Interesting (I think) Observation In Novice Players.

[bulos]

Why do readers keep referring other readers to books by other authors?


I stand acussed and I confess my guilt I shall forthwith never utter the name of any other teachers or methods you are correct this is a Reinhardt forum..
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Marquis de Sade: "In art, one has to kill one's father."

[BeboppinFool]

[bulos]

Well, that may be going a bit to the extreme, there, Paul. For the time being, though, let's just see if we can keep it to not promoting other people's books on this particular forum

Rich I wasn't promoting anything just seemed like it tied into the discussion we (Hairy one and I) were having but I see your point you want to keep this strictly about Reinhardt and that's cool sorry .........
_________________
Marquis de Sade: "In art, one has to kill one's father."

[Wilktone]

Regarding physical characteristics and embouchure types:

First of all, I have never studied personally with Reinhardt. While I do own the "Encyclopedia...," virtually everything I've learned about embouchures comes via Doug Elliott, who did study with Reinhardt.

If you're not already familiar with Elliott's ideas, he has simplified Reinhardt's embouchure types into three basic types. While this doesn't allow for as much specific descriptions of playing and physical characteristics, it has been easier for me to understand and I have been able to use those three types as a basis for understanding Reinhardt's types.

If you're curious about Elliott's three basic types, I have put together a description of the types at the following URL:

http://faculty.adams.edu/~dmwilken/teachbrass_2.html

My dissertation, "The Correlation Between Doug Elliott's Embouchure Types and Specific Physical Characteristics Amoung Trombonists" looked at over 30 different trombonists. I classified each trombonist into one of Elliott's three embouchure types and looked for common physical characteristics to see if one could look at someone's lips, teeth, jaw, etc. and tell what embouchure type that individual would play best on without having to watch them play and work with them.

After running statistics on this data I found that it is very difficult to do this. The only physical characteristic that suggests on emouchure type was looking at the amount of upper/lower lip protrusion. In other words, the more the upper lip protruded over the lower lip while in it's natural resting position, the more likely that player would place the mouthpiece higher on the lips and be a downstream player. The less so, or even in those few cases where the lower lip protruded beyond the upper, the more likely that player would place the mouthpiece lower and be an upstream player.

Every other physical characteristic I looked at, including lip size, maloclusion, teeth position, jaw size, etc., was inconclusive when tested with statistics.

Here's a question for everyone only slightly related to beginning students:

I'm working now with a college sophomore trumpet player who has been playing downstream all his life, but whom I suspect of really being a type IV upstream player. I've spent some time getting him to lower his mouthpiece placement and and change his lip position to play upstream (he keeps wanting to place the mouthpiece lower but still tries to direct the air downward). When he gets this right, he has a much easier time playing high C's and D's, but cannot really play significantly higher than he normally plays (although I was able to get him to squeek out a couple of G's like this).

What suggestions do you have to help him speed along this process? When I worked on a similar change with Elliott he had me playing high F's (high G's for you trumpet players) and slurring down and back up to connect my high range placement with the rest of my range. The difference between my student and myself at that time was that I was obviously convinced that this embouchure change was correct for me. My student and I are still not entirely convinced that this embouchure change will be correct for him. I was planning on giving this another couple of weeks or so before we give up and try something different.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Dave

[scream]

I switched from a downstream player to an upstream player in two lessons (and 7 months) with Doc. One of the things I remember him doing with me was to have me stand up, look down at my feet and then place the mouthpiece on my EXAGGERATED upstream embouchure (horn angle as parallel to the floor as possible). It was a test more than anything to reinforce the results you are looking for. Crazy notes came out of my horn, double C and above. He then recommended I do the "Jaw Retention" drill.
It is as follows: Roll the bottom lip over the bottom teeth, thrust the jaw forward until it aches. Stop, open the mouth wide, inhale and exhale forcefully to relax the jaw. Then your done for the day. The time of the extension will increase as you get stronger.

Again, this is all such a personal matter that without seeing what the student is doing, it's hard to tell what he actually needs. I do know that going to an upstream embouchure is a road frought with difficulty at times. And it does take time, Mother Nature, and most importantly perserverance on the students part. With that combination, the rewards are incredible. Hopefully the other guys will weigh in with more info. Maybe even set me straight.....

