Lip Setting

[pepperdean]

A few months ago, I came across some notes I took from a lesson with Carmine, probably somewhere around 1969. I have witnessed too many students who were fine players limit themselves with extraneous and excessive lip tension. The following advice has helped them open their sounds and play much more efficiently.

Here are the notes:

Lip Setting
1. Purse lips

2. Place mouthpiece

3. Relax entire face and open mouth to inhale - don't stretch corners, just relax, and don't drop jaw.

4. Lips will close gently by themselves when you relax them - don't forcibly press them together.

5. Blow air. Appropriate embouchure tension will form in reaction to the airstream. Do not form tension before you blow. You want to open the chops with the blow - not close the lips against the airstream.

Alan

[cheiden]

Your note remindes me of the story of a friend who had a dental procedure that destroyed his ability to play. If I recall correctly he ended up taking an emergency lesson with Boyde Hood at USC. At the very beginning of the lesson Boyde stopped him every time he noticably formed an embochure and told him not to do anything but raise the horn to his relaxed lips. My friend said it took huge effort and many weeks to break this habit. Eventually he succeeded and he credits Boyde with reinventing his playing for the better.

[pepperdean]

This is like Carmine's analogy to bike riding. You get on, spin the pedals, wobble, and fall over. You get back on - etc, etc. You can't improve your balance by studying books about bike riding.

Similarly, your body knows how to balance for each mechanical demand in trumpet playing. Get your brain out of the way and allow repetition to program the correct responses into your mechanics.

Alan

[Trumpet1Ohio]

This raises a question for me. I really dont remember what Carmine told me to do to set up. What I have always done, right or wrong, is set up then breathe through my nose, then no movement just as I do between notes or intervals. I'm reasonably certain that's how I was taught, but it's been a few years back.
_________________
Ken

LA Benge 3X+

[pepperdean]

I always took a normal, mouth corner breath, on the initial breath breath. No moving after that.

[PH]

[sabutin]

May I suggest integrating into Carmine's studies several different approaches to "setting".

#1...and most important...time in all of your preparatory motions no matter what they may be.

By that I mean:

A-Identify your three most common ways of holding the horn when you are not playing.

A1-When sitting.

A2-When standing.

A3-When pausing briefly in performance.

Practice from those positions, making sure that you are in good, internal time and tapping your foot before you move a muscle. The complexity of preparation that is necessary for a so-called "simple" attack is off the charts and certainly cannot be consciously controlled. How many muscles, how many nerves, how many separate motions have to come together to produce that "simple" middle G? i personally give myself at least two beats of conscious time during which I move my horn into place and start any note while practicing, and I use aleatoric (chance) operations to determine from which of those three aforementioned positions I am going to start on every exercise that I do.

The result of years of such practice?

In performance my horn glides up to the proper place(s) on my chops, my air intake and support reach the proper level at the proper moment...just before it's time to play...my chops assume the proper position to produce the coming note (again, not too early, not too late), my tongue hits the right place at the right time, and...bingo, there's the note. Just where it's supposed to be.

Envision the classic sci-fi film moment where the space ship unerringly glides into the docking bay of the mothership. Like that.

Foolish conductors? Bad drummers? Badly coordinated sections? They cannot discomfit me (not on my good days, anyway) because...to put it in golf or baseball terms...I have found my backswing.

You can too.

Your backswing.

Time it in and then...fuggedaboudit.

This works. Like magic.

Bet on it.

#2-I do not mean this as a heresy, but Carmine's "Leave the horn on your chops and breathe through your nose" idea? For any kind of advanced player...there's more to be done.

More to be learned.

Much more.

First of all, identify the several ways that you can take a breath. For me, they are:

B1-Through the nose. (If you have trouble breathing through your nose...clean your act up if you can. A good, clean diet and avoidance of certain popular poisons like tobacco can do wonders in this regard. If that doesn't work, I highly recommend the use of a product called "Breathe Right". You can find it at any pharmacy. It's a little plastic strip with adhesive on each end and it is marketed as a sleep aid for people who have sleep apnea problems. However, lots of athletes use it as a performance aid. It opens up the nasal passages some 20% or 30%, and I sometimes even use it on the gig if I have a really strenuous set of parts. Try it.)

B2-Through the corners of the mouth.

B3-Through the aperture.

and

B4-Open mouth. (Which also draws some air in through the nose as well.)

Then use aleatoric procedures...I use a deck of cards, myself...to decide how you are going to breathe during exercise.

Again...I recommend this only for people who are fairly well along in Carmine-type studies. Beginners should do them exactly as Carmine recommended. Only you know where you stand in this department.

Further:

#3-Combine those practices with the three basic ways that you can treat your embouchure when not playing:

C1-Completely set, corners tight etc. Just as if you were playing a note.

C2-Corners relaxed but lips meeting at the same angle and setting as they were when you finished the preceding note.

C3-Letting go of your setting entirely. Corners loose, lips open.

#4-And while you are at it:

Either leave your m'pce on your chops or (...duh...) take it off.

Hmmmmm....

Now...several of the "B" and "C" combinations are of course mutually exclusive. You cannot take an open-mouthed breath while maintaining tight corners, for example. Experiment with these ideas and use whatever works for you.

Try all the possible combinations of the above ideas.

Try everything; use what works.

The basic idea behind Carmine's "leave the m'pce on" idea was to stop...or to at least minimize...the reliance on shifts to get from one range to another, and it was (and remains) a very good approach.

But as I said above, for the advanced player...there's more. Carmine's timing-in methods work to time in everything and anything, including the movements that are necessary to be able to play through 5 or 6 octaves. I have used Carmine’s timing techniques to good result not only as they relate to brass playing, but in teaching martial arts and baseball hitting as well. ( 5 or 6 octaves? No, that’s not a misprint. I can play from the D three octaves below the bass clef through the D above the treble clef on any and all of my trombones. Do all of those octaves sound “good” or offer much in the way of practical musical uses? No. Of course not. But the extremes inform the middle. Bet on that as well. And my “middle” has become a good, strong 3 ½ to 4 octaves through years of this kind of practice.)

Try some of these variations in concert with Carmine’s approaches.

You be bettah off.

And...have fun.

I am.

Later...

Sam Burtis