Tips on relaxing into extra shallow cups?

[VintageFTW]

This is basically what I'm asking. Are there any tips/tricks/exercises for relaxing the lips into extremely shallow cups, but whilst still maintaining control of the musculature as needed? For lead (up to double A and the occasional double C) I am currently playing on an original Jet Tone BC and it really doesn't like to be man handed, else it either shuts down or things just get sketchy. I have found that when I set slightly puckered and then relax as much as I can my tone opens up immensely and my articulation crisps up nicely. Anyways, are there any known tips for playing on very shallow mouthpieces? The ID is listed in an old catalogue at .625, but it feels smaller than that.
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Early 1900's Marceau Cornet *B&F Stencil
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...And many more

[oxleyk]

Here is a recent discussion that may help.

https://www.trumpetherald.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=147124

[INTJ]

Play softly and make sure your shoulders aren’t tense....
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[Lionel]

[Robert P]

[Tpt_Guy]

[Lionel]

[brassmusician]

Interesting to hear your thoughts, Lionel. I always appreciated the notion of playing smaller and shallower, why use more effort than you need right? but in the last year or so I have found myself struggling to play consistently on smaller pieces - there seems to be too much variation in my lip day to day, my lips catch and stop on the narrower diameters and while I could one day get a classical sound out of a 12A4a, the next day a small amount of swelling would nix that. I have now moved larger, to 3C size pieces and the inconsistency has gone away. I even wonder now if the small cups I was playing were causing intermittent swelling through intense vibration of the fleshy center to my lip (I have a cupid's bow). I am interested if you have any thoughts on this?
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[Lionel]

Brassmusician,

Ive got some good ideas. Just for you. Please contact me via private message. Always glad to support the cause. Time permiting


Have been through many similar experiences as yourself. That and decided that doubling on shallower mouthieces takes time. Its a real skill but worth every minute of the time and patience involved. As we continue to,

"Work Smart, Not hard..."

Also I've got a good idea for a pair of pieces you may want to try. I will cut them myself. Same rims, different depths. Deeper cup for "legit". The rims being so similar that I almost can't tell the difference myself.
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"Check me if I'm wrong Sandy but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up & throw away the key"!

Carl Spackler (aka Bill Murray, 1980).

[number juan]

hmmm... i find this topic interesting because i recently acquired a jet-tone AH, and a bobby shew lead. i normally use a curry 3c. for some reason, i can play on those pieces in the normal registers, but, especially on the lead, i cannot use them to play much above a high c, despite being able to play about an octave higher on the curry. so at the moment my only use for the AH and the lead are to switch to them for a few minutes at a time when i feel tired while going over the marching show for next year before returning to the curry, just to give my lips a little bit of a break.

[Lionel]

[Rod Haney]

[jvand678]

from my experience, it takes time to figure out exactly where the slots exist however what I understand you guys are describing are my experiences on lead pieces prior to studying with a lead player who actually knew/knows what he's doing.

A lower compression mouthpiece (3C, 1C, 5B, etc...) generally requires smaller aperture to balance the system. A higher compression piece (Shew 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2.0, Findley, Reeves 43S, etc...) requires you to literally open the aperture more (or at least keep it the same) when going into the upper register. The system will shut down if you play it like your larger pieces and pinch the lips together.

Try playing a G scale going to the 9 without making an aperture change, or better, pulling the aperture apart a touch on the A. If you're anything like me, you'll feel it close a bit going to the D/E in the staff again on F/G and majorly on the A. The good news, is that when I play higher compression pieces, the good attributes find their way back into my 1C playing. Go figure...
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[Lionel]

I just as easily could have put the following content on the "Mouthpieces" forum. However there already existed this very topic which is perfectly apropos to the subject matter involved. The wisdom came from a monster player. Let's call him friend "A". He is probably the greatest or certainly most capable high note trumpet player currently living on this planet today.

I can't fully disclose all the subject matter out of respect for another well noted trumpet player (friend "B") discussed in the email. Two men actually. So have adjusted the quote to only cover material applicable to this very topic here on this thread.

My questions to A involved the amount of practicing necessary to mitigate the usage of larger mouthpieces while still maintaining a strong upper register. The kind of chops suitable for friend B to maintain his sterling reputation.. Included in the qualification of "larger mouthpieces" here is not only wide inner rim dimensions, deep cups but those sharp inner rim edges. Oftentimes all these characteristics come in the same package fellas!

