I'm not sure where to put this. I'm two years back to playing after 30 years off, and I'm starting to figure some things out. So I thought I'd write about it, partly because it helps my own process, and partly because I thought others might be able to take something useful from this or have suggestions.

Anyway...

I've recently come to the point where I can play the whole horn with a fair amount of ease. From pedal Bb to double-high Bb (and above and below) and it feels pretty effortless. And let me tell you, that's a wonderful feeling. Plus, I don't feel as much difference in effort between the low notes and the high notes anymore. High notes take much less effort. And I can do it with tone, and my facility is easier/better, too. In fact, the facility part is really fun.

So I asked myself, what changed? Why did I sort of suddenly get better at these things? And then I paid attention.

Best I can tell, I'm doing two things slightly differently than I was earlier, and I'm consciously doing one other thing slightly more than I used to. I emphasize slightly because these are all very small changes. I'm reminded of the movie "Contact," where Ellie's dad tells her, "Small moves, Ellie. Small moves." And that was the most important message of the movie.

The two things I'm doing slightly differently are:

1. I'm keeping my corners slightly tighter and pushing more toward the center. When I say corners I'm not talking about the very edge where the lips meet, but the "corners" that are the focus spots more toward the mouthpiece rim. And when I say pushing more toward the center, I say that to distinguish it from pursing the lips forward.

2. As I get higher I'm changing the angle of the horn slightly downward. This last was a suggestion from Dave and Doug, which I rejected at first because they had me going down and to the left and that wasn't working for me. But just downward a little bit as I ascend (and back, descending) feels pretty darn good. And it also helped with the next part.

I have to emphasize again that these are tiny, tiny changes. But they've made a noticeable impact.

And the thing I'm doing slightly more than I've been doing is to minimize the pressure I use. Doing that makes everything easier, top to bottom. Most of us, including me, have this intuitive thing that says to use more pressure going high, and if we try to do it without pressure we fail miserably, and see that as proof that using the pressure is helpful. But what I've found is that backing off as far as I could made me become much more efficient with my mechanics, with the result being that eventually my high notes actually became easier than ever, and without using pressure it wasn't as fatigueing.

Anyway, putting those three things together resulted in a kind of gestalt, where the amount of improvement was greater than the amount of change.

Does this make sense to anyone? I anticipate people telling me I'm doing it all wrong! :D

All of this makes a lot of sense to me. It's basically what I've noticed has helped the greatest amount of students I've had with the most consistency, and what has happened in my own playing as well.

"As I get higher I'm changing the angle of the horn slightly downward. This last was a suggestion from Dave and Doug, which I rejected at first because they had me going down and to the left and that wasn't working for me. "

Just to be clear, I did not suggest that - maybe Dave did. I never worked with you.

Getting older can have such benefits, countered by issues with night driving, hearing what conductors are saying and even holding the beast up. Aging....what fun <EMOJI seq="1f601" tseq="1f601">😁</EMOJI>

You are describing efficient embouchure mechanics of a downstream embouchure. Sounds right to me!

[quote="Doug Elliott"]"As I get higher I'm changing the angle of the horn slightly downward. This last was a suggestion from Dave and Doug, which I rejected at first because they had me going down and to the left and that wasn't working for me. "

Just to be clear, I did not suggest that - maybe Dave did. I never worked with you.[/quote]

My mistake. From what Dave said, I was under the impression that Dave had talked/collaborated with you.

For students I take notes that I send them after our lesson. I also review them before another lesson to see what we talked about. With you, Dana, we were just talking about chops and mostly watching video footage of players I happened to record.

I do recall spending a little time with you to work out your embouchure type (Reinhardt IIIA, Very High Placement type) and how your pivot/embouchure motion works. My recollection with the later was that you might benefit from tracking your embouchure motion up and to your right to ascend and therefore might benefit from angling your horn towards the right as you ascend. However, I may be remembering all that wrong because I didn't take notes.

I also recall that you were very reluctant to let me experiment with you to test whether my thoughts about your pivot were accurate, so whatever I told you, you should take with a grain of salt. You were prepping for a recording session or performance or something and didn't want to mess with your chops at the time. I also got the impression (correct me if I'm wrong) that you were also a bit skeptical of the whole thing and felt at the time that things were working just fine for you, so making any adjustments would not be constructive.

If you really want to get more out of this experience, we can meet up online again and I can take another stab at helping you work out your personal idiosyncrasies. Better still, grab a full lesson with Doug.

Dave