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Stiff upper lip



 
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trumpetchops
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 30, 2018 1:22 pm    Post subject: Stiff upper lip Reply with quote

Last night I was playing lead in a big band. When we started I felt really good. There were a lot of charts up high in a row. I noticed that my top lip was getting stiff. I was careful not to use pressure.

There were a lot of high charts without a lot of rest. By the end of the night I had trouble getting out a D over high C. Not because I was tired, the lip would just stop buzzing.

Any ideas what happened?
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dershem
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A stiff upper lip is only good if you're British. For a brass player, you want to be firm, but not stiff. Practicing in the upper register will get the lip in better condition, but it has to be done carefully.
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LSOfanboy
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2018 3:04 am    Post subject: Re: Stiff upper lip Reply with quote

trumpetchops wrote:
Last night I was playing lead in a big band. When we started I felt really good. There were a lot of charts up high in a row. I noticed that my top lip was getting stiff. I was careful not to use pressure.

There were a lot of high charts without a lot of rest. By the end of the night I had trouble getting out a D over high C. Not because I was tired, the lip would just stop buzzing.

Any ideas what happened?


Hi,

This is a problem I can relate to from my earlier phases of development. One thing I would say, purely on a human level, is that I would advise (from experience) that you, at least in public, avoid saying 'not because I was tired...[but it wasn't working out]'. I used to do this a lot and in my experience it was a sure-fire way to irritate the players around you. For most people, if you play a long set and some notes stop coming out by the end, you are 'tired'. Precisely why or how this has occurred is your personal problem, but trying to persuade those around you that you aren't tired, when the actual results are not good, can be perceived as 'talking a big game' and has an air of, perhaps undeserved, arrogance.

I was a huge culprit for this sort of statement a few years ago, being a younger player sat on lead trumpet parts professionally, if the band leader ever said 'how are the chops?' I was the first to say 'Fine!'. I could always pick a top G out, even after a huge day of playing, in my mind this made me indefatigable and I would never shy from anything. What changed my attitude was a rehearsal one day with some very experienced players, a very hard blow and by the end I was definitely struggling to get through some of the heavy shout choruses, I could still pick out my top G and my lips felt OK, but the sustained passages weren't sounding effortless and powerful. The conductor asked about re-running a few bits and I answered as usual 'Chops are fine!' so we re-did them (myself a little strained at this point) several times. At the end the second player (a really staggering lead player, logically he should have played lead but had a heavy show later that day) took me aside and said bluntly; 'there is no shame in admitting you're getting tired, the only shame is saying you're fine and not delivering the goods.' And I insisted, 'but my chops feel fine! Look...' and I demonstrated my top G. He sighed and said to me 'your face might still feel fresh, you have great technique and can play the whole range, but I'll be honest that you sound far less powerful than you did at the start. You might not think you're tired, but everybody else does'.

It was a very important lesson to me, and it did open my eyes to the arrogance I was displaying by insisting my chops weren't tired, even when other's were freely admitting their's were, especially when I actually wasn't playing as strongly as I could. Apologies for such a long-winded start, but that one sentence of your's took me back to my own attitude a few years ago and I thought it might be a useful point to make. You can take or ignore it as you wish!

To attempt to answer your question. The short answer is that your lip lost its potential to vibrate at the higher frequencies. This can be caused by a number, or combined number, of factors:
-Your intercostal muscles fatigued (they don't have any sensory neurones so you can't actually feel this happening) and you were no longer able to produce the amount of compression necessary to reach those notes.
-You began cutting off the vibration of the lips by pushing them against the teeth. This isn't necessarily about mouthpiece pressure, as lip swelling could also cause this (simply a thicker lip will touch the teeth quicker than a thin one), or you may have begun stretching the lips a little more to overcome any swelling or strain, which could have a similar effect.
-The aperture between your lips becomes distorted either by swelling or micro-changes in your embouchure, perhaps tightening things too much and reducing the free vibration via the aperture.

I hope this can be useful.

All the best
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trumpetchops
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2018 3:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The reason for saying "Not tired" was to help other diagnose the problem. It has nothing to do with vanity. I'm an old guy who doesn't care anymore about getting tired. When they ask me to play it again, I'm the first to say, "Are you nuts?"

Usually when I get tired, I feel it in my corners. Not on the lip. That night the corners were still strong. My bottom lip was fine. Just the top lip. The lip was obviously swollen. Maybe I was playing too loudly?
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Seymor B Fudd
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2018 9:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

trumpetchops wrote:
The reason for saying "Not tired" was to help other diagnose the problem. It has nothing to do with vanity. I'm an old guy who doesn't care anymore about getting tired. When they ask me to play it again, I'm the first to say, "Are you nuts?"

