19/30s exercise explained

[veery715]

I can certainly understand now why raised voices occurred in RR's session with Jeanne!

Here is my latest experience:

Had to start with C below staff. Relaxed, air pushing cheeks out and getting behind top lip, letting air excape not pushing it. Awful sound, airy, double buzzes.
Tried moving up to G, similar.
Angled horn down a bit and got the upper C. Airy, double busses, puffy cheeks and air behind top lip.
This continued more or less on the way down, but the sound improved as I passed G and went further. Down around Ab it got hard to initiate a sound.

I plan to keep trying (not trying). I wonder a couple of things. It seems as if my aperture should be forming towards my teeth - on the inside red, rather than further out. Thinking this but not moving anything (consciously) did help a bit.

Is my mouthpiece too small? Perhaps I need more relaxed tissue involved than the B6L (old) allows.

I know this is suppsoed to be easy (sounds easy from RR's "article"). But I am fighting frustration here. I will check out Greg Spence's stuff. I viewed the Agnas first tone and Flow 1, and tried to emulate his relaxing and dropped my bell too, a bit more thanusual. I do have a typical overbite.

Perhaps it is just a question of persisting, and cultivating relaxedness.
_________________
veery715
Hear me sing!: https://youtu.be/vtJ14MV64WY
Playing trumpet - the healthy way to blow your brains out.

[ENINCA]

I want to thank you for such a well-thought out, well-written piece. Nicely put together. I appreciate the time you took to share this. Some of the same concepts are similar to this set of simple lessons I found for free online a couple of years ago:

http://www.mysterytomastery.com/articles/?c=free-lessons

This set of free lessons completely changed how I viewed the mechanics of playing trumpet. It changed how I thought of embrouchure and airflow. I immediately had more endurance and range. I revisit it from time to time. So simple and so powerful.

The concept of the air releasing easily and naturally instead of being compressed or pushed really helped me. The concept of the lips vibrating against the mouthpiece independantly instead of "buzzing" together helped me keep everything relaxed and easy.

It really is sometimes counter-intuitive how seemingly effortless playing trumpet playing can be if everything's relaxed. It's not that it's easy, but I tend to over-complicate the mechanics which only makes it harder.

Thanks again. Great stuff. -Erik

[Fleebat]

Veery,

Sent you a PM.

RR

[hornsosweet]

RR, thanks for a well thought out, put together knowledge filled article. Our stories are very similar. Hopefully I find this new approach to work for me as well. Do you know how I can get in touch with Jeanne Pocius? I'd love to take a lesson from her...thanks!!!
_________________
Live life to make music and make music to live life!

[Fleebat]

sweet,

Hey! My wife's from Akron. I'm up there a couple times a year visiting her family.

I sent you a PM with Jeanne's e-mail address. She's great.

Note that, while working with Jeanne was the catalyst that kind of got me really centered on this path, the only thing in my original PDF that I can trace directly to her is the relaxation idea(s). I do hold that this was the "1000-watt bulb." I haven't continued to use or pursue most of the other concepts she talked to me about. I just mention this for clarification. Jeanne is not likely, to my knowledge, to present any kind of long tone exercise - at least not anything like the little one I shared. The things she shared with me were mostly about physical specifics of setup.

I don't think you can possibly go wrong spending some time with Jeanne!

RR

[veery715]

Too late to make noise - uh, practice, that is.

I read the 5 lessons at Greg Spence's MysteryofMastery site. Completely COUNTERINTUITIVE!! I believe that is where I am stumbling.

I have consistently maintained that lips vibrate AGAINST EACH OTHER. Now it appears that I need to cast aside this belief in order to try something else. I think that is why trying RR's 1930s exercise is giving me fits. While not sure that RR even agrees with Greg Spence, I can see the value in trying Spence's steps in this whole process.

It's a good thing that at 63 I still have a very open mind. (and keeping it open is a key, IMO, to living right).

Oh, well, I didn't believe in God for a very long time, and that view has been completely revamped, so here goes...!
_________________
veery715
Hear me sing!: https://youtu.be/vtJ14MV64WY
Playing trumpet - the healthy way to blow your brains out.

