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Coming Back, but with a problem


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meddle
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 5:03 am    Post subject: Coming Back, but with a problem Reply with quote

Hi guys,
I've played the horn for about 40 years, but for the last 20 years not very much. About 3 months ago I started seriously practicing and just this past weekend played in public for the first time in 25 years.
But I'm having a problem that I never had before. When I play, I'm getting a buzzing through the horn. It's hard to describe, but it's like static on a radio, and it IS through the horn, not out the side of my mouth.
It doesn't seem to matter if I'm playing soft or loud, high or low. I've tried everything I can think of to prevent it, but it still happens. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Jim
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Usedtobegood
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 5:37 am    Post subject: Re: Coming Back, but with a problem Reply with quote

meddle wrote:
Hi guys,
When I play, I'm getting a buzzing through the horn. It's hard to describe, but it's like static on a radio, and it IS through the horn, not out the side of my mouth.


I am assuming nothing is loose on the horn and this is coming from your chops. If so, I have battled the same thing off and on during my comeback. I was off the horn for about 20 years and back on now for about 18 months. It started creeping in after 3-4 months. I have experimented with mouthpiece position, chop tension, aperture size, mouthpiece cup diameter, depth, and nothing seemed to matter. I have done the pencil exercises, etc and I can't say for sure that has helped.

For me, it happens when I am fatigued and I get lazy on my corners and my air and lose the focus in my chops. When it happens during practice, I stop, rest and restart. During a performance I focus (I think of centering) my chops more, keeping my corners tight and make sure air is consistent. It now happens less and less.

When practicing rest as long as you play and concentrate on what makes it go away, and then try to repeat that. Good luck.
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meddle
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 5:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the advice. I've tried 3 different horns, and its the same with all, so I'm pretty sure it's me. I've also tried many different MP's, and no difference there either.
Where I'm a little different than you is that this can happen when I'm fresh or fatigued. I was once a very serious horn player and never encountered this problem then, so it's pretty frustrating.
What is the pencil exercises?
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itauditbill
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 5:46 am    Post subject: Question Reply with quote

Is it like a hiss in the center of your tone?

I've had that problem and it took a bit of a mouthpiece safari to find one that sounded good and fit my needs. Then that hiss disappeared. I've tried to go back to some of my favorites, but alas no luck.
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meddle
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 5:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, it's not a hiss. It's like an intermittent buzzing along with the proper sound. It's hard to describe, but it really is to the sound of the horn like static is to a radio. Or like the sound of turning a volume knob that has dust in it, a crackling. That's the best way I can describe it. And this is with the same equipment I used 20 years ago. I've tried at least 15 different pieces and it does it with all of them. I'm really stumped.

Last edited by meddle on Tue May 24, 2011 6:09 am; edited 1 time in total
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veery715
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just an idea. If you wear glasses, try taking them off.

Perhaps you can get a friend to listen and determine if it is actually coming out the bell or not.
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meddle
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've done that and it is coming out of the bell. What do you mean by taking my glasses off? What would that do, other than make me not be able to read the music!?
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Donjon
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would suggest that the pencil exercise is probably going to be counter-productive.

If this is an issue with your chops, I would recommend that relaxation is critical. Whenever I've had issues with sound production, the issue has usually been due to too much tension in the chops. This can be due to overplaying or thinking of a free buzzing style set up with the chops.
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Donjon
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you cleaned the horn with a snake?
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meddle
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Donjon wrote:
Have you cleaned the horn with a snake?


Yes.
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mrsemman
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Many of us, including myself, have the same or similar problem from time to time. Experiment with the placement of the mouthpiece on your lips. Check your breathing, which is something I discovered in my comeback. I concentrate on relaxing my breaths and developing the lung capacity, so that I can play longer phrases of music. I also use a tip that I learned on this site. Play as quietly as possible with the lightest touch of the mouthpiece to your lips. This helps to develop endurance. Remember, to rest as much as you play, which for me is hard, but then I work on singing the music (mentally, as vocally would endagner the wildlife in my area).
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HERMOKIWI
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The fact that this happens all the time indicates that it is a fundamental issue. The most likely cause is some form of interference by the lower lip with the buzzing of the upper lip. In order to eliminate the problem you have to make some adjustment to keep the lower lip out of the way of the upper lip.

