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Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure.



 
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Lionel
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:07 am    Post subject: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

I used to envy those trumpet players whose horn comes right straight off their face or even a tad bit above perpendicular to their facial/teeth structure. As an example just search out picts of Jon Faddis, Bud Brisbois and esp Stan Mark and other cats. They're playing with a forward jaw embouchure. Sometimes associated with the term "upstream" but Iv2e never really liked that definition. Reinhardt only cared about lower/upper lip ratio in his "Upstream/Downstream" categories.. Lip ratio was academic in his works. To me there's a huge difference in the lip ratio related definition and the jaw position concept and reality. So i like my understanding better but that's just me. In my defense however? Reinhardt was only a trombonist himself. Not a trumpet player. A great teacher. No doubt there at all but not a trumpet player.

What I'm talkin about is a horn angle relative to the dial on a clock. If the bell of your horn is analogous to the "little hand pointing to 4:00 o'clock"? You have a downward angle.
Points at 3:00? You blow straight out.
At 2:00 to 2:30 or so? You're a forward jaw trumpet player. Get it?

It's a category also known for some ungodly high notes. The first two mentioned above being beyond many folks belief and of course Good Ol Stan has some serious lead chops too. Held the 1st trumpet chair in Maynard's band for ten years. 1974 -1984. No one else in the Boss's band ever held onto that seat on the bus for so long. And Stan points that horn of his up towards Mars. He really does.

So I always wished I could blow with the higher angle. Careful what you pray for Lionel! As you just might one day get it"...

Then I had my accident just about 13 months ago. No longer able to blow with a receded jaw embouchure. Yeah it's a little complicated of an explanation and this post is long enough already. "So? Don't ask"! Fortunately I found a way to play again but WITH THE FORWARD JAW, HIGHER HORN ANGLE THAT I ALWAYS WANTED!! There was and still are some complications. That and much work to be done. Yet in a little over a year I'm almost half as capable as I was prior to totally losing my chops. I'm kinda out of the woods. Can see the clearing anyway. So here's the problem I'd been having up until just recently.

As mentioned elsewhere I've recently come out of a bad "valley" in my own playing. It wasnt just that I hadn't been improving after a long period of fantastic growth BUT I HAD ACTUALLY GONE DOWNHILL!! Part of the problem naturally was related to overtraining. I mean if you had once lost your nice strong G/High C chops wouldn't you want it back ASAP? So I didn't go too hard on myself. Heck overtraining at least proves that I was practicingright? But later on I found that my swollen, stiff chops were only part of my problem. The other, more serious flaw was, you guessed it! My horn angle was just a hair too high.

I had actually constructed a life size protractor. I really did! Compared myself to a photo my buddy took. Along with a traced drawing of both my former & current horn angle. And calculated that the change in horn angle relative from my old receded jaw position to my current one included a rise of 21 to 22 degrees. Heck that is near "Stan Mark" levels. And herein lay the problem. The 22° position above my former wasn't so bad a year ago. Not when my chops were "weak as a fourth grader". However once they began solidifying? They refused to vibrate between G top of the staff and high G. I could blow low notes and double C's but not much in between...

Hey, now that's a serious problem! It took me about a month and a half of living in this "no man's land" to finally diagnose and correct the fault. And so I'm now pleased to report that Ive not only returned to my former level from this past Spring but back to improving by leaps and bounds again to boot.

This whole matter of my radical embouchure change reminds me of back when I was a boy. At age 14 to 15 or so. And I couldn't for the life of me play a solid high C. I know from pictures that my mother took (love your mom kids! She is beautiful and doesn't live forever!) back in the day that my horn angle then was right at about "3:00 o'clock". Conversely way back when I actually needed to drop my horn angle. Then once that happened? My range went straight up to high G. Unfortunately it also stayed there at the high G for fifty years but worse problems can happen. At least when I had the G I could still blow lead.

I'm not here to prescribe any specific changes to your own embouchure. Nor should you necessarily change the angle off your chops. Instead I'm just sayin that if something isn't working? Try a mild bump up or down. Just a couple degrees. See what happens huh? And maybe you don't need any change at all. Feel free to disregard this whole topic if it isn't applicable to you and your playing. .

