Brass Playing Is No Harder Than Deep Breathing

[Jeff223]

It's funny. I've had quite a wild ride with the trumpet. I studied with Jeff Purtle for years, and I really made tremendous progress. Life got crazy and busy, and I managed to keep playing even after I stopped lessons. Then I stopped playing. For years. I recently just picked up the horn again and wow. I played up to F above high C on the first day, within the first 5 minutes. Then a few days later, I took it up to G. Yes, I used to be able to play higher, but really, what music are you looking at that requires more range than that?

Can I just say, if trumpet playing involved strengthening the lip muscles, then I would have no chance at that. I had a knack. A feel. I knew how to play those notes and made it happen after years off. Trumpet playing must really be no harder than deep breathing. Let's not get so stressed out about missing a day of practice or warming up or whatever. I missed over 600 days of practice and came back to it.

So this is a message to anyone who doubts the effectiveness of the CG method. Stick with it. You are learning a skill that will pay off and never leave you even if you need to take a long break.

My endurance and tone isn't what it used to be, but I can play a warmup, lip flexibility routine, clarke, and a range study for about an hour time and feel better at the end than when I started. I've been playing less than a week. The air does the work. I've been breathing my whole time away from the trumpet, but I have not been buzzing or squeezing the lips or anything. Have I been training my breath? I don't know. I'm a marathoner. I run often. Clearly something is working and still there. I suspect it's wind control and understanding how to produce each note on the horn using that wind power and control.

[HERMOKIWI]

There's more involved in brass playing than deep breathing. If you didn't have the correct embouchure setting you wouldn't be getting the results you're getting no matter how good your air support and air control is. Although you've laid off you've retained muscle memory in your embouchure. If you didn't have that muscle memory things would not be working well.

There's a fine line between over-simplifying brass playing and over-complicating brass playing. Saying that brass playing is no harder than deep breathing is an extreme over-simplification.
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HERMOKIWI

[kehaulani]

I agree. When I was in college, I kept having trouble until my teacher said that I should have a lay-off period then work my chops back. But it really didn't work. Total waste of time. I learned years later that it doesn't make any good to do this procedure if you just return to your original, faulty embouchure.
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[Jeff_Purtle]

I think you last two guys are missing the point of the original post. I’m not sure who it is yet though. The point of Claude's book is not that breathing is all that matters. The point is that when you are playing “correctly”it can be as easy as taking a deep breath.

It seems that whoever this is had enough of his good habits setup that they stuck with him. I rarely tell anyone to take time completely off the horn for without a plan to change their embouchure or something that dramatic. Time off can make it quicker to change if they don’t have playing to do. The purpose of that is to quickly retrain bad habits.

I agree if someone has bad habits and they take time off and restart then the bad habits usually come right back because that’s what they think is the “normal” way to play.

I think we all agree more than you think.
Jeff
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Jeff Purtle
Trumpet Lessons Online since 2004, teaching since 1983
MultiTouch book on Claude Gordon
+1 864-354-3223 iPhone w/ FaceTime
Skype: jeff_purtle

[krell1960]

[JayKosta]

[Jeff223]

Hey, Jeff! This is Jeff Ward out in Maryland. I got married with kids and stuff, and this pandemic has actually given me some more time to get back to some stuff I used to love to do.

To the others out there, I'm sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean for it to be a how-to guide. I was encouraging those currently going through the CG approach to stick with it and maybe convincing new people to try it. And that once you acquire certain skills, the lip strength clearly doesn't matter (I really didn't even expect to be able to play a G on top of the staff). I think we tend to over-complicate and compensate rather than try to simplify and solve problems.

[krell1960]

[kehaulani]

[JayKosta]

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[Jeff223]

For those curious, I've made a quick video doing an arpeggio up to G above high C and back down. Is it good? Not really, but it's there to some degree. This is exactly my one week back from not playing mark too.

https://youtu.be/xZNEcO9Z754

[Jeff_Purtle]

Hey Jeff! Great to see you and talk with you. Like the shirt too!

Jeff
_________________
Jeff Purtle
Trumpet Lessons Online since 2004, teaching since 1983
MultiTouch book on Claude Gordon
+1 864-354-3223 iPhone w/ FaceTime
Skype: jeff_purtle

[Jeff223]

It was great to talk to you too! Yeah, I still wear it often!