hurt it any worse than it ever was!

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2021-03-29 10:08 a.m.

I have a pretty typical "overbite" in that my lower teeth are naturally behind my upper teeth when I close my jaw completely. My upper teeth are pretty straight, while my lower teeth are a bit crooked, in spite of the braces I had when I was younger.

All that said, there seems to be no correlation between having an overbite and having a downstream embouchure type. I can say this with a certain degree of confidence since this was one of the research questions for my dissertation.

[quote="Trombo"]Are you suggesting that David turn to the ordodontist to solve his problems? This is not a crazy idea, as it might seem.[/quote]

A decision to have dental work done is probably best decided for dental health reasons. Another thing I can state with some certainty is that no one really knows exactly how all the anatomical features interact with each other to influence embouchure technique and anyone who states that they do know are fooling themselves. The approach that Doug teaches is working with your anatomy, rather than changing your anatomy to fit something that may or may not be helpful.

Trombo, I'm not sure that you've read through this entire thread. Please understand that when I first posted this topic my "crazy fix" had already been over. I started this thread because I was interested in sharing my experiences with other folks and while I'm happy to hear your thoughts on this topic, you might have to trust me when I say that the solution was not dental work or permanently changing my embouchure type.

Dave

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