However this condition reminds me of my associate in a working R & B band I was once with. He usually depended upon me to tell him if he was in tune or not. Despite this being good ear training for yours truly? I decided that what he really needed was to develop his own pitch control. "Teach a man to fish" and whatnot other biblical wisdom right?

So the next time he asked me whether he was playing flat or sharp I replied,

"What do you think"?

"I dunno. That's why I'm asking you Jack".

"Well why don't you try pushing in or pulling out? See which one fixes the intonation"?

I still say that my suggestion was a sound idea in principle. And he only rarely asked me for pitch advice again after this. But I did notice that he brought a new Korg tuner to our next gig...
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:46 am    Post subject: Re: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

Lionel wrote:
I used to envy those trumpet players whose horn comes right straight off their face or even a tad bit above perpendicular to their facial/teeth structure. As an example just search out picts of Jon Faddis, Bud Brisbois and esp Stan Mark and other cats. They're playing with a forward jaw embouchure.

Try a mild bump up or down. Just a couple degrees. See what happens huh? And maybe you don't need any change at all. Feel free to disregard this whole topic if it isn't applicable to you and your playing.

Doc's range seems to have benefited from a higher overall horn angle that he adopted over the years. Look at that video of him at age 20 or 21 playing with Charlie Barnet in 1948 compared to his much later career when he regularly played around and over dub C.

Something I recommend people trying is playing a given note and pushing the horn angle up until the note stops speaking, then bring it down until the note speaks again solidly. Right about that point is where I find I have the best sound, range, where the horn feels the most anchored.

Of course forward jaw doesn't always translate to a super-strong high range. Al Hirt was as forward jaw as anyone and from any evidence I've heard he topped out at a G.
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Turkle
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I only recently learned that some players that have an underbite anchor their mouthpiece on their top lip and let the bottom one vibrate freely. These are usually the guys with the horn pointed up rather than down. I've noticed that most of these players with that shape have monster high ranges!

I have a rather pronounced overbite and my horn faces down. So I anchor on my bottom lip and let the top vibrate freely. Nothing I can do about it, gotta play the way your body is set up. But I do try to have my lower jaw a bit forward which frees up my articulation and gets the horn angle up a tiny bit.
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JayKosta
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

Robert P wrote:
[...
Something I recommend people trying is playing a given note and pushing the horn angle up until the note stops speaking, then bring it down until the note speaks again solidly. Right about that point is where I find I have the best sound, range, where the horn feels the most anchored.

Of course forward jaw doesn't always translate to a super-strong high range. ...

------------------------------------------
Besides just the appearance of the 'horn angle', what about the amount of mouthpiece pressure / contact / support shared between the upper and lower teeth / lips / jaw ?

And when you say 'pushing the horn angle up', are you thinking it terms for using the arms to 'tilt' the horn, or using lower jaw position to provide some upward 'push'.

Jay
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 4:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

JayKosta wrote:
Robert P wrote:
[...
Something I recommend people trying is playing a given note and pushing the horn angle up until the note stops speaking, then bring it down until the note speaks again solidly. Right about that point is where I find I have the best sound, range, where the horn feels the most anchored.

Of course forward jaw doesn't always translate to a super-strong high range. ...

Besides just the appearance of the 'horn angle', what about the amount of mouthpiece pressure / contact / support shared between the upper and lower teeth / lips / jaw ?

And when you say 'pushing the horn angle up', are you thinking it terms for using the arms to 'tilt' the horn, or using lower jaw position to provide some upward 'push'.

Jay

I mean literally raising the horn angle higher relative to the plane of the face, which means also some forward teeth/jaw movement. You might not find you have to move it much before the note stops speaking.

For myself, the pressure distribution that I naturally gravitate toward is with slightly more top lip pressure. I've never put any kind of measuring device on it, just going by what I'm perceiving. If I increase the pressure on the bottom lip the note chokes off.
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lexluther
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 4:22 pm    Post subject: Re: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

Something I recommend people trying is playing a given note and pushing the horn angle up until the note stops speaking, then bring it down until the note speaks again solidly. Right about that point is where I find I have the best sound, range, where the horn feels the most anchored.

