How to get Pedal Notes?

[Haegge]

Whatever i try i'm not able to get the Pedals with my regular embouchure, i'm also have some Problems to start the low F#.

When i open my Aparture as big as possible and blow up my Cheeks, i could get the Pedals but not with my regular setup.

Any ideas to practise that? Or should i first practise to get my low F# better before thinking about Pedals?

[trump_it]

As Jerome Callet teaches it, you should use 7/8 top lip for double peadals. Your bottom lip should barely be on the mouthpiece. It's nearly impossible to play double pedals with a normal emboucher.

I say "nearly," because if I said that it is impossible, someone would flame me because one person may have done it.
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2003 All-State Musician

[_dcstep]

With double pedals you have to change your embouchure, but with regular pedals (G and below) you use your normal embouchure. Try playing chromatically down from C and us open fingering for the G when you get to, then 2d valve for the F#, etc. With work, you'll be able to play the C-scale down without alternate fingerings and bring it back up and be in tune. (That "in tune" part is important because you'll tend to slide way low).

Sometimes playing loud will help get the pedals sounding. In the beginning, play the pedal-C with 1-2-3 and lipping down, but after you get that sounding good work on playing it open. For the C, you actually need to get some resonance into your mouth.

BTW, I just started working with the Balanced Embouchure (Callet) double pedals and I'm seeing benefits in just three days. It's easy to get the double pedals to sound, but it took me a day to get them in tune, now they're really resonating.

Dave
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Schilke '60 B1 -- 229 Bach-C/19-350 Blackburn -- Lawler TL Cornet -- Conn V1 Flugel -- Stomvi Master Bb/A/G picc -- GR mpcs
[url=http://www.pitpops.com] The PitPops[/url]
Rocky Mountain Trumpet Fest

[NMex]

Haegge,
8 months ago, I started playing again after taking 7-1/2 years off. In June, I started taking private lessons and my instructor started me immediately on pedal tones. Use the Stamp book, either exercise 3c or 5c. Also, you can use, and I recommend, James Thompson's buzzing book and a buzzing aid. The nicer buzzing aids I have seen are the ones from Chase Sanborn or the one actually named "Buzz-aid". When you start attempting the pedals, you might change your embouchure. You should work with a mirror and try to minimalize movement. Also, try not to rotate your horn up and down. You have to try to get the note by changing the postion of your tongue in your mouth. Try bending from low C to low G, and move down in 1/2 steps until you get to the pedal C. Use the same fingerings as for the ocatve above (when referring to the Stamp method). When I started, I could get some of the notes and would move the horn and mouthpiece around on my face, and reset my embouchure. Now, we're working on the next octave below pedal C and I'm not resetting.
The whole focus of the Stamp and the Buzzing book is to increase the range of your "middle" embouchure - up and down. It has worked for me. Drop me a note if you have any questions.
Best wishes,
Mario
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Brasspire 923 LT
ACB TA-2

[_bugleboy]

No flames intended towards other posts, but I believe you should try to get pedals any way you can WITHOUT intentionally moving the horn or the mpc. Use your lips to make the pedals happen. If the mpc or the horn moves, let it happen, but make pedals a lip exercise. If your embouchure becomes distorted from its normal look or position in this process, don't worry about it. If the mpc wants to ride up to enable the notes, let it. It's that simple. In the long run, your embouchure will probably change less when it goes into the pedal register than in the beginning, but that should be allowed to happen ( if it's going to) on its own.

You will find that you can't (in 99.9999% of instances) play pedals AND use pressure. This, then, will teach your lips how to play "something" WITHOUT pressure. Then the trick is to (over time) let the lips incorporate this automatic non-pressure type of practice into the normal range of the horn, and automatically reduce pressure in that range. This makes it important to follow pedal playing with normal playing, preferably utilizing the full range of the instrument.

Pedals then become a back door (but powerful) tool in reducing pressure, automatically and without the player having to make willful and performance disrupting adjustments in his embouchure in the quest to reduce pressure.

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Charles Raymond

[ This Message was edited by: bugleboy on 2003-11-26 11:31 ]

[_dcstep]

Surprise, surprise, Bugleboy and I agree, almost.

