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Rafael Mendez: Multiple Embouchures



 
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Brassman19
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Joined: 31 May 2019
Posts: 163
Location: Fort Worth, Texas

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 10:16 am    Post subject: Rafael Mendez: Multiple Embouchures Reply with quote

Hello. I recently purchased and read the book, "Magnificent Mendez," the Special 100th Birthday Edition. Wow, what a trumpet player/musician, and what a prince of a person and a performer!

I learned a lot of new things and details about Mr. Mendez which I had not heard of previously, but one thing rather surprised me, and that is, to avoid fatigue and increase his endurance, Rafael actually successfully taught himself how to play using multiple embouchures, and incorporated them in his playing and performances. Is anyone else here aware that he did that? If so, did any of you actually get to see and hear Rafael play in a live performance, and observe him switching between and using different embouchures? If so, could you discern any differences in sound, and levels of technique between his different embouchures?

Last of all, exactly HOW does one learn, and successfully play using different embouchures, at least with any consistency and practical.ability?

This all.seems simply amazing to me.
_________________
1954 Holton Super Collegiate Trumpet (Yellow brass w/nickel silver bell flare, like the Olds Studio model)
1961 pro Holton Galaxy Trumpet
Bach 1C mp (Trumpet,
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trpt.hick
Rafael Méndez Forum Moderator


Joined: 16 Jul 2004
Posts: 2630

PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I was a senior in high school (1968), I saw Mendez demonstrate this in an afternoon clinic before an evening concert with a high school band in Nebraska. Someone asked him about mouthpiece placement. He said that the vertical placement was critically important, but the horizontal placement was not such a big deal.

To demonstrate this, he took a large breath and played a long passage from Flight of the Bumble Bee, starting with the mouthpiece set all the way to one side of his mouth. As he played for 40-45 seconds or so, he gradually slid the mouthpiece from one side of his mouth to the other. When he finished the long passage, the mouthpiece was as far on the other side as it could get! No one in the audience could hear a change in sound.

He also mentioned that during long recording sessions with MGM a decade earlier, he would sometimes play on one side of his mouth, then switch to the opposite side, and save the center portion of his lips for the higher/louder things he had to play. He also mentioned that he had never done that in a concert.

David Hickman
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JoseLindE4
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Joined: 18 Apr 2003
Posts: 791

PostPosted: Sun Feb 20, 2022 5:17 am    Post subject: Re: Rafael Mendez: Multiple Embouchures Reply with quote

Brassman19 wrote:
Last of all, exactly HOW does one learn, and successfully play using different embouchures, at least with any consistency and practical.ability?


Mr. Hickman would probably remember more accurately, but my recollection from either the book, cd, or Mendez interview on YouTube is that the placement thing wasn’t really a conscious decision but rather a result of how he approached the horn after his injury. I also seem to remember him claiming that some placements worked a little better than others.
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