VERY interesting! This sounds like a solid experiment!
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lexluther
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Robert!
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JVL
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 03, 2019 3:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hello
the kind of Costello palm exercice is useful to align and coordinate all the pieces of the frame, and see where things break.
Then, the Clarke exercices to one's extreme range, very softly and slowly, legato, staccato, double and triple tongued, will also align and coordinate pressure, aperture, air pivoting, tongue, slots.

Knowing all the parameters, all the theory is one thing, apply them to our individual is another one, and must be discover with practice, patience and discipline.

best
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jicetp
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 03, 2019 3:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I guess Wayne Bergeron once said that he had a student topping out on High E. He asked the student to hold the Higfh E and proceed to ' move ' the bell thus affecting mouthpiece ' angle - pressure ', and Bam, High G came out.
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JayKosta
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 04, 2019 5:53 am    Post subject: Re: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

Robert P wrote:

I mean literally raising the horn angle higher relative to the plane of the face, which means also some forward teeth/jaw movement. You might not find you have to move it much before the note stops speaking.

For myself, the pressure distribution that I naturally gravitate toward is with slightly more top lip pressure. I've never put any kind of measuring device on it, just going by what I'm perceiving. If I increase the pressure on the bottom lip the note chokes off.

---------------------------------------------
Thanks for the explanation. Knowing that info helps me to better understand your method.

With me, I do attempt to consciously transfer some mpc pressure from the upper lip to the lower, by moving lower jaw forward. If I don't lessen the pressure on my upper lip for higher notes, it is held too firmly by the rim to enable good vibration.
It probably varies among individuals depending on how they initially learned to apply mpc pressure.

Jay
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Most Important Note ? - the next one !
KNOW (see) what the next note is BEFORE you have to play it.
PLAY the next note 'on time' and 'in rhythm'.
Oh ya, watch the conductor - they set what is 'on time'.
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Lionel
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 10, 2019 12:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Horn angle. General degree relative to facial structure. Reply with quote

lexluther wrote:
Something I recommend people trying is playing a given note and pushing the horn angle up until the note stops speaking, then bring it down until the note speaks again solidly. Right about that point is where I find I have the best sound, range, where the horn feels the most anchored.

VERY interesting! This sounds like a solid experiment!


It is a good idea. Here's a related one. Let's say when playing your tuning note concert B flat at one horn angle you get this gorgeous tone but as you ascend it tends to hit a ceiling at some given note. Okay now start back down on that same tuning note but either raise or drop the the angle of the horn a tad. Just until the tone starts to unravel a little. Gets a bit fuzzy anyway.

Okay now with the horn in each position, lower and high ascend up to and if possible above your former ceiling in range. If one of the two alterations in angle helps defeat the cut-off point? Then keep working on the chop setting using that angle. Try to improve the tone on the setting with the better range. Instead of trying to increase the range on the better sounding position.

A pleasing tone is not always an indication of an efficient embouchure. Lots of strong high note players initially endured some funky sounding middle and lower register tones. That's "funky" as in "not good" tone.

An unlimited embouchure is more complicated than a limited one. It reminds me of an automatic transmission but with an extra gear or two. An extra gear that the average trumpet player can't realize at present. The lower gears take you through the lower and middle register. While the higher gears and overdrive carry through the top end. The more educated and experienced players are simply playing without noticeable seams or separation on between "the gears".

Roy Roman mentions (in his very good videos on the Stevens System) that some trumpet players need to experiment considerably with their chops. That this "research" is both necessary and good for their development.

The average trumpet player with average range almost never adjusts or experiments with his chops. His range, like his ability is merely average and stays this way throughout his whole life. This due to him following conventional thinking. Also the curriculum that trumpet players follow in the primary grades tends to reinforce the development of average range. As music directors reward those with the better sound. Placing them on first chairs. While this is understandable it may not be the best way to encourage development.
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