Best regards,

Dave
_________________
Schilke '60 B1 -- 229 Bach-C/19-350 Blackburn -- Lawler TL Cornet -- Conn V1 Flugel -- Stomvi Master Bb/A/G picc -- GR mpcs
[url=http://www.pitpops.com] The PitPops[/url]
Rocky Mountain Trumpet Fest

[Derek Reaban]

The concept that helped me the most in getting my pedals to connect with my regular playing register is that “breaks” exist on the trumpet. James Thompson discusses this in his Buzzing Basics books.

Breaks are simply the points at which we have to change something about our playing to continue moving into a certain register. For instance, the falsetto voice when we sing is a "break". The goal is to discover the "break" points in our playing and then figure out a way to smooth over these areas so that the "break" is not discernable to us or to our listeners.

I never really thought that there would be a break between the middle register and the low register on the trumpet, but it was there, just as James Thompson described. I had to know what to listen for to experience it though, and this has made all the difference in getting these exercises to become vitally beneficial to my playing.

At first "the break" was most obvious to me in exercise 4 (slurring from second line G to low C in whole notes and then through the remaining 6 chromatic combinations). He says that most players will have a break at about the 1st line E. This is the point where most players will probably change something about the way they play to move into the lower register (we all do it naturally, but it hurts our ability to achieve a truly resonant sound). When you can maintain the same setup from the middle register of the horn as you slowly glissando to the low register, you will eventually experience the sound "jump out" of the instrument (the trumpet sound content will get louder and clearer without adding any more air or having to do anything). When you begin to experience this (make sure you aren't blowing harder, just let the crescendos develop), you will find that this sound begins to happen at about the same place every day (for me it was between the E-A or Eb-Ab combination on exercise 4). In time you will find that this sound begins to happen at about the same place for you in Exercise 2. Then it will creep into other areas of your playing (you must just "let" it happen, if you push you will lose the feel).

It's very subtle at first, but then extremely noticeable once the vibrancy begins to grow stronger (i.e. more sound content for less physical effort).

Also, I like to make sure my response is working extremely well by spending about 5 minutes using the Adam and Caruso exercises before I begin the Buzzing Basics.

You carry this idea into the pedals in Exercise 9 (i.e. don't change your middle register setup to get the pedal notes to speak, even if you think they sound better at first with a different setting). He has you play to a pedal F in all of the previous exercises using a 1-2-3 combination for this note with the slides extended. When you get to the pedal exercises, you use 1st valve for the F, but the feeling should be identical to playing the note with 1-2-3 having approached the note through a glissando from an octave above.

So, summarizing this approach, don’t change the middle register setting, and use a slow glissando to the pedal register from the octave above (stopping briefly on the 5th).

Who can give us some feedback about the Bill Lucas book on Pedal Tones (AccentOnTrumpet)? I’ve heard it is very well conceived but I don’t yet have it in my library. Is it similar to the Thompson concept I’ve described here?
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Jerry Freedman]

I am interested in this idea of "breaks" Could you explain more ( I think I feel one somewhere between first line E and top of staff G)

Jerry Freedman

[Derek Reaban]

Jerry,

James Thompson says that for most players the “breaks” on the trumpet are found at about the 1st line E and the Bb at the top of the staff (this will vary slightly for every player). Most players will compensate for these breaks and figure out how to play in the different registers with slightly different setups trying to “smooth” over the area where the change takes place. His idea is that if you maintain a middle register setup and slowly allow this setup to stretch it’s way into the lower and upper registers, it will lead to a more resonant, colorful, vibrant sound. I am finding this to be true in my own playing.

Try this exercise and see what happens. On the mouthpiece alone, play 2 half notes and a whole note (2nd line G, 2nd line G, and low C). The exercise should be at about m=80 and you should play a slow glissando on the second half note down to the low C (2 full beats of glissando). Rest for 4 beats and then do the same pattern with 2nd valve and continue down chromatically to Low C to Low F (fingered 1-2-3 with slides extended). Then take a brief rest and do the same thing on the trumpet (you will really get the feel for these when you experience the slow glissando on the horn). Eventually, this middle setting will begin to replace the different setting that you have adapted for the low register, and a new vibrancy will begin to develop in your sound (weeks to months in my case).

