An unusual case: upstream/downstream buzzing switch

[Paul T.]

I ran into a really unusual case on a recent gig, and I'll to hear your thoughts on this. Have you ever seen anything like this? What do you think is going on here? What would you recommend?

I was playing a gig with a young trombonist who is really making a name for himself. He's a strong player, great technique, beautiful sound throughout the range (both low and high), really consistent, in tune, and very strong in the upper register but still full and thick all over the horn (including extreme low register). No obvious limitations (e.g. a IIIB's lack of ease with the upper register, or a IV's thin low register).

Looking at him play, his placement looks like a IIIA: lots of upper lip, horn almost straight out. Pivot is hard to spot, but if anything I would say he's pulling down to ascend. (More accurately, he definitely pulls down in the upper register. I'm not 100% sure that he's doing that throughout his range, though. There's not much movement happening in general.)

He confided to me that he has an unusual problem, and asked me if I had any advice. He says that he has two embouchures, one upstream and one downstream. At the beginning of the day, he picks up the horn and tries to see which one feels better. Once he's chosen, he sticks with it for a long time: sometimes a few days, sometimes up to a month.

However, sooner or later things start to feel bad and he finds he's not getting the response he likes. When that happens, he switches to "the other way", and he says that always fixes the problem (although sometimes it takes a while to recover his endurance). However, another while later the same problem happens and he has to switch again.

And so he goes, switching from one setup to the other every few weeks. To my ears, his "problems" are very minor (you wouldn't notice anything if you weren't told specifically to listen for it - I can only hear the difference if he plays something two ways back to back, and even then it's subtle).

[Paul T.]

When someone who's not Reinhardt trained tells me about embouchures and uses terms like "upstream" and "downstream", I always try to get them to explain what they mean. (It's been my experience that everyone means something different.)

In his case, however, he seems to be using the same definition that we would here. I asked him if he could show me how he forms his embouchure without the horn and he buzzed some notes for me in two different ways. His downstream embouchure looked like a pretty typical IIIA or IIIB, with a pretty nice free buzz happening and everything working well. However, he said he finds buzzing easier upstream and then demonstrated how he can do it: sure enough, his bottom lip came out and he was now buzzing upstream! Now he looked like a pretty typical upstream embouchure. He said that buzzing this way was much easier for him.

So that's one really interesting find: I've never seen someone freebuzz so successful upstream before. (Have you? Is it very rare?)

He says that on the upstream setup he feels like his sound has a little more front and a little more punch, whereas on the downstream setup he feels he can play more fluidly and has more ease with flexibility. However, he sounds almost the same either way and his range is exactly the same. (You probably wouldn't notice he was playing two different ways by listening to him: it's very close.)

The interesting part is that it really looks like he's got mostly top lip in the mouthpiece both ways. (I didn't get to confirm this with a transparent mouthpiece, however.) His placement is very high, like a typical IIIA. When he plays "upstream" he says that he places the mouthpiece even higher (to me, it looked like he was putting *less* bottom lip in the mouthpiece, but I couldn't tell if it was sitting higher on the top lip as well).

The horn angle is the same either way.

I asked him to place the mouthpiece lower down on his face, like a more typical upstream player. (When he talks about playing upstream, he sometimes places the mouthpiece very low on his face to demonstrate what he means, and says he had a trumpet teacher who played like that.) However, he couldn't get any sound with any placement lower than his usual 70/30 or so top/bottom placement.

After some experimenting, I asked him if it was possible that when he plays "upstream", he forms his embouchure as if to play upstream, but then, when he's actually playing, the top lip predominates within the mouthpiece and he ends up playing downstream anyway. We fooled around with it a little, and he agreed that it was possible. (If he played "upstream" and then pulled the horn away from his face without stopping the air it looked like the air was going down.) However, I couldn't confirm this without a transparent mouthpiece, so I can't be sure that this is the case.

He would like to stick to one way of playing so that he doesn't have to worry about switching, but he says that whenever he tries sooner or later things get worse and then he has to switch to the "other way" in order to sound good on the gig. This happens within a few weeks, or sometimes a month or longer, but it happens reliably.

Isn't that interesting? Have you ever seen this kind of thing?

[PivotBone]

I've had many students get "hung up" on the whole upstream/downstream thing. In my mind, the student (player) shouldn't be too concerned with this as its usually out of their hands to do much of anything about it. In almost all situations, if there is more upper lip in the mouthpiece, they will be a downstream type and if they place more on the lower lip, they will be an upstream type. I've had IIIAs swear they were playing as upstream players in the upper registers, but they definitely were not. What you think and feel happening with airstream direction don't necessarily correlate with what is actually happening in the mouthpiece. Just think of all the players who THINK that they are blowing straight into the mouthpiece. Also, don't pay too much attention to how well he can buzz upstream; it probably won't tell you much about his actually playing embouchure.

So, what is going on with this player. I don't doubt that he is doing SOMETHING different. It's probably something to do with how he is forming his embouchure and/or directing tension in his face. It is doubtful that he is actually changing airstream directions when he plays unless he is drastically changing his mouthpiece placement and/or protruding his jaw tremendously.

