Embouchure Changes

[VivaLaTrumpets]

My instructor recently told me I needed to shift my mouthpiece up on my embouchure. This has been VERY difficult, however progress has been made. If anyone has any good exercises or tips on how I could speed up this process (I do understand that results take time) those would be great! I'm also new to the forum, so if I put this in the wrong place somehow, sorry about that.

[bear30101]

Roll-in, Roll-out exercises from "Balanced Embouchure" may help. Also, see "How to form a Trumpet Embouchure" by Charlie Porter on youtube.
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[gabriel127]

Time to change teachers.

Anyone who believes that there's a hard/fast rule as to the elevation of where a mp should be placed is hanging on to an old fallacy. There are many misconceptions in conventional trumpet wisdom that have been held onto for ages. We're in the 21st century now and it's time to come out of the dark ages.

Your teacher would be of much greater service to you if he had you more concerned with sound and less concerned with the location and position of your mouthpiece. Often times, by having you practice certain routines, such as leadpipe or pedal tone exercises can cause a player to place their mouthpiece (without even realizing that they're doing it) in the location that is going to be the most efficient FOR THEM, as this is an individual thing. A good teacher would have you practicing these routines and focusing on sound instead of looking in a mirror.

There are many awesome trumpet players who place the mouthpiece very high on the chops and get great results and just as many who place it low with also great results. Where a player places the mp is often dictated by their teeth and jaw formations. Having a player fight himself in this regard is not a good idea.

I would get with a teacher who is a Bill Adam or a Carmine Caruso disciple as they tend to focus more on what and how you practice rather than where your mouthpiece is located.

Often times these teachers that tell you to move your mouthpiece don't really know what's going on so they pull out something out of the woodwork that they read in a book that might be consistent with their own playing such as the two-thirds on the top - one-third on the bottom thing. But they're only guessing at it and grasping at straws. Just because it may be common to a lot of good players, it doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody. Trust your intuition and what works for you.

[TKSop]

[Billy B]