[sauer]

What worked for me in attempting this (so far) is that when I do it I don't think about any of that crap. I just put my lips together and try to play. That seems to work much better than "this is how tight my corners need to be, this is how much blah blah blah". Just a thought.

[veery715]

Oh, I am trying not to think, but my mind keeps getting in the way!
_________________
veery715
Hear me sing!: https://youtu.be/vtJ14MV64WY
Playing trumpet - the healthy way to blow your brains out.

[sauer]

Yeah the first time I got a sound to come out it was really weird. It took my like 25-30 minutes to make any sound. My corners kept wanting to go to the original position. I probably looked like I was having muscle spasms in my face. But, eventually I got that to stop enough to where I could get a really nice low C without all of that tension. From there I started (still working) on building each note with that same style. No tension. I'm up to F on top of the staff in just a couple of days, which I'd say is a good amount of progress. Back to the point though. Just keep at it. Really. It broke for me in a relatively short amount of time, and I can't thank Russell enough for it.

[Fleebat]

Had to delay posting this, as my internet connection went down for a while last night.

A quick piece of bid'ness, and then some ideas. The erstwhile Daff, of Las Vegas, a good e-pal of mine (and a seriously good guy, as well as a really good architect & designer, if you happen to be poking around the 'net tonight looking for someone to create your next building) has pointed out to me that in the teeny, tiny sliver of text that's actually the exercise in the PDF, I goofed. Went from B straight to A in the example, but meant to keep it chromatic. I've changed it to Bb & re-uploaded the fixed version. I hope this doesn't screw up anyone's alpha waves.

Anyhow...

I've been thinking about how I can help Veery with this concept. I mean, the whole point of posting all this in the first place has been to run it up the flagpole, see how it does for folks and how they do with it - and learn in the process how to help people for whom it doesn't instantly click. That's the crux of how I like to teach; develop as many pathways as you can to the thing you're trying to get across, so whatever communication/interpretation hurdles you run into can be overcome. I think my desire to work that way comes from having some teachers in my background who just put something in front of you, told you when you weren't getting it right, and had you just do it over and over again even if you weren't getting the idea at all. So...

While I'm sorry for Veery that it's proved challenging to get to the point where he has the sensation we're discussing (and could possibly build on what some of us are finding a build-able concept), it's actually exciting for me to have some "case work." Counting on his unfailing great attitude and energy, I figure he won't mind if we kind of guinea-pig him on this.

His challenges may actually embody the whole of the issue at hand very well. To see how that could be, we'll have to engage in a little online diagnosis - which I'm not a real fan of, generally, but which might help the collective understanding in this case. Sauer, in his two posts, may have nailed it: "... I don't think about any of that crap." and "My corners kept wanting to go to the original position."

I related in the PDF that, during my first session with Jeanne Pocius, there were times when I was sure I wasn't tightening my corners or "making" an embouchure, but she correctly observed that I was. So even beyond sauer's description of being aware that you're doing some involuntary thing (habit), I know it's possible to be locked into doing that thing without having any idea that it's happening - even when you're making a conscious effort to NOT let it happen. Hmmm...

(Veery, if I end up being wrong on this in your case, my apologies in advance. I don't think so, though.)

To get to the bottom of this, let's de-construct things. How do we develop this insensitivity to what's actually going on with our chops? Let's go all the way back to the beginning. Let's say that the trumpet-plus-human being combination wants to make a sound. Will make a sound, as a system, all on its own. That's pretty much what's behind what I'm saying, what Greg Spence offers on his website, what Urban Agnas presents in his "Flow" videos. Let's just trust, for a minute, that if you put your lips together, or somewhere close to each other (Mr. Spence), and send a steady stream of air through them, into the mouthpiece and through the horn, a tone will be produced. Let's say that's how the trumpet was designed, in the first place, and evolved. It makes sense, really. When people first made the leap from animal horns to bits of plumbing, would they have kept putting together things that didn't make a sound unless you did some whacky combination of tucks and rolls and pinches and "holds" before you put air through it?

"Whatcha got there, Leopold?"

