Natural Embouchure

Mark Heuer · Veteran Member Joined: 23 Nov 2001 Posts: 232

What is it? How do you know if you're playing with one? Thanks.

Quadruple C · Heavyweight Member Joined: 28 Nov 2001 Posts: 1448

[ This Message was edited by: Quadruple C on 2003-12-18 13:34 ]

Mark Heuer · Veteran Member Joined: 23 Nov 2001 Posts: 232

The reason I ask is: I think too much when I play. When I was in grade school and high school I just picked up the horn and played. And the results were pretty good. Now (some 20 years later as a comeback player) I'm thinking about seemingly everything while I'm trying to play. The embouchure seems to be the biggest (hang-up) problem for me. "Are my lips together?" "Are my corners firm?" "Is my tongue going between my teeth on the attack?" "Am I staying relaxed and letting the air do the work?" "When ascending are my lips contracting into the mouthpiece?" And on and on and on, etc. I'm driving myself nuts! Was my approach in grade school and high school (pick up the horn and blow) wrong? That's why I've been thinking about doing what comes "naturally" (i.e. the natural embouchure). Thanks.

[ This Message was edited by: Mark Heuer on 2002-01-29 08:41 ]

trumpetteacher1 · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2002 6:49 am Post subject:

Mark,

Anybody can get caught up in the details, if they don't know what they are doing. Especially the comeback player who is attempting to recapture the old feeling, a feeling that the player originally fell into spontaniously without much thought.

A couple of possibilites to resolve the situation:

1. Carmine Caruso - Charly Raymond moderates the Caruso forum on this website. Caruso was a master at solving paralysis by overanalysis, and Charly is a master at explaing the simple but extremely effective Caruso approach. Anyone who doubts the validity of this method simply doesn't understand it.

2. Perhaps I have a vested interest here, but you might also check out my website listed at the bottom of this post. Some of the things that you are thinking about sound inefficient to me. My book outlines a way to significantly improve embouchure efficiency.

There are other paths, but I know beyond all doubt that either of these will work for the problem that you have described.

Jeff Smiley
http://www.trumpetteacher.net

[ This Message was edited by: trumpetteacher1 on 2002-01-29 09:50 ]

_bugleboy · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2002 7:20 am Post subject:

Mark.

The best single piece of advice I can give you is "Don't think!" The second is to just put the horn on your lips and blow! The actual mechanics of sound production during a musical performance (where the rubber meets the road so to speak), should be trained as a conditioned response which requires NO THINKING. With that in mind, the next step is to put the horn on your lips in practise and blow certain exercises that will synchronize and balance all the moving parts of the embouchure to accomplish this. There is an alphabet soup of methods in this regard.

Generally, you want to start playing as if you are spitting a thread (hair and seed work) off the tip of your tongue. This will create a quick buzz in the lips which is the source of the vibration that will create the sound on the horn. It is OK to do this initially by protruding your tongue through your lips for the initial release of air. As you get comfortable with this initial "spitting" air release, the tongue will probably be less and less through your teeth. But if you ever wonder what the "right feel" is supposed to be, just put the tongue back out there and spit! Actually you want to spit that thread across the room, creating what will be a long tone.

Doing long tone studies, and variations thereof, is universally accepted as the best way to train an embouchure. Practising exercises that will condition the embouchure, and all of its parts, to behave itself automatically is a fairly stress free approach to getting the air moving and the notes happening. Same as the basic principle established by Pavlov, but just a little more complex.

What and how you choose to use the mechanical conditioning that you acquire will be the extent that you make music. That's another topic from which you definitely will not suffer from a shortage of opinions, on this or any other forum!

Regards,

CR

Mark Heuer · Veteran Member Joined: 23 Nov 2001 Posts: 232

Jeff,

Thanks. Small world...I was in your web site last night reading about your book "Balanced Embouchure". Maybe that book will help me. p.s. I might be getting a job transfer to Plano, TX (from IL) in the next month or so. If I do, I'll look you up and we can work on it one to one in private lessons (if you have space in your schedule).

Mark

_bugleboy · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2002 7:41 am Post subject:

Jeff,

I posted before seeing your post. Thanks for the Caruso reference. I try not to be constantly wielding the name. I get plenty of opportunities to do that in the Caruso forum.

If Mark does look you up in TX, I would expect that his trumpet playing issues will become a thing of the past.

Regards,

CR

David Oulton · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2002 7:01 am Post subject:

So how does a natural embouchure differ, if at all, from a lip compression one?

I'm trying to figure out (without pictures) the flat-chin vs bunched-chin embouchure characteristics that many have referred to so I can go to the mirror and figure out what I have...

David

edit: darn grammar

[ This Message was edited by: David Oulton on 2002-01-31 10:02 ]

trumpetteacher1 · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2002 7:58 am Post subject:

David,

A flat chin embouchure is ... a flat chin embouchure! It is formed by tightening the corners and pulling the chin muscles down and outwards, especially when ascending. Most players use this embouchure, some more successfully than others. In other words, it's a numbers game.

Mark,

I'm happy you found the website. Call me if you end up in Plano. However, I get emails every month from players who want to take lessons in order to learn my method. My stock answer is, "wait till you read the book." The book is designed as a self-help manual, and most can figure it out with no input from me, or maybe an email or two at most. Save yourself some money - read the book!

Charly,

I appreciate your sensitivity about constantly putting Caruso's name in front of readers. However, what seems old to you may be brand new to somebody else.

For everyone's information, Charly and I have been known to respond to a TH post within a minute of each other, a pretty neat trick since he's in Florida and I'm in Texas. You know what they say about great minds... LOL!

Jeff
http://www.trumpetteacher.net