Using flugel to warm up for trumpet?

[stanton]

I've recently come into two situations where flugel is required. My friend was kind enough to provide me with a long term loan of his flugel which he plays infrequently. As noted by others in previous threads, the approach to flugel is different than trumpet.

But something I noticed that kind of surprised me, was that when I warmed up first on flugel, trumpet was so much easier to play when I put the flugel down and picked up the trumpet. I didn't expect that, but was pleased to experience it. My trumpet techinque had morphed into something unrecognizable and with temporary bouts of focal dystonia I can slip into struggling mightily. I was in one of those stages where I lost an octave of range and sounded like crap.

I think flugel is helping me back into proper mechanics on trumpet. Why do you suppose that is?
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[Tony Scodwell]

This is a bit different to your question but perhaps it would be helpful non the less.

I played first trumpet for nine years with the Sigfried and Roy show at the Las Vegas Frontier hotel. The show ran 1 hour and 45 minutes and there was not much time when the horn was off your face. In addition to the duration of the show, we did three shows a night for the first eight months which had me in much more "King Kong" condition than playing lead on Buddy Rich's band.

I started showing up for work a full two hours before the downbeat and sat in our band room with my flugel playing pedal tones just to re-focus my chops and get air moving again. Muscle bound was the situation I was in then and the pedal tones re-focused my chops (especially the lower jaw position) so after an hour or so my trumpet felt correct again when I placed it on my lips. Normally I'm not an advocate of spending too much time playing pedal tones but this was quite beneficial for me at that time. Naturally pedal tones on flugel are quite a bit easier than on the trumpet and it definitely helped me then.

Tony Scodwell
www.scodwellusa.com

[kehaulani]

Tony, did you use a flugelhorn mouthpiece or one with the same trumpet profile that you usually used on trumpet?
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[Ancientram]

Some of this'll be a little off your exact question, but may relate.

I'm really a horn player who doubles on trumpet and flugel from time to time. Some years back, when I was playing both horn and trumpet in a quintet at church, if I warmed up first on horn, trumpet seemed to be easier.

More recently, our quintet is now a quartet and I don't use the horn at church. When I use both trumpet and flugel there, I try to warm on the flugel and the trumpet seems to work well thereafter.

HTH,
Steve

[Turkle]

I have often found that if my chops are too tight when I'm warming up, then a little flugel is beneficial. Just enough to get the air relaxed and moving, though - doing my whole warmup on the flugel can prevent my chops from getting focused enough to play trumpet!

I have even found that doing some long tones on trombone can be super helpful in getting the airstream going and the chops super relaxed - again, not too much or bad things happen.
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[Tony Scodwell]

My flugel mouthpiece has the same rim as my trumpet mouthpiece with a medium flugel cup.

Doc Severinsen went through a (fortunately) short bout of Bell's Palsy and his old buddy Ray Crisara told him to start buzzing on a tuba mouthpiece. A month later he was headed to Phoenix to perform a pops concert. Some players who had that affliction never played again so Doc was one of the lucky ones.

Tony Scodwell
www.scodwellusa.com

[shofarguy]

[DJtpt31]

There is/was an article (more like a transcript) of interview questions by Bud Herseth where he talked about his approach to practicing the trumpet. At one point he mentioned that after a hard performance he would, on the following day, begin with warming up on flugelhorn to get focus. I recently had the chance to meet mr. Boyde Hood who mentioned that Bud would hint to him that he needed to warm-up on a big mouthpiece. For Boyde it was a contra-alto trumpet mouthpiece. To the best of my knowledge this is regarding mouthpiece buzzing.
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[zaferis]

I suspect that starting on Flugel has you moving more air and setting your embouchure in a posture as to not "fall into" the mouthpiece.

So moving more air is good, relaxing the chops and allowing them to vibrate. Then I would also guess that you're taking a little more time in a moderate/low register, not pushing into your upper range as quickly.
Then having to play on a deep mouthpiece is making you, subconsciously, set the chops in a stable posture...

Naturally, without sitting with you, watching, and comparing over a period of time this is all guess work.

I too use my Flugel to recover after acceptionally rough days or stretches.. playing a lot of easy mid-range to low-range stuff letting the chops vibrate and stretch - while moving more air which relaxes the embouchure and breathing mechanisms.
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[shofarguy]