It seems that most of the well conceived warmup/maintenance routines that I have seen begin around this second line G and expand it (up and down) while maintaining this middle setting (without mentioning the idea of breaks). Look at Adam, Caruso, Stamp, Remington, etc. There’s a lot to be gleaned from looking at how many of the successful methods structure their exercises (apart from the text that accompanies them). They must have intuitively known about these breaks without specifically discussing them, and generated exercises to maintain a middle-register setup stretching into the extremes.

This is not to say that nothing moves under the mouthpiece while playing. Certainly the lips have to be dynamic. It’s just that minimizing the movement will lead to enhanced vibrancy in time, and this is the wonderful benefit to be gained by performing these exercises with the middle register setup.

I hope this helps.


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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona

[ This Message was edited by: Derek Reaban on 2003-11-26 14:03 ]

[_bugleboy]

PS. When first attempting to play pedals, it is often helpful to play everything down to the pedal G as 1-2-3. When you get to the pedal G, play it open and follow the fingerings that would be used two octaves higher, from that point on.

[Welk]

The way that works the best for me is to close my teeth and let the air flow pass between them. Actualy, I have some space in my teeth. And you relax totaly your lips! this work fine for me... I just need to get to know wich pedal tone correspond to each note!
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Nicolas Marcotte

52' Olds Recording LA
Wick gold 4X

-=0=-Music is what gives us the beat, but it is also what makes beat our heart -=0=-

[oj]

Some good posts here!

On page 58 in his great book "The Balanced Embouchure", Jeff Smiley show the full lips range of motion in a diagram. In the middle is the standard area for most trumpet players, to the left is the Roll-Out area (the pedal register) to the right the Roll-In area (the very high register).

For great horn, trombone and tuba-players the whole range in Smiley's digram is their normal or full range. Simple as that - so why the big fuzz in the trumpet camp?

Some trumpet teacher even warn against pedal notes (not many, but some) - others see no point in the double pedals as played by Callet and Smiley (and also mentioned here).

Why?

If they just looked to the other brass, they would see that to play very deep notes on a tuba or bass trombone you use rolled out lips. A low C on Bb tuba equal a double pedal C on trumpet. When I play double high C on my tuba, I roll in my lips.

Callet "discovered" a technique that horn players have used for centuries, the "Einsetzen" embouchure.

Caruso call embouchure balance. Balance is indeed the keyword in the Thompson and Smiley books. They (Thompson and Smiley) work from two different and opposite positions to develop a flexible and efficient embouchure. Thompson uses glissando exercises on the mouthpiece alone and on the instrument, starting in the middle register and working in both directions - up into the upper register and down into the lower register.

Smiley starts in the very low register (Roll Out) and in the high register (Roll In). From this exaggerated positions he works to develop a balanced embouchure

All 3 (Caruso, Thompson and Smiley) uses pedal exercises. The Thompson and Smiley book & CD can be used as "self-help-books". Caruso's book in combination with the Caruso Forum is also such a great help.

To me personally, the "Callet pedals" are more "poweful" and "give" me more, but I'm a doubler so I have even used the Einsetzen in concert on my french horn (like Shostakovitch Symph. No. 5)

Whether you use "normal" pedals or "double" pedals - it is a great development tool !

Ole

[trump_it]

I think some people are unclear of the purpose of pedal tones. Pedal tones are not used to add to your "range." We should not be playing pedal tones for the sake of making a low note come out. Pedal tones are used to found basic concepts, and then use those concepts in all aspects of playing. The major concept is AIR. Pedal tones are releatively useless unless we are using as much air as humanly possible. Once we becone accustomed to this usage or air, and transfer it to the rest of our playing, all aspect of our playing will improve. Pedal tones are also a good resource for warming up and warming down, essential to playing the trumpet. I know that the majority of you know this, but it seemed to me that some didn't.
_________________
2003 All-State Musician

[trumpetteacher1]

Nathan,

You are obviously welcome to your opinion. But, not everybody will agree with you that "Pedal tones are releatively useless unless we are using as much air as humanly possible."