"I don't know, exactly. It's some tubing, and I put a little cup on the small end of it. I couldn't find a good sheep horn. I think I'll call it a 'trumpet.'"

"Hmmm... trumpet. Cool(eth). What's it do?"

"Well, I'm not sure. I thought it would make a noise, but nothing happens when I blow air into it."

"Really... Drag(eth). Why don't you try rolling in your bottom lip, making your corners firm, and ..."



Right. How 'bout if we take it back even further?



"What that, Gok?"

"Horn from ram."

"What it for?"

"Not know. Gok make air in it."

"Ug. Too bad no sound."

"Ug."

"You make smaller aperture, maybe"

"Ug?"

"E-fish-unt. You make jaw go forward, too."

"Bwaahh...cks... ahhh"

"What that sound?"

"Gok call it 'Cherokee'"

"What 'Cherokee'?"

"Gok not know."

“Sound thin. Old ram horns better.”


I hardly think so. No self-respecting Neanderthal or Renaissance (ish) tinkerer would have spent more than a few minutes blowing into any intended instrument if something didn't happen pretty automatically. I believe the person-plus-air thing, on its own, must surely have been foundational to the trumpet's invention and development.

Now let's go back to our beginning. Many of us, anyway; the ones who have to chase the "how to" of this thing.

I didn't get a big beautiful note the first time I blew into a trumpet. As far as I recall, I got a short little "blat," then nothing. Second attempt, same deal. I looked quizzically up at my Mom.

"I think you spit into it."

"Huh?"

"Like a motorboat." (demonstrates)


I was able to get some tooting happening. Didn't sound like a trumpet to me, but I was pretty happy. I was getting something out of it. A few days later, in band class (I was eleven... there were about nine of us in the "band"), Mr. Hinman helped the trumpet players get going a little:

"You have to tighten your lips. And really blow into it."

Tut. Gak. Toot.

"Stretch your lips out, so they're tight, like this" (smiles)

Ta..k... ahh... gghs.. ahhh... ahhhh.

"There you go!"


I have come to believe that, in those early moments, I began a long, frustrating slog of working against the design of the trumpet. Sure, you can force sound to happen with some manipulation. But that doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. You can drive your car down the street in reverse all the time, too. We’re wasting the design! We blow. It doesn't sound like it's supposed to. So we "do" things. Closer. We "do" more things, and more, and more. And at some point, we're arguing about what (and how, and how much) to tuck, roll, squeeze, jut, etc. This despite the fact that most of the people we idolize don't seem to be doing any of that. Maynard never talked about tucking and rolling and jutting and squeezing. He talked about air, and support, and "being loose" and his chops being "wide open" on a good night. Miles wrapped up his whole embouchure philosophy by saying it was like spitting a grain of rice.

What if someone had told me - or I had decided, on my own - to just keep gently but steadily blowing into the horn? Would a fuzzy little tone have emerged in time? Would it have gotten more clear and developed presence as I kept doing it, as I acclimated to how the person-plus-trumpet combination works, as designed? I think so, because that's what has happened with the 19/30s thing. The first tones took a little while, and sounded weak. But when I stuck to my guns, the sound got better very quickly. I was going with the design of the horn, benefiting from it, rather than trying to get around it. I was bringing my mental concept to the horn, rather than trying to make it work the other way around.

You can actually see this in action in the videos from Urban Agnas. This is a pretty rare set of videos, in that you get to see a world-class player go from the first notes of the day, which start with an airball and a somewhat thin, iffy tone, to playing exercises with a gorgeous sound, crisp articulation, and all the other elements of great playing. I think you can see this as an encapsulated, compressed version of what happens with the little exercise.

If you do the 19/30s as described (or something similar in the same manner... remember, there is no magic in "the notes"), You'll basically go through the same progression as Mr. Agnas, depending on how close you can come to the gorgeous sound & great technique he demonstrates in the later videos. You may start with an airball. You are acclimating to the design of the trumpet. When Urban starts with his airball, he stops, addresses it, and tells us to "accept" it and keep going. If you "do" anything to fix your airball, you're no longer acclimating. You're manipulating, which is taking you further away from the design - from how the horn is built to work.

