Convince me that aperture shape control isn't nonsense

[Robert P]

Anyone have any hard evidence that the vibrating split between the lips can be controlled, that it can be anything other than a given size at a given pitch and volume while actually playing a horn?

By evidence I mean something besides some esteemed teacher or someone with a lot of Youtube subscribers says so.
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[PH]

I won't. I can't.
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[oxleyk]

[Shaft]

While I would love to give scientific examples, diagrams or some way to make it easy to visualize, all I can do right now is just describe some of it in words for you, as I interpret it.

There's are times where I make my lips contact and I feel the contact points in different ways. For example, let's see your lips were 5 mm from front to back. So that's from the inside of the mouth to the exterior of the face. Inside of the cup diameter.

Can you feel 5 mm of the lip contacting each other front to back?

Or do you shape your lips in such a way that only the front 2 mm or front 1 mm contact from lip to lip?

Or what would it be like if you only felt the 1 mm or 2 mm that are closest to the mouth and the teeth and for some reason the front of your lips were kind of blown open in the front and didn't really touch or vibrate?

What would it feel like or sound like if you held the firmness of your lips a certain way so that all 5 mm of your lips were part of the sound vibration? Do you think it would be more resonant than if just the front millimeter or two or the rear millimeter or two were resonating as a note is played?

1- So that is the dimension of front and back.

People always talk about corners "i'm bringing my corners in" Or "feeling the burn in the corners." We accept this in discussion amongst trumpet players and a great many players have felt that, if they have been on the horn for any amount of time.

As a player is it possible for a person to use a certain firmness where there are vibrating with their lips inside of the mouthpiece all of the way from the inner diameter on the left to the inner diameter on the right? I say yes. Must a player use so much firmness that only 1 mm, 2 mm, or 3 mm from left to right and directly in the center of the mouthpiece vibrate when a note is played?

2- that is the dimension of left and right.

Now what if you kept the firmness in your lips in such a way so that you had all 5 mm front to back from the teeth to the exterior of the face vibrating for your notes? And we keep this constant for this example.

In this case you don't feel like your lips are vibrating and you lose the note all together. Do you think that you need to bring your top lip down a little more in the middle or bring your bottom lip up a little more so that the lips vibrate together?

And if so, how much from you so you can do with this? Or are you keeping your lips pinched together, so much from top to bottom that you need to actually lessen the firmness in the middle from top to bottom because the sound is not coming out.

3- this is the dimension of how you are making your top lip go down and your bottom lip come up and grabbing the note that way.

Now when you think of all of these variables working together ( X, Y, and Z axis) can you see a circle around all of those lines in a mathematical image? Could you see how that circle would change shape into ovals moving on different planes?

MENTAL IMAGERY APPLICATION TO TELL THE BODY HOW TO PLAY THE NOTE

So if I think in my mind that I want to have an oval-shaped aperture where the long sides are vertical then that's going to create a little bit different way and how I do manipulation of firmness in the lips all of the way around the note inside the diameter of the cup.

What if I want to keep what I feel is the firmness and my lips so that it's creating a circle around the note where my lips grab that note inside of the cup?

And what if I want to do an oval shape that's laying on its long side with the short sides going vertical on left and right?

Now what if I want this shape that (I pick of any of these three) to be touching with my lips in the front 1 mm of my lip only and my lips are only touching in the very front of the face when I play a note?

What if I pick that same shape and only have it really touching when I play the note in the 1 mm of my lips that's closest to the teeth? (Basically the inner mucosa membrane.)

What if I want that shape to be touching and all 5 mm front to back from the teeth to the exterior face?

Now would it make a difference if I used any of these variables of firmness when I play, within the mouthpiece of the cup, in different playing settings and environments? I say yes.

Is this part of how people have defused sounds or sounds that project even at the quietest volumes to the back of the hall 500 feet away? I say yes.

Is this the reason that sometimes you can blend with the French horn player coming out of a passage in the wind ensemble and almost sound like the French horn? Hmm

Or perhaps you want to sound a little bit more bright but use the same mouthpiece and match with a different instrument or be playing on that same instrument and mouthpiece in the jazz band except your color or your tone change?

Some trumpet players actually think about these things when they play.