Our friend A had once worked a Vegas job with B and asked B how much he practiced just to maintain his condition. Indeed it was FIVE HOURS per day! To which Mr A said "Ouch" and I concur. Mr A is a man who likes to think outside the box. I concur with him regularly even if I don't excel at high notes like he does. Heck nobody else anyway. I just describe my ability as "a capable lead player". I might not knock you out but I do get the job done. Anyway,

Mr A also concurred with me on the stubborness of the trumpet playing community. How many trumpet players are so stuck in their ways that they wouldn't accept advice suggesting that smaller mouthpieces can be designed or altered to produce the same tone as larger pieces with negligible differences in quality. But at far greater ease. I had brought the subject up in reference to a local pro I know and have worked with over the years. However old age has crept up on him, as it has me. However my chops are still improving while his deteriorate. The main difference between our strategies? He refuses to even consider looking into shallower, more user friendly mouthpieces. I know the man well enough and thus wouldn't even bother to bring up the subject.

Worse still my friends? The great majority of experienced trumpet players are men just like he. Holding conventional thinking about mouthpieces and will go to their graves unchanged. Even as they lose their ability to play well.

Anyway? End rant, back to Mr A's final quote:

"Most players use a big piece. Believing the myth that it will give them a big sound. No. It will give them a dark sound. The perfect piece is the one which enables the player to experience virtually no chop fatigue no matter the amount of time off or length of the gig".

The man also indicated that during his experience working with Maynard that "The Boss" never practiced.

Mr A is of course the one and only Lynn Nicholson.

And of course I can not reproduce high notes anything like Lynn. However even at my advanced age I'm still increasing my endurance while practicing less. Most the others my age are being beaten down by Father Time. I attribute personal preservation almost completely to my mouthpiece selection. That and for refusing to follow conventional thinking.
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"Check me if I'm wrong Sandy but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up & throw away the key"!

Carl Spackler (aka Bill Murray, 1980).

[shakuhachi]

Lionel – I fully agree: the stubbornness of the trumpet playing community regarding mouthpiece sizes and special shapes.

Things have to be straining otherwise they are not worthwhile. Some alternative thinking equals some whoodo hokuspokus leading players into the wrong direction.

This is a strong psychological issue: you have gained something over years of unbelievable efforts and then there pop up some stickybeaks telling everyone that it could all be much easier….it is much better “to make a virtue out of a necessity”.

I too follow Mr. A’s advices because he not only plays some extraordinary high register even without any hours lasting daily maintenance regime but is an extraordinary analyst as well. Sure he only spent about 1 year playing with Maynard in 1974/1975 whereas others would spent couple of more years playing with him. But it is not the amount of time but the quality of investigation in a given timeframe.

Of course the stubborned will tell: Mr. A was playing some extraordinary high register even before telling his story….they don’t believe his expertise that he himself may have done much easier when following the story instead of doing old school advices.

I don’t know other trumpet heroes as well as Maynard, whom I dedicated a lot of private investigation, because he offers some important message regarding playing habitus: be happy – have fun. By this research I found that Maynard himself played not from the beginning as he would later on with Stan Kenton: there clearly was some watershed in his development and it was closely connected with his mouthpiece which was deduced from a french horn mouthpiece where he liked the german “einsetzen” behavior a lot. This mouthpiece design is known as “the holy grail”. He never deviate from this special design until later with the Monettes. The shape was a shallow and narrow very high alpha angled v-cup which later was optimized in a convex design for over 20 years!

One can argue: Maynard could only play what he played and found a niche in being honored by this. Could he play softly, classical with double and triple tongue and switching tone colours? Don’t know – answer yourself.

Mr. A developed some method (MHM) grounded on what he found was the case with Maynard as well and what he discovered on his own sometimes before meeting Maynard: unfurling the lips in some circumstances. That this could be better done with a mouthpiece design Maynard uses all the way was the next founding: relaxing into a small v-cup – our topic in this threat.

In TH there are a lot of explorations about that design – it does not need to be repeated here again.

There is only one question for me:

How much time has to be invested into maintenance of trumpet playing – I don’t mean maintenance of range, endurance, sound; I mean technical aspects like fast fingerings, scales, arpeggios etc.. ….the latter are things that need the former as a prerequisite.

So why not doing easier on the former to get more from the latter? And would it be not nice to take the horn out of the case and simply play even after weeks off the horn?

Anyway do you think Maynard had some practice regime at all?

Mr. A is the moon when it comes to intelligent practise - and I am only the finger pointing to the moon.....and playing is much better than practising...

[Lionel]