The basic function of the lower lip is to serve as a valve to regulate the airflow. An analogy would be placing your thumb in a hose to regulate the flow of water. The more your thumb interferes with (resists) the flow of water the faster the water sprays. The thumb is, essentially, compressing the flow of water.

The lower lip, likewise, compresses the air column and points it toward the upper lip which, in turn, responds by buzzing. This is an oversimplification of the process but I use it to illustrate the following point: As long as the lower lip supports the bottom of the air column, without getting in the way of the buzzing of the upper lip, your tone should be pure. When you get static in the tone the lower lip is encroaching on the buzzing of the upper lip.

There are several potential causes but they all tend to create the same result: The aperture becomes so small that the lower lip encroaches on the buzzing of the upper lip. When the aperture is too small the lower lip breaks through the bottom of the air column and comes into too much contact with the upper lip and either physically interferes with the buzzing of the upper lip, creating static, or produces its own buzz, creating static, or both. This is typically an issue of playing with too much tension in the lower lip, improper positioning of the lower lip or some combination.

This is an extremely difficult problem to cure. In my experience, the best exercise is to practice whisper tones as long tones and gradually build volume. Your whisper tones won't have the static because you can't play whisper tones in long tone form if your lower lip is encroaching on the buzz of your upper lip. You have to relax to play whisper tones. With the tension gone the static should disappear. You are just trying to find the point at which the lips first respond to the air column to produce the quietest possible tone of the desired pitch.

So, your first homework assignment is to produce some whisper tones as long tones, then report back to us on the results. If you can produce consistent static free whisper tones then your issue is encroachment of the lower lip into the buzz of the upper lip due to too much tension (squeezing the aperture down to the point that the lips are in too much contact) and/or positioning the lower lip in a way that the aperture is not large enough to keep the lips sufficiently apart.

If that proves to be the case you are going to have to focus on playing with a larger aperture. Training yourself to do that takes a lot of time and diligence. It will compromise your range for awhile and will require patience to master. You'll have to train your embouchure to produce tones with much less tension than you are currently using.
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Usedtobegood
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 8:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

HERMOKIWI makes a good point. I forgot to mention that playing very softly has helped quite a bit. I play Clarke Technical Studies at ppp as much as I can.

I think it will invlove experimentation and trial and error, hopefully you will find what causes it and how to correct it
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veery715
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 8:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

meddle wrote:
I've done that and it is coming out of the bell. What do you mean by taking my glasses off? What would that do, other than make me not be able to read the music!?

Another poster complained of an extraneous vibration which turned out to be something in the temple of his glasses vibrating sypathetically with the sound from his horn.
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RandyTX
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 9:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Usedtobegood wrote:
I forgot to mention that playing very softly has helped quite a bit. I play Clarke Technical Studies at ppp as much as I can.


That's always good advice. I've recently received a copy of "Special Studies for Trumpet" by Jeff Daniel, who is a trumpet professor that has been working on this collection for a very long time (apparently, I don't know him personally). This came up on TPIN and I decided to try it out.

It has a lot of good stuff in it, but one particular section he calls Efficiency Studies seems to be very beneficial. It is also designed to be played at very low volume levels, while maintaining a full tone, and moving around on the horn a bit more than the early clark TC exercises.

I'm not going to claim it's better or worse than Clarke at this point, it's different. That alone has some value just for variety of exercises, but I think it's been beneficial already even in the short time I've been using it.

It also contains a lot of exercises on breath attacks, articulation in general, note bending (he calls these flexibility). That latter portion is somewhat similar to Mr. Hickman's book that focuses on bends quite a bit.