So with another attempt, or a few more, you get a fuzzy, somewhat thin tone. Like Urban's first tone of the day (compared to how he sounds later, it’s noticeably “not there” yet. He accepts it and forges ahead.) Again, if you "do" anything to "fix" it, you're no longer acclimating. Notice that, in the first video, Urban blows right through that first tone of the day, and gradually, within a few notes, it starts to come around. This, to me, is exactly what I described as the sound "opening up." The sheen starts to appear. The notes are getting bigger. Fuller. Sweeter. As you follow the exercise down, it just keeps improving. By the low F#, you're pretty much fully acclimated, though, when you’re new to it, it can take longer. This is a very, VERY different sensation than that induced by manipulating things.

Couple this with the earlier idea that we can easily be "doing" something with the chops without being aware of it, and I think this is where Veery is running into trouble. You see a fairly step-wise progression in some of the posts on this thread, from sauer's comment that he notices his involuntary manipulations, to people saying they have to really concentrate on not doing anything - but can make it happen, all the way to Veery's situation, which sounds a lot like my first hour or two with Jeanne. "No, I'm NOT flexing anything!"

"Yes, you ARE!"

Couple more thoughts, as brief as I can make them. If the trumpet's basic design is indeed one that "works" with the simplest form of person-plus-plumbing-equals-sound, then it really is a pretty rare and amazing thing. I mean, a bicycle isn't like that, right? Person-plus-bicycle without any manipulation = skinned knees. Even a pencil isn't as simple as I'm suggesting the trumpet may be. Think about it; you have to at least hold a pencil tightly enough that it won't wallow around. You have to hold it in such a manner, in such an attitude, that you can scratch the end against the paper in shapes and directions you want to move it.

But a trumpet, if I'm right about this, is more like, say, a parachute. If I jump out of an airplane with a parachute that opens automatically thanks to a zip/clip line, it does what it does without me doing anything. It fills up with air, and "floats" me earthward at a survivable speed. I don't have to hold it in place, or push on the canopy to fill it out, or manipulate the lines. It just does the parachute thing. You can drop a sedated pig with a parachute, and he'll do okay (Catskills answer: "Oh, so you've met my first wife!") To get into advanced skydiving, you do the same thing we're talking about as trumpet players; you learn to make subtle adjustments, with the lines, the shape of the 'chute ("Hey, you got a Monette!"), your own physical shape or position, etc. But you don't manipulate anything in any way that defies or minimizes the function of the original design. (Well, you could do that with a parachute. Once.)

The last thing I'll wax on about here is in answer to questions about what Greg Spence demonstrates on the Mystery To Mastery website. Some have asked what I thought about that no-buzz stuff in relation to the ideas I was sharing (note: I do NOT put myself anywhere near the same league as Greg, or Jeanne, or any of the other people I credit with the different elements of what I've posted. I'm just a guy who's combined ideas from all these great teachers in a particular way). Anyhow, I wanted to check it out, rather than just offer an opinion out of my head. I had to wait until later tonight, as I spent a couple hours in a dentist's chair today, getting a root canal. Yuck. So once I got my face back, I started playing some long tones ala the 19/30s, but using Greg’s no-buzz thing. Only I started on a G in the staff (hey, I did have a root canal today, okay?) This really didn't take any manipulation. Nothing really different from what I normally do, except that I didn't close my lips all the way in the center. This was very revealing. The whole progression I've just described - near airball, fuzzy tone starts, tone begins to open up some, tone starts to come alive - unfolded within the span of two series from G in the staff down to low F#. It took me two series to acclimate, which suggests to me that it's pretty close to what I normally do. What I did notice - I think because the acclimation process took a little longer than it does with my normal deal - was that the temptation or tendency to "do" something returned. I had to think about it again. When I tried to "do" something to "fix" the tone instead of letting it acclimate or develop or "fix" itself by playing through the series, staying relaxed and keeping the flow of air steady, the sound would start to regress, and the temptation/tendency to start to “do” something about it would begin to build or regenerate. As much as I've worked with the relaxation thing, even the slight change from my normal manner of playing had me falling back into "making" the embouchure or "doing" things to manipulate the system. This deepens my conviction that this is what's happening in Veery's case. I was happy to find that once I was acclimated, once the relaxation thing was settled and the air was moving and the sound had opened up, it was easy to slightly firm the corners (as described in the PDF, defined by the eye teeth… also described almost exactly the same way by Greg) as I ascended. With the dental thing, I didn't try to blast, but I did carry one arpeggio up to a somewhat shaky double Bb (hey… root canal!). It was no more or less difficult than it would have been with my normal deal.

