LIP BUZZING

[_bugleboy]

In all of those studies the lips were always closed during part of each cycle, completely open part of the cycle, and somewhere inbetween all of the other times.

In ACTIVE buzzing the lips should be touching before the mouthpiece pins them in place.

The hole caused by the airstream is smaller note for note than an INACTIVE buzzer or one who vibrates.

So what do the lips do?
They do the SAME thing. But I(one?) way takes more air mass and lip strength than the other.

In a Vibrating embouchure something has to take the place of the touching that the buzzer does.

From these statements I conclude that:

• for buzzing to occur, it requires that the lips be touching before the air is blown through them
  
• an inactive buzzer does not have lips touching when the air is blown through. So it appears that the only difference between a buzzer and a non-buzzer is the position of the lips prior to blowing the air, however,
  
• An inactive buzzer is also referred to as "one who vibrates." The implication being that an active buzzer doesn't vibrate. But how can this be so since,
  
• The actual activity that occurs in the lip tissue when a sound is produced is identical for both a buzzer and a non-buzzer. This now would imply that they are both vibrating. Further,
  
• since all flouroscopic and stroboscopic studies show the lips always coming to a touch position during one cycle of vibration, it would follow that any position which holds that the lips can vibrate without touching is not in agreement with these studies.

Does this represent the Adam position?







_________________
Charles Raymond



[ This Message was edited by: bugleboy on 2003-01-24 23:17 ]

[Atomlinson]

Your call Pat. This is all getting a bit complicated for me, I think I'll just go off and do a bit of old-fashioned practise. Bye.

Andrew Tomlinson

[ This Message was edited by: Atomlinson on 2003-01-25 05:22 ]

[PC]

Hi, since this thread is already into multiple pages, I'll venture out here again, as I don't think I'll disturb too much!

I tried yesterday leadpipe buzzing. It does indeed work as a gentle introduction to sound production (as you all well know)!
Blowing air and gently bringing the lips together helps in getting the feeling for good sound production on the horn, so I can understand why it would be a good tool. For me, it does not add any advantage to lip buzzing, as I feel that if you can efficiently lip buzz, you sure can leadpipe buzz. It seems to me that the final result is the same, whether you train on the leadpipe or you do some off horn lip buzz followed by breath attacks on the (complete) horn. Somehow, I feel that for me it is more efficient to work with the most resistance (i.e. lip buzz) and learn to relax on horn by playing long tones and listening to the sound richness I desire, than doing the leadpipe thing, but to each his own. The trick is to know to rest enough, both while buzzing, between buzzing and real playing and of course while practising on the horn. If you pace yourself, then buzzing will strengthen the lips without rigidifying them.

Also, the big advantage of lip buzzing against lp, is that because there are no slots, you learn how to most efficiently move from note to note, with the minimum amount of lip movement (too much manipulation and you either overshoot the target note or lose the buzz completely), while on the horn (or lp if you go for more than one note) the slots can hide too much lip manipulation. I find that this lip movement efficiency translates automatically to better pitch centering on the horn, which again leads, as we know, to less effort and more projection.

By the way, playing the lp, I definitely felt my lips buzzing (and thus vibrating). My take on this topic is that the lips are the motor, the instrument the resonator and slotting on the trp just means that the motor has been tuned to the right frequency to drive the resonator at max gain. But if you think of the child on a swing analogy (in technical terms a driven oscillator with friction), it is still the parent who has to input effort to the system to keep the child swinging. If this periodic effort is input at the right frequency, then the child swings at the greatest amplitude (for a given effort). My point is that we need to inject energy into the horn continuously to keep the oscillations (acoustical, this time) going, just that peak amplitude will be attained at the right frequency. Losses in the system are enough to stop the tone if we stop this energy feed, even if we continue blowing air.

I hope this makes sense, was not too long-winded, is not too controversial for a dedicated forum and was of some interest!

Pierre.

[ This Message was edited by: PC on 2003-01-28 02:40 ]

[psalt]

Has anyone out there studied with both William Adam and James Stamp? How do you reconcile the buzzing vs no buzzing approach, given that both teachers have produced many world class players such as Malcolm McNab, Tom Stevens, Hakan Hardenberger etc on one hand, and on the other, Jerry Hey, Charlie Davis etc.

[DarkerTrumpet]

I would just like to interject here that some of you have mentioned that in fact physicists and such have no real exact idea of what is going on when you buzz the mouthpiece etc. I am currently taking a course at my university called The Physics of Musical Sound, and would just like to point out that in fact, physics very much does know EXACTLY what is going on when you create sound on a trumpet, and physicists actually do bother with this quite a bit, as it is one of the easiest ways to study wave form behavior that applies to communication frequency technology. I would also just like to say, that so far what we have learned agrees almost 100% with the Adam philosophy. We have not yet gotten to specifically the trumpet yet, but we have studied so far open ended and closed ended tube harmonic systems, and the way air pressure and sound waves behave in relationship to each other inside of them, and how sound is created. I will keep you posted as we go further.

[Billy B]

Darker Trumpet,

Give us an update.