I think Dave Sheetz will have the audio descriptions of Doc discussing the different embouchure types on CD. Some of us may already have the cassette tapes. As I recall they have been or are being remastered for CD. I'll post here and at our web-site, http://www.pivotalk.com, when they become available.

Paul Garrett

[bulos]

[quote]
On 2002-09-05 11:59, scream wrote:
I switched from a downstream player to an upstream player in two lessons (and 7 months) with Doc.

I'm curious, why did Doc want you to change? I thought the whole basis for the "Pivot system" was to enable the player to maximize results by adhering to principals inherent to his particular type?
_________________
Marquis de Sade: "In art, one has to kill one's father."

[scream]

Prior to Doc, I had a teacher in college that messed with something that had previously been working well. Hell, I was playing G's, and A's above high C in high school. My friends now tell me I was an upstream player back then (I didn't know about that back then). When this guy got done with me, I was playing like a downstreamer and could barely get to high C.

By the time I studied with Doc I was on the road playing some very demanding music. I was having more bad days than good days and was considering quitting trumpet altogether. With his "perscription" I was able to help Mother Nature get me back to where I should have been. Saved my career!!!

The demands of the kind of playing I was doing actually helped me in my transformation BACK to how I needed to play. Sometimes we need change, sometimes we need efficiency and sometimes we need both. The bottom line is if it hurts or is hard to do you are not physically capable of doing it......yet. The Pivot System is a great tool to learn to play a brass instrument. It teaches you how YOU need to play.

Thanks for your intrest.....

Paul Garrett


[ This Message was edited by: scream on 2002-09-05 22:21 ]

[bulos]

[quote]
I had a teacher in college that messed with something that had previously been working well.
Hey Paul,
Ah then so this explains it, Doc was bringing you back to your natural type. Now let me ask you this, to your knowledge did Doc ever take a downstream type and change them to an upstream type or vice versa? Two examples come to mind, Mel Broiles would encourage his students to get the mouthpiece real high on the top lip and Roy Stevens taught the Costello crap that dictated a 1/3 2/3 placement. I rarely hear of a guy making a drastic change that works. Now a question for the group .How important do you think ones concept of what constitues a good sound is to the development of range? In other words do you think a certain sound type lends itself to easier high note production?
_________________
Marquis de Sade: "In art, one has to kill one's father."

[scream]

Hi Paul,

Maybe some of the other guys can answer the first part of your question better than myself. To my knowledge, no....maybe somebody will post on this.

As to the second part of your question: any embouchure can lead to incredible range, bottom line. Type III's in general are the orchestral sounding type. The type IV's are the commercial sounding type. However, the latter type has an inherent pre-dilection towards strong lip compression (damn, where did that come from?). If you go to part of this forum where Chris LaBarbera lists the different famous trumpet players and their types, you'll know who's who and what they can do and sound like. You will see that there are a lot of type III's that have considerable range. By the way, Chris LaBarbera is a IIIB as I recall. He has some clips on Terry Warburton's web site and all I can say is DAMN. But, he is a good example of a type III with good range. I on the other hand, am a type IV and have no clips. But Jon Faddis I believe is a type IV and has got some crazy stuff goin' on there with lip compression. But, Wynton Marsalis is a type IV and can get that "orchestral" sound, unlike Faddis. Listen to his Michael Haydn Trumpet Concerto and listen to how effortlessly plays up to that double C. He gets the sound he wants with the equipment he uses....and we can all do that if we need to. Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

By the way (and this is rhetorical), why would you teach someone how you played? Just from your description Mel Broiles was a Type III and Roy Stevens was a Type IV (I have his book and I kinda know about him). If you're a Type IV, Mel Broiles would most likely ruin you as would a Type III going to study with Roy Stevens. And I'm sure, if I may be so bold to say, they probably did ruin some trumpet players. Heck I almost threw in the towel with somone teaching me how they played. Doc, on the other hand, showed you how YOU needed to play. And Maynard said it most concisely, "Be your own guru". And I believe Doc showed you HOW to be your own guru.

Sorry, I got on my soapbox....I'll get down now......

_________________
Paul Garrett
Lawrenceville, GA

[ This Message was edited by: scream on 2002-09-08 10:40 ]