On a side note Allen Vizzuti told me once in the green room when I was a 21-year-old kid working the courage to go say hi to him. "Pay attention to the minute changes inside of the mouthpiece" That was his answer when I asked him why I didnt get much better even though I had been practicing more.

I think about that to this day 17 years later. All of that prior to the Allen visit he advice or things that I learned by studying with Clint Mclaughlin. The inner diameter from left to right is had some information added to it that I picked up from Lynn Nicholson. Roddy-O in England says "don't squash the donut".


ANALOGY
If you go to in Indy or a NASCAR racing team and you want to talk about how the rubber meets the road. Look up camber, toe in, heel out etc. Think about the rubber hitting the road. I'll stop there but it affects how much of the rubber touches when cornering or driving straight. It's huge.

Know if you think this is all just a waste of time I don't care. All the best to you but everything I have said here has come after thousands of dollars have been spent in my own personal research and thousands of hours have been spent in my own personal research and that's the best explanation that I can give you at this time.

Some of this is only available in written books. Some of this information is only past two people who attain the trust and privilege of a teacher. And this a practive that has been spanning decades of trumpet tutelage.

We Live in a day and age where you have the Internet and can get online and ask a question, and many people are very giving of the information that they have attained in their lifetime.

I do hope that this has helped you or anyone that reads this. If it doesn't, then that is fine. Just now I spent 30 minutes to talk this out to text, edit it and keep my three-year-old son occupied, providing breakfast and soothing him as he wants to play with Daddy and have my attention. I only see him every other weekend and every Wednesday so I'm going to divert my attention to him now.

That was a pretty tall order in your question. I hope it lived up to half of your expectation. (Don't worry I have that tone with politicians across the globe on twitter so I can relate) Someone great said that we need to be the change we expect, there will never be another Ronald Reagan or John F Kennedy, YOU need to be the change you seek. That man was Trey Gowdy in front of a graduating class. The video is online. That is why I help how I can whether in trumpet or political discourse. I'll do what I can there personally in my own development but I hope it helped if you read this.

Good luck on your quest.
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[Billy B]

Does the pitcher think of how far he moves a specific muscle when throwing the ball?
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[Shaft]

THATS ALSO A GOOD POINT ☝️

Did it help Ivan Drago versus Rocky in Rocky four to use science to train vs Rocky's method?

Does the jazz musician think about the mixolydian to dorian during the changes as he solos?

Do we need to think about any of this?

Some don't and succeed.

Others do and they do succeed.

That's a great point that just got brought up.

And only reason I went into such detail is to be is descriptive to answer a question as I could. Normally I don't even think about that when I'm playing at this point in my body just goes where it needs to.

Lionel pointed out a good thing to me and I took it into consideration. So I'm gonna keep training until I can take some of the edge out of my sound and make it more like the notes in the staff. I will not be sitting there thinking about the millimeter left right up down. I'm gonna let my body and the sound guide me more so. But I can't erase the analysis that I've done and try to conceive in my own head but I can choose whether or not I want to make that the focus as I do things.

And there is the Zen mindset.

To each their own.
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[scottfsmith]

[RussellDDixon]

pass the buttered popcorn
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[Tpt_Guy]

[dbacon]

DB

[RussellDDixon]

pass the cold Coke
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Schilke X3 Bb trumpet
Yamaha 631g Flugelhorn
Nicholson Monette Prana Resonance LT mouthpiece
Kanstul Claude Gordon Personal mouthpiece

[Robert P]

[1jazzyalex]

[Tpt_Guy]

[Robert P]

[Tpt_Guy]

[Robert P]

[Tpt_Guy]

[razeontherock]

Tom appears to be looking over his glasses at RobertP, who appears not to care. At least I can tell Rob's a trumpet player!

[dstdenis]

This is easy to demonstrate. Ask any beginning trumpeter to play a note, any note. Start as softly as possible, gradually get louder to a full forte, then gradually get softer again and hold the note as softly as possible.

Most beginners would struggle with this exercise, if they could do it at all. The notes wouldn't start cleanly every time, the pitches would go up and down during the dynamic changes, the notes would wobble, the timbre would be inconsistent. These faults would be due to poor control of their aperture and airstream.

But ask experienced pro players, and they would be able to do a pretty good job with it because they have done lots of work over the years to develop well-formed embouchures with better control of their aperture and airstream.
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