Tense/Stiff Lips

[chapahi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_usxGOZGUGM

Over the years I been striving for a perfectly clean attack, focused sound, and no air in the tone and periodically get tense, stiff chops and intonation troubles. I stumbled on this tutorial and tried deliberately playing with a lot of air in the tone and the unexpected result is a more relaxed embouchure. Learning to play with the airy sound, for me, didn't preclude having the pure tone and attack when I want it. In fact, it helps me achieve that.
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Sima, Kanstul 1525 Flugel and Kanstul pocket trumpet. Olds Super

[scarface]

An idea along the lines of soft playing: If you do long tones, try starting them with a breath attack and play the longest tones possible. Keep them going well past the point you normally would for a musical phrase. Bend them slightly to find the center. It’s relaxing, and should help your lips respond more like a clarinet reed eventually, with that al niente thing they do. It will also encourage a full breath because you should be empty at the end.

Credit where due: Heard this idea most recently from Dale Clevenger on YouTube, but also from several great trumpet teachers over the years, so it must be a thing.

[Jaw04]

[abontrumpet]

[TrpPro]

[kalijah]

There is ONE quality that the air that you supply has. That is pressure. And that controls the dynamics. Air has no such quality as "tension". But being tense in the abdomen or exhalation apparatus will reduce the air pressure while using excessive effort.

Perfect air (whatever that means) will not correct a poor sound. Embouchure function is the issue. THAT is what determines the tone quality, then the appropriate air pressure is provided for the dynamic level.

[abontrumpet]

[kalijah]

Too little air pressure will produce too soft sound. The air has ONE quality.. that is pressure.

"More air" will make a louder sound. Whether its good or bad will depend on the embouchure function.

I find that using less air effort helps to improve embouchure functionality. Soft Clarke studies do not require much air pressure.

So is the light air for soft tone "crap" air?

[Billy B]

Cause and effect
What is actually happening isn't necessarily what it feels like.
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Bill Bergren

[abontrumpet]

[JayKosta]

[kalijah]

So what is exactly "good" about "good air"?

And what is bad about "bad" air?

There are, IMO 2 things that can be wrong. That is 1. the wrong air pressure, yielding the wrong dynamic, and 2. In regard to the inhalation, insufficient air volume to sustain the flow for a given continuous note or phrase.

(By "air volume" I do mean volume, not flow)

If those conditions are met there is NOTHING else that the air can do to influence the quality of tone.

Tone quality depends on embouchure function.

[Irving]

If the air volume is sufficient for the music that you need to play, then you will incurr less of a workload on the embouchure. We tend to get in our own way when trying to blow by using excess tension, which can happen when the inspiratory muscles fight the expiratory muscles, resulting in isometric contraction, but little air being moved. The hospital breathing machines that contain a ball shows you what happens when you are blowing air volume (the ball moves). You can't base moving air on abdominal tightness. So good air would be unimpeded air, and bad air would be trying to move air when your muscles won't allow it to be moved.

[kalijah]

You are correct that abdomen tension will reduce air pressure of the exhalation. This is inefficient breathing for sure. But this will yield a softer tone or no tone not a bad tone. A bad tone requires a bad embouchure function.

[Irving]

You don't need an excess of abdominal tension to yield a softer tone. The more excess tension, the more it will come out in the sound. I'm not saying you don't need abdominal muscle support. What you don't need is excess tension.

The air and the embouchure work together to produce a tone. It isn't an either/or situation. One without the other, and no sound will come out. You can have excess tension in the embouchure as well which could stop sound production. One thing that is true today in pedagogy is that more attention is given to the air than to the embouchure, probably because of teachers like Jacaobs and Adam that based their teaching on efficient breathing. I never met Mr. Adam, but I did have a few lessons with Jacobs. With all of his knowledge about breathing, I don't think that he understood much about the embouchure, and preferred not to mess with it at all. He believed that everything could be fixed through breathing, which I personally don't agree with. AFAIK the last well known teacher that did work with the embouchure was Reinhardt, and he passed more than 30 years ago.

[JayKosta]

[kalijah]

Abdomen tesion is never required. And efficiency of breathing is not the same as efficiency of tone.

Air does not REPLACE embouchure function. It supplies the power for sound. Efficiency of tone is by the embouchure.

[kehaulani]

[JayKosta]

[HERMOKIWI]