Usually when I get tired, I feel it in my corners. Not on the lip. That night the corners were still strong. My bottom lip was fine. Just the top lip. The lip was obviously swollen. Maybe I was playing too loudly?
https://www.trumpetherald.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=149045

Has happened to me as well; as LSOfanboy suggests I would say that in my case, being amateur after all, I got tired - off course, but then did something that went under the conscious radar resulting in a non perceptible microbleeding in that part of my top lip that should have vibrated. I only understood this in retrospect. What I did was probably that I somehow lost the normal aperture and did some more or less forceful move to re install it. Might have been the result of blowing too loud - meaning I for some reason thought that I had to compensate - in itself a sign of a fatigue in a state of becoming. Mostly rather on a subconscious level. I found this: http://hornmatters.com/2012/02/ouch-four-tips-for-swollen-lips/
Of course this might be the result of some barely noticeable lipmovement at a certain note, like twisting a ankle doing some awkward movements - having nothing to do with fatigue of any kind - but leading to some microbleeding.
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tptptp
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2018 11:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe you have had a mild injury or ulcer with lasting loss of flexibility??

I am in a disappointing phase. Two and a half weeks ago, I got a bad canker sore under my upper lip, near gum line, just left of center. Hurt to talk, drink, eat. Didn't try to play. Soreness has nearly subsided, and the visible lesion is gone.
However, upper lip still feels stiff, maybe swollen, and a bit numb. My tone, accuracy, attack, and range are terrible.
I've tried some oils my wife gave me, as well as ice. Still terrible.

And I am supposed to play 2nd on a Christmas big band gig tomorrow! Two rehearsals this past week made me want to quit.

I feel so bad that I can't adequately help the lead guy.

This trumpet thing can be such a joy and such a downer.
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Lionel
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 7:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any time that we approach or pass our reasonsble limitations our lips or embouchure will respond in the normal fashion. No one is surprised to find himself with stiff thighs the morning after playing shortstop for the first time in thirty years. So we shouldn't consider any stiffness in the embouchure flesh unusual in the poster's case. Even though he "didn't use pressure" it is still possible to over do it. If you performed thirty pushups tonight I'd bet my favorite cornet that your arms would be stiff as a board by tomorrow.

Without going into a lengthy dissertation on efficient brass playing and suitable exercises for stamina/range etc? Consider this,

In order to make high phrsses easier our body needs to adjust to the greater energy* demands involved. There are three ways I know of to remedy this.

1. Build up a lot of endurance and a stronger register by carefully following a progressively more demanding regimen of practice/playing/performing.

2. Find a more efficient embouchure formation which is better equipped to handle the load of playing higher notes. That or/and,

3. Use a shallower mouthpiece with a well rounded bite.

Of all three above only number 3 is the likely quicker fix for most folks. Although you'll often hear some dissent. A buddy of mine is incredibly reluctant to give up his Bach 1C mouthpiece. As I've suggested that he do when playing lead or Jazz high note solos.. Then just last night after watching him perform, cracking notes and topping out barely at high C? He started mentioning that he just might start listening to and incorporating some new ideas. In other words that huge mouthpiece he's using is cutting up his chops. In turn that "cookie cutter" piece is making the young man more reasonable. Butchered lips are a strong reinforcer of my ideas. For the record I have never witnessed a single case of a trumpet player actually finding that a significantly deeper mouthpiece assists him in performing better, clearer and louder high notes. At least not on average.

The "well rounded bite" I've suggested is a characteristic common almost exclusively to shallower "screamer" type mouthpieces. In fact the only time I've ever seen a large mouthpiece with a well rounded inner rim is on one of my own pieces. It's a cornet piece I use for classical music.

Those people who play lots of high notes will usually choose a shallower mouthpiece without any sharp edges. The "well rounded bite" as mentioned. Using one of these "softer rims" on a shallower mouthpiece can give a well conditioned trumpet player maybe 5x more endurance in the upper register. That and a far more precise, musical performance. It's just the right tool for the job.

Lastly, Ask yourself this question.

If most of the cats with the strongest high notes use shallower mouthpieces for their upper register work? Then why don't you, a far weaker player follow their example?

Find a mouthpiece which helps you cut the gig. It is possible to alter the shallower piece to get a more pleasing middle register tone. I suggest having a pro open your mouthpiece to at least a #24 throat. Do this on any shallower than normal mouthpiece. Heck Maynard used a doggone #15 throat in his piece! Granted that's probably way too big but the point is still valid. Again,

Use the right equipment!


*"Energy demand was a favorite term of Maynard's.
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