BE and airsupport

HJ · Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2003 1:05 pm Post subject:

I was brought up, trumpetwise, by 'air'people. Blow, blow blow. What is the first thing you have to consider when you play the trumpet: air, what is the second most important thing: air, bladebladebla. The first time I made a major embouchure change this teacher had me play very softly. My chops freaked out, so, back to the airthing, and it worked to a certain extend. If I opened up my throat, relaxed my tongue opened my aperture, flattened my chin and blew my brains out, I could play up to high D and do gigs this way. Of course I had to rest a day after a gig because my chops were shot, but I was the musical trumpetplayer with not too great chops. Until I discovered BE. Jeff only talked about the lips. Mmmmm, this was suspicious, but it worked and I believed it, BUT....and this is why I post this, air is still important. When you do the roll-in exercises airsupport from the abdomen up is very important. I noticed this in my first months of BE. My lips were really developing and everything went fine, until I came to a standstill. I was going through my mind, and through the book again and then again through my former methods, and suddenly it struck me that I was forgetting about the air support!!!! Once I realized that that was the missing link I got back on the trail again. Of course Jeff has some very good breathing exercises in his book, but it is easy to forget your airsupport. With BE the focus is totally towards the lips and I think eventually there has to be a balance not only in the lips but also between lips and air. I discussed this with Jeff once ( I do not remember how I put it, or how he exactly responded), but we agreed upon the fact that the lips come first. If the lips are not doing the right thing you can really blow your ass off and nothing happens, BUT without air support the system is not complete IMO. The order is first lips, than air but equally important!! Just that you do not forget.

Bert

Jerry Freedman · Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2003 2:39 pm Post subject:

When started the roll-in exercises I felt more "stress" in my abdomen than I every felt doing Legendary Abs. That's air support.

HJ · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2003 5:55 am Post subject:

So, if I understand you correctly, you immediately played with more abdominal support? That is great. A nice side benefit from roll-in. I don't think that will work thius way for everybody. It surely did not happen with me. I really had to find this out again. Of course it is very logical that this eventually happens. To blow through closed lips does not happen without support. IMO Jeffs remark about working on the volume of roll-in has to do with this also. In the end it is impossible not to play with abdominal support, but when I started doing the roll-ins it took all the concentration to do this right and I just forgot about air support. One of the reasons it did not work so fast for me. That's why I posted this, for others to just think of your air, too, to make it work a little quicker.

Bert

Jerry Freedman · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2003 8:02 am Post subject:

What I meant was that I had to use a LOT more abdominal muscles to make the roll in stuff work. When my lips were rolled in like that it took a lot more gut pressure to get the air out past my chops. This transferred quickly to my playing

_dcstep · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 6:46 am Post subject:

I've only been at it about three days, BUT the lip clamp and Lip Clamp Squeak are already having positive impact. I've been playing forty-six years and play lead in a rock band, yet the abdominal compression required to do the Lip Clamp Squeak is something new to me. I've had to stop doing it in the car, at least for now, because it can make me light headed. At first, air was coming out the sides, the middle and all directions, but it's starting to focus in the middle now. Anyway, this is aiding my G above high-C tremendously.

After one day with the rollin I was hitting F# and G above high-C with much more security (confidence that I'd hit it) even though the roll-in seemed really strange (still does at times).

Anyway, it's taking a lot of abdominal pressure for me to do the Lip Clamp Squeak. As Jeff says in his book, if you're doing it with just the lips and cheeks, you need to add the abs.

Man-o-live, what a powerful book!

Dave
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HJ · Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 12:42 pm Post subject:

I was thinking about this topic again and tried to think back more precisely what happened. I see that to play rolled in or to make a lip squeek you people need the abs. Of course I do too. And it worked for me this way. The only thing that did not work right a way was when I played on my normal embouchure again. I was so busy discovering a whole new terrain that I really forgot about abdominal support for some time. After I thought of this again the roll-ins where better, but certainly my 'normal' playing was more powerful again and I had much more profit from the BE exercises.

Bert