I decided to post this long thing right into the thread instead of making another PDF because there does seem to be a lot of interest, and everyone's been real civil (and mostly expressed positive reactions). So I figured you all wouldn't mind.

Hope not.

RR

[Trptbenge]

Rusty,

I finally sat down last night and did the 19/30. I noticed one major physical thing with me. I tend to get a lot of tension in my upper back and shoulders. As I did the exercise I could really feel it. By A I was starting to relax and by the F# it was pretty much gone. I could feel a difference in my playing as the tension subsided. My sound began to open up and it was easier to hold the notes.

Mike
_________________
It's the sound that makes the difference!

[sauer]

I'll have my band director check out my chops today while I play some and he can let me know if I'm relaxed or if I'm doing involuntary things with my corners/mouth without knowing it.

[eric33]

Really a great post, Rusty, it is a pleasure to read you.

It is a long time now I practice these kind of exercices, thanks to Mr Urban Agnas, and I find this way very efficient!!!

Thanks to Ole, I have discovered http://www.mysterytomastery.com , which seems to be a great approach too.

Eric
http://www.masbajo.net/

[BobD]

I tried the 1930 exercise and I can see how relaxing and just blowing will produce a low C but how can you play anything on top of the staff without firming up your emb.?
_________________
Adams/ACB collaborative
Yamaha Shew Jazz and Bach 7C

[veery715]

I have been returning to this thread like an eBay-er looking to see if, in the last minutes of his auction, a bidding war developed and drove his selling prices up by hundreds of dollars.

This morning I eagerly read RR's latest "open letter to Veery" and then, while I was waiting for my sweet wife to return from early mass and take me to work, I took out mouthpiece and horn and gave it another go.

This time I forgot about trying to keep my lips together. I followed Greg Spence's 5 lessons suggestions as best as I could w/o a visualizer. Then when I finally put the mouthpiece in the horn, took in a nice easy breath, and let it go through relaxed and parted lips, spitting rice at the outset, I got some sound, not a very nice sound, but sound all the same - C(ish) below the staff.

BINGO! EUREKA!! WOW!!!

I worked on this a bit and the sound BLOSSOMED, and I was able to get G in the staff, and work it down a few steps. I could tell that my aperture was OPEN, and when I took the mp off my lips I could stick my tongue into the opening.

My wife entered at that point and I played it for her. She could tell the difference in sound, and she noticed that my face looked really relaxed, not straining.

At lunchtime I will continue, and I optimistically believe that today will mark the turning of a corner for me in my long struggle to find a way to take the tension and strain out of playing the trumpet.

I am PSYCHED! (how that dovetails with not trying to think is a question for professionals of another ilk)

I want to thank Fleebat for the well-thought-out and cogently written article and all the follow-up he's provided. And I want to thank the rest of you who have been so supportive all through this thread, and Urban Agnas and Greg Spence who have, as has RR, done yeoman service to us fellow trumpet players.

This is the best of the best of TH, IMO, by a long shot. So thank you, TH!
_________________
veery715
Hear me sing!: https://youtu.be/vtJ14MV64WY
Playing trumpet - the healthy way to blow your brains out.

[_Daff]

While this thread is still hot, I'm opening Botox and Novacaine Injection Clinics (in alleys near you!) with deep discounts for the first 1,000 TH customers.

Tense corners, thin lips? No problem.

Can't quite get those good drool chops summoned? No problem.

Let one of my Board Certified nurses poke you where it counts!

Offer void where prohibited.

