Embouchure Change

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tbarrett
Posts: 7
Joined: Oct 23, 2022

by tbarrett »

I'm a sophomore in college as a Music Education major, and I am going through an embouchure change. Because of marching band habits, in high school I use to stick my jaw forward creating an underbite causing me to play as an "up streamer". However, these past few weeks I have began relearning with the correct embouchure as a "down streamer" and have had immense improvement in tone quality, but my high range has dramatically decreased. If I want to play high, does my top lip go over my bottom lip? How does it work? Any advice or knowledge is appreciated, thank you.
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Doug_Elliott
Posts: 4155
Joined: Mar 22, 2018

by Doug_Elliott »

I would have to see it.

Upstream is not "wrong" but it may or may not be wrong for you. There are MANY professional players who are upstream, very correctly.

I do lessons by Skype and my specialty is diagnosing and fixing issues such as yours.
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GabrielRice
Posts: 1496
Joined: Mar 23, 2018

by GabrielRice »

Doug very much knows what he is talking about.
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Vegasbound
Posts: 1328
Joined: Jul 06, 2019

by Vegasbound »

Have a lesson with Doug ASAP
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Posaunus
Posts: 5018
Joined: Mar 23, 2018

by Posaunus »

[quote="Vegasbound"]Have a lesson with Doug ASAP[/quote]

:good:
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Wilktone
Posts: 720
Joined: Mar 27, 2018

by Wilktone »

tbarrett, have you been in touch with Doug about your embouchure change? Doug helped me back while I was a grad student with my upstream embouchure and it was a transformative experience for me.

I have some resources on my blog about this topic, but it's very difficult to self-diagnose what you're doing and where you should be going. If you want to post some video of your chops I can scope it out and often can spot something helpful that way. I also have been teaching online video lessons, but still catch lessons with Doug myself, so he is the more experienced teacher here.

Dave