How many different ways of doing pedals have you studied? In the approach to pedals that I advocate, the "air factor" is way down the list of most important reasons for doing them.

Jeff Smiley

[thebulldog]

[trump_it]

Mr. Smiley,

My teacher studied with Jerome Callet, so naturally, he uses the Callet method. My 'short' answer to the question of "Why practice pedals?" is the factor of air. When I work on double pedal tones, I'm thinking mainly about air, then my embouchure. Double pedals are nearly impossible to play without using a great amount of air. Once that is in place, everything else seems to fall in line (for me anyway). After doing this for about a month, I noticed a huge improvement in all aspects of my playing. I can assure you that it wasn't because of what my lips were doing while I was playing the double pedal excercises (I only use 7/8 top lip when I'm doing the excercises). It was because the foundation of trumpet playing (constant, steady free-flow of air) had become habitual.
As I am well aware, you teach your own method, and from what I've read, it yields similar results.
_________________
2003 All-State Musician

[trump_it]

Bulldog-
I suppose you're pretty proud of yourself for adding to my post in your quote. I hope you didn't strain your mind trying to figure out how to do it. It's people like you who I really can't stand. You changed my words to make me look bad. You assumed that since I am in high school, I don't know how to play trumpet nor the pedagoy of trumpet.
I didn't get to be one of the top 5 high school trumpet players in New York State without hours of practice and research of different methods of trumpet playing every day. I wasn't accepted by the New England Conservatory and Eastman School of Music because I'm a poor trumpet player. My post was a mere regurgitation of what Jerome Callet teaches. This is what I've found most effective. I am not alone in this finding.

If everyone would read my post and not his quotation of it, you'll se that this person is nothing but a damned troll.

EDIT: I'd be interested to know what exactly I said that was false- FALSE, not contrary to your opinion. Oh wait...I didn't say anything false? Yeah, that's what I thought.

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Nathan Meredith

Raw Brass Bb Bach Strad 25
Silver C Bach Strad 229
Red Brass Yamaha YFH-631G Flugel

New York State 2003 Conference All-State Musician

[ This Message was edited by: trump_it on 2003-11-27 16:04 ]

[oj]

Nathan,

Did you know that Arban made a supplemental to his Grand Method - with pedal exercises. I first heard this from Håkan Hardenberger, one of his teacher, Pierre Thibaud had discovered this fact.

Why do I mention this?

Well, to show that pedal notes are nothing new or something that Maggio "invented" as some may think.

As Jeff pointed out there are many different ways of doing pedals. Just for fun, to extend the range, make joke with the trombones, move air, develop the embouchure, etc. etc. The list goes on.

In the time of Arban (he was born in 1825) the valve cornet was a rather new invention. A lot of players from the early 1800 came from the natural trumpet. This instrument was twice as long as the cornet. The lowest note you got on the baroque (natural) trumpet was not "on" the cornet.

Imagine if you "came" from the natural trumpet to the cornet - of course you would try to get out that "missing" note ( = pedal C). On conical instruments like the cornet, it is easier to play pedal C, so there is perhaps "the link"? This is of course speculation. Btw, Arban was not alone, Jules Levy's Cornet Method from 1895 had pedal notes (like exercise # 302).

When Louis Maggio hurt his lips, he started using pedals and found a new and better method of playing with greater range and better endurance.

Nathan, what you say: Double pedals are nearly impossible to play without using a great amount of air., is plain rubbish.

Get "Balanced Embouchure" (B.E.) and study it for some time. You will discover that the Roll-Out exercises (double pedals) are possible to play with very little use of air.

Students of B.E ( like me - I've worked on it for 2 years) can play double pedal C twice as long, or even longer, than a low C.

Ole



[ This Message was edited by: oj on 2003-11-27 16:22 ]

[trump_it]

Thank you, your post was most informative. Out of mere curiostiy, what is the benefit of playing a pedal C for so long? How does it effect "normal" playing? I'm genuinely interested. Thanks in advance!
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2003 All-State Musician

[mark936]

maybe Nathan doesn't have a 36" waist and a 52" belly, yet. He needs all that air.