Probably the best thing about this book in keeping with this particular forum (i.e. Comeback Players) is that the exercises are labeled in "levels", along with example practice routines, so you can go through each section in a progression of difficulty, which seems ideal for trying to get into shape as a comeback player. You can gradually work your way into a few exercises from each section, then augment them with more involved versions of each section as you progress in your comeback.
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meddle
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 3:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks to everyone for all the advice! I just finished trying some things.
First, I assume the term "apature" means how open one's mouth is? I tried doing that and it did help that condition, but I could hardly play. I was wondering why I have this problem when I never did before. I never stopped playing the horn, I just had time periods where I didn't play for a month or two at a time.
When I was in high school and college I played on a 1-1/4C Bach. Yeah, it was big, but it just seemed to work for me. I normally played 2nd part in jazz bands, and sometimes played lead. I could play to a high F with that mouthpiece, although it was pretty loud.
Anyway, I'm trying to go to a smaller piece now. Does it make any sense that I would have this problem more with a smaller piece than a big one? Tonight I tried that 1-1/4C, a 5C and a Zottolla 64B. It kind of seemed like the problem was less with the first piece than the other two, but I"m not sure.
I did notice a couple things that contradict what I originally stated. The problem is more pronounced when playing softly, when tonging vs sluring, and is more in the lower and middle ranges that it is in the upper range.
Does this place have spell check? I can't find it and desperately need it!
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DLoeffler
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2011 4:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Without actually seeing you play and hearing the issue you are describing, it really sounds as if you are experiencing a "double buzz". Especially if it occurs on every trumpet and mouthpiece you have tried. Check the topics in trumpetherald and you will find some good discussions on the subject.

For now, two possible causes:
1) Your corners are not firm enough and it is causing the upper and lower lip to buzz "out of sync" with each other.
2) You are doing to much upper register causing your embochure to tighten up.
3) You are playing too much and not allowing enough time to recover.

You will find many different suggestions to fix on this site and others. I would suggest trying one or more of the following:
1) tilt your horn up or down slightly to see if it goes away. If the buzzing goes away when you tilt down, too much pressure on the upper lip is a possible cause of the problem.
2) try changing your warm up to incorporate some additional low register work
3) be certain your corners are firm
4) be certain your chin is pointed
5) a different mouthpiece may fix the problem IF you are using something that is REALLY shallow and with a small diameter
6) one other thing you may try is to take a day off - see item 3 above - If you are doing more playing than usual, you may just be tired.
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meddle
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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the tips. How much playing is too much when I've been playing regularly for about 3 months? Keep in mind that I never really stopped playing, but just didn't play enough for the past 20 years or so.
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altamira_28
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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know exactly what you mean. You've got a double buzz happening. Your sound is coming through on one vibration of your lips, but there's another, smaller, more annoying buzz happening somewhere else within the mouthpiece. I get this phenomenon because I'm doing gigs that require a lot of b---s to the wall playing nonstop in the middle to upper middle register. This spreads my lips out, causing the vibrating portions of my chops in the piece to increase in size to keep up with the demand of the volume.

I find that, (when I actually have the time), any, and as much quiet playing with as good a tone as you can possibly get will generally get your aperture back into whack. I never seem to be able to catch up, unless I just absolutely take the day off. Not preferable, but it takes less time than what I'd need to get back into primo playing condition, only to have it ruined on the next gig the next day and start from square one.

Long story short (too late), regardless of how loud you think you're practicing, I'd bet $ you're not balancing it out with the same amount of softer playing.

Try really soft in your regular routine and see what happens.

Good Luck!

Josh
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Usedtobegood
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PostPosted: Sat May 28, 2011 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK. Not sure if this is a true fix or not, but..... I had some buzzing today off and on. I decided to mess around with my gap because I have been cracking and missing notes. I did the Reeves paper trick and put 1 strip in. It seemed like things were a little better so I tried 2 strips. Bingo! Not only did it improve my accuracy but the buzz went away! I even tried to make it buzz and couldn't, even while playing very softly. Now, was it me or the increase in gap? I have no clue if this was a fix or just a quirky thing, but its so easy to do, its worth a shot. I am getting my pieces cut for sleeves and getting sleeves soon!

Here is the link to the paper trick instructions
http://www.bobreeves.com/products/papertrick.htm
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