What to do to help this player? First, you need to find out what he is doing currently. To determine airstream direction, you MUST use a clear mouthpiece! Once that is determined, see if you can notice any subtle differences in what exactly is changing inside and outside of the mouthpiece. Ask him to describe what he THINKS are the things he is changing. He may not be entirely in touch with those changes, but something he says may give you a clue of what to look for. Also, look through the clear mouthpiece to see if he might be changing airstream directions at different parts of his registers or possibly even at different volumes.

Once you see what he is doing currently, look to see what he "should" be doing (at least for now, as this may change over time as it may for any player). Does he work better with pivot classification 1 or 2? Does upstream or downstream work better? Once you have him "typed," he should work on making that type CONSISTENT to the best of his abilities. If he is, in fact, switching embouchure types, that will make his playing inconsistent physically and psychologically. He needs to have consistency in his approach to reap consistent results. When things start to feel "off," you need to remind him to stay the course, but it may also be helpful to check out his playing and see if he is deviating from his "type."


I hope this helps! As with any student, you have to find out what they ARE doing and what they SHOULD be doing and help to get them from point A to point B.

Also, try not to let him get in his own head. Sounds like he is a great player. Keep the suggestions simple and try not to disrupt anything. Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good! Music is the end goal and your job in this "relationship" is to help him play music better and for a long time.

Rich Hanks

[jwilson46]

When I lived in D.C. many years ago a super trombone player came to town to play in one of the premier military jazz bands. He played great jazz and his range was powerful from lowest notes to F above double Bb. On a gig with Doug Elliott I mentioned this trombone player and Doug agreed that he was fabulous. Doug then said he wondered if this player would experience problems later in age because he switched types. I'm not sure but I think he was IIIA who either pulled down for the highest notes or ducked his head and pushed up for the low notes. I tend to think it was the latter. In either case you are switching the direction of the track. When the trombone player was in his 40s he started to have problems. He became very frustrated and quit playing for a couple years. I had the good fortune to play several gigs with him later on. On some nights he was his old self and on other nights he struggled.

I myself had problems with type switching. On my best days when I was fresh I played IIIA. Fatigue would give me the urge so switch to IIIB and it would work for a while but switching types made me inconsistent. I had to discipline myself to follow Reinhardt's rule of resting. Gigs and rehearsals have built-in rests. It's in the practice room where you get into trouble if you're not disciplined regarding resting.

John

[Paul T.]

Great replies, gentlemen.

Rich, that's exactly correct. Fantastic advice, and the note on the psychological aspects being as important as the physical in a case like this is really important. I also think that this player is most likely playing downstream "inside the mouthpiece". His pivot didn't look any different between the two different ways, either.

I have a question about testing for pivot direction:

If someone has no noticeable pivot/tracking, and you'd like to figure out what a player is doing, would it be a good idea to ask them to exaggerate the motion, just to see which works better?

If not, what do you do to determine the "type" of a player who doesn't have any visible motion?

(In this particular player's case, he makes a slight adjustment for the lower register and moves his head, which masks his motion a little it. But I'm curious to hear the "general" answer to that question, as well.)

John, I think I even know the trombone player you're talking about! He was a IIIA who started pulling down for the extreme upper register, I believe. (Of course, I'm only guessing: maybe you're talking about someone else altogether! But the fellow I'm thinking of played with the Airmen of Note with Doug at some point.)

[JoshMizruchi]

My initial thought was that he could be a type I. I mean, I know it's rare, but it does happen.

I would recommend that he take a lesson with Dave, Rich or Chris and I'd be very interested to see what they have to say after seeing him play up close.

-Josh
_________________
Josh Mizruchi
http://www.joshmizruchi.com

[Paul T.]

Josh,

He definitely has an overbite (although not a huge one).

[PivotBone]

Paul,
For finding out the pivot direction, yes you can have them try exaggerating the pivot a little to see if one is better than the other. What I'm looking for when I'm working with someone's pivot is pitch (intonation) and timbre. Going in the right direction while ascending will keep the pitch in tune (especially on octaves) and may even go sharp if they've gone past the spot for that note. Exaggerating, for this reason, can help. If they are exaggerating, and it's the wrong direction, an ascending pivot will be flat. That is why I like working on octaves when I'm working on the pivot. You should be working for octaves that are in tune and have the same general timbre. The octaves shouldn't get dull or nasal.

In general, there will be a direction where the pitch goes sharp and a direction where the pitch goes flat. Often, you can even get that on one note. While trying to hold a pitch steady for a long tone, for example, you can experiment with moving the horn up/down and left/right. Hopefully, you will notice patterns on that one note. Then see if that works the same over intervals.

Also, many times a player will FEEL that one direction is easier than another while playing large intervals. For players who don't exhibit much motion in their normal playing, sometimes you have to have them play VERY large intervals to get them to notice the effect.

Rich Hanks

[Paul T.]

Rich,

I sent you an e-mail, but I should comment here, as well.

That is a fantastic post! Thank you. Lots of good information in there. We'll see if I get a chance to play with this trombonist again in the near future!