[Fleebat]

Bob,

It sounds to me like maybe you've done a "quick read" of either the PDF or the thread, or both. I've said in several posts, and in the original PDF, that if you just skim for the exercise itself, and the general thought that it's about "relaxing the chops," you're not going to get the point. Several very direct answers to your question are laid out at length in the PDF and in subsequent posts. In the numbered suggestions that follow the exercise description in the original PDF, there's a LOT about what happens with the tongue and the re-defined corners (the area just outside the mouthpiece rim, roughly defined by the eye teeth). There are also references by several other posters (and me) to videos from a couple great players/teachers who are advocating similar approaches, and these vids demonstrate the concepts really well, I think.

The reason I go into such great length in the PDF and in some posts is to try and bridge the gap that always exists between a quick written or spoken "take" on ideas like this and actually sitting with someone who can demonstrate a concept, see & hear you try it, and use that info to help you get the idea. That gap can never be completely eliminated, but someone as verbal as I am can close it to a helpful degree.

There are many people who have played this way, and have been forever. As I and many have noted, many of the very best players play like this (I happen to think that MOST of the great players do). Not everyone has the time or comfort level with pumping out words like I do, so unless you sit with a Bill Adam or a Greg Spence or a Jeanne Pocius or similar (I'm not putting anyone on a level with Mr. Adam), you not only will miss their keen eyes, ears and experience, but you won't get very many long, involved, detailed descriptions. You'll get things like, "relax your chops." Period. Or, "use the area around the mouthpiece." Or, "It's about tongue level."

So many teachers and students teach and learn this way. The teacher presents a concept, or maybe just throws material that "features" the things to be worked on in front of the student, then uses the same language they've used with every student to explain it. Students often limit themselves in this process by simply playing through exercises and repertoire without digging to find deeper understanding in them.

In the years that I was very busy teaching privately, I learned that if I tried hard to see how the individual was perceiving what was being presented, I could tailor the presentation, tweak it, to help him "get it." I certainly don't put myself or approach on or anywhere near the level of the great teachers we've all mentioned here, but you will find that philosophy at work with many of them.

The internet and how we use it has promoted the quick-take exchange of even complex ideas, which runs in exact opposition to this method of teaching and learning. We've gotten in a habit where we don't have (or won't take) the time to write OR read any involved delivery of information. We want to deliver and receive understanding NOW. And QUICKLY. Many good concepts don't lend themselves to that, which is what is so limiting about this little (big) virtual world. Many people have, I think, try to offer similar things to what I've said, but do it in this abbreviated, "just the headlines" fashion. They'll say, "learn to relax your chops." or "Direct your air with the tongue." Or "Don't smile." No time or interest in explaining more fully. One of our really great members here, a nice guy who's very informed about things like we're talking about, sort of did that. His entire contribution to the thread, at first, was simply the title and author of a book. Not even a verb in his post. I get that. But that's not what I've offered.

No offense - truly - but I believe you must have taken a quick-take look at things. "Oh... you totally relax your chops and play these notes." I say over and over in the PDF that this won't allow you to get there, to feel the sensation we're talking about. The reason I think you've taken that quick take, and haven't spent some time with the numbered suggestions or other posts in this thread, is that I can't imagine your question would come up if you had. It's answered several times.

As an example of what I've frothed about here, I could have simply said, in reply to you, "Go back and read the PDF carefully."

So, please go back and read the PDF carefully.

Best,

RR

[Fleebat]

Veery,

This is great news! Now, get rid of this:

[BobD]

Fleebat,

Thanks for the response to my question. I did read the PDF but I guess I didn't read it slowly or carefully enough. I'll go back and re-read it as I'm really interested in this lesson.

Also, I hope I didn't convey a negative attitude towards this technique in my post. I did try to play a nice relaxed note and it did feel and sound good so I'm excited to explore this further.

Thanks,
Bob
_________________
Adams/ACB collaborative
Yamaha Shew Jazz and Bach 7C

[Fleebat]

Bob,

You didn't sound negative at all. In fact, I felt a little bad about "using" you to pontificate about all that stuff, but I'm glad I said it. Good luck and please let me (all of us) know if we can help.

I'm really digging the fact that this thread has gone so long without a bunch of negative, territorial crap messing it up. Kudos to all!

RR