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My Reports on Kurt Thompson's 16 Wk Range & Endurance Co


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bhornFree
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gabriel127 wrote:
I wish you hadn't taken down your videos, because I can't refer back to them to see what you're doing


He didn't. They were on Kurt's YT channel, Kurt took them down.

None-the-less I have enjoyed reading your posts. I've had to do a lot of embouchure work as (i) a comeback player and (2) a new trumpet player at once. I've ended up doing a lot of what you describe, but still have a long way to go. Now I'm trying to get one of my sons to do the same and it's nice having a mini roadmap with nice, clear descriptions
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lambchop
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gabriel127 wrote:

....
I wish you hadn't taken down your videos, because I can't refer back to them to see what you're doing, but from what I can recall, I think generally speaking you could benefit by learning to play with your jaw out more. It's going to be a totally different feel from what you're doing now, but don't forget that what you're doing now is not working at all. I saw you squeak out a scalewise progression to an F and that might be an improvement for you, but still that's a long long way from playing the entire lead trumpet part to a tune such as "In a Mellow Tone," I think it was Basie's arrangement, playing all that stuff leading up to the end where you have to belt out a high F really loud and hold it. Frankly, I don't think you'd ever reach that level playing on the embouchure that I saw you demonstrate. You're not playing with enough bottom jaw support from what I can recall.

Have you ever tried doing Jerry Callet's "spit buzz" into the mouthpiece? Just doing that alone helps you get the feel for playing with the jaw out further.


I did try some tongue on the lips stuff a bit. It is in the Balanced Embouchure method. What you are saying sounds somewhat familiar. Larry Merigellano was into the monkey lips thing and likes the whisper G technique, which has the teeth together promoting the jaw out. The puffed out cheeks or air pockets is also noted in BE and Larry's teaching. Also the pencil exercise which I think is supposed to help give you that channel. I think my whisper G deteriorated over time in the KT course as my lips became less supple.
I didn't take down the videos, Kurt did, since I quoted in the versions he posted on his site with some headings etc. I could post some of the originals again maybe.
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

lambchop - I sent you a private message.
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Anthony Miller
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I’m a comeback player and have spent the last two years methodically working one method - Bill Knevitt 52-week Crash Course. It’s a solid weekly method that has given me a structure to practise most elements of my playing instead of cherry picking all the other ‘millions’ of methods currently available. I do try and experiment and study other suggestions I see here and other places but keep the Knevitt method as my mainstay. It’s working for me. With respect to you Lambchop it seems to me you’ve tried most other methods, or at least were aware of them, looking for a quick way to high notes. Plenty of suggestions coming at you here seem only to cloud the issue as well intentioned as they are. I have no answers for you as I’m not experienced enough to suggest ways to improve - I only know what works for me and I was lucky enough to find it early on in my comeback. If you have the money though forget the KTs of this world and try someone like John Mohan or someone proven here at TH. Good luck on your playing - and one piece of advice I can give that did me some good - join a community band, play weekly and practise tunes. Best.
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SSmith1226
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gabriel127 wrote:
SSmith1226 wrote:
Great post and analysis!!!


Thanks Steve. I see you're from Marathon, FL. Lucky! I assume that you must do some Tarpon fishing? Snook, bonefish, redfish?

Gotta love the keys.


I’ve done it all. I’ve lived there 40 years. I mainly fish the reef, off shore and bay. I try to get a Tarpon Trip in occasionally. If you send me your email to SSmith1226@aol.com, I’ll send you some photos.
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gabriel127
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

lambchop wrote:

I did try some tongue on the lips stuff a bit. It is in the Balanced Embouchure method. What you are saying sounds somewhat familiar. Larry Merigellano was into the monkey lips thing and likes the whisper G technique, which has the teeth together promoting the jaw out. The puffed out cheeks or air pockets is also noted in BE and Larry's teaching. Also the pencil exercise which I think is supposed to help give you that channel. I think my whisper G deteriorated over time in the KT course as my lips became less supple.
I didn't take down the videos, Kurt did, since I quoted in the versions he posted on his site with some headings etc. I could post some of the originals again maybe.


Well, in Balanced Embouchure, the emphasis seems to be more specifically tonguing with the tongue releasing from the top lip. What I'm advocating is feeling the tongue touch both lips, and even the edges of both upper and lower teeth.

Also in BE, there's a lot of talk about rolling in the lips to ascend and bunching the chin, and doing the lip clamp exercise and that lip clamp involves tight corners. When you combine tight corners with rolling in the lips (particularly the bottom lip) no doubt that the chin is going to bunch up, which is not necessarily a bad thing for certain players.

The BE works for a lot of people in fact, it worked for me at one point many years ago. Then, a car accident resulted crown and bridge work on the top front teeth, which raised their profile and created kind of an instant overbite, where my bite had been more even previously. After this, I could not play in the upper register on that embouchure anymore. I had to get that jaw out and play with the jaw in a more forward position, there was no way around it. At first, it felt very awkward, almost impossible. But over time, my sound improved and I became more comfortable playing with my jaw more in that forward position. One of the exercises that I found invaluable were the lips slurs out of the BE book where you "snap" the top notes--which was derived from Claude Gordon. I like long tones too, but not too much to an extreme. I also like the Bill Adam expanding scales, the John Daniel note-bending exercises, and the leadpipe playing exercises as demonstrated by Javier Gonzalez with Bill Bing on YouTube.

About the whisper G thing, my feeling is that it is more of a muscular development exercise for someone who already has a good working embouchure with good mechanics. I don't see it as something for a beginner or comeback player to do right at the beginning to help them form an embouchure that is going to work for them. So I'd consider that more of an advanced thing. The risk you run with exercises like that and the "pencil trick" routine is that they can result in excessive tightness, which I think you've experienced.

But you're right, the chimpanzee lips picture from the Maggio method is the kind of feel that I'm talking about.

Having played both on a downstream and upstream embouchures in my playing history, there is one thing that I agree with Reinhardt on, and that's that the upstream embouchure definitely offers an advantage for upper register playing and flexibility. And like I've said before, even downstream players can benefit by keeping that jaw forward as much as possible throughout their playing. It prevents putting too much pressure on the top lip and mashing the hell out of it.

Now that I've posted so much reading material, I have to say at this point, that it's very difficult to really help someone just by what amounts to public emails back and forth. I don't even like the idea of Skype lessons because there's no substitute for being in the room with someone, being able to look at their chops through a visualizer, hearing their sound in person, seeing what's going on up close rather than through a webcam. Some teachers love Skype because now they can take students from all over the world rather than being limited to those within driving distance. But there's a definite sacrifice there.

In spite of all that, I've offered up what I have because I saw your videos, you seem like a nice guy, very open and sincere, and it's very compelling to want to help a person such as yourself. I've given you some things to consider, and as someone who has been through hell and back MORE THAN ONCE over the course of 50 years, what I've shared with you on this thread has merit because it worked for me. I was never a "natural" player myself.
I've worked my ass off. I've wanted to quit many times, but I just love the trumpet too much to do that. And, I have a lousy voice, so becoming a singer was out of the question! But I'd have to say that even more important than the hard work was persistence; never giving up. Sometimes, you work hard and reach a dead end. So go back and try another route. I don't guarantee that what I've said here alone is going to be the miracle solution for you because for many people, it takes guidance from a knowledgeable teacher who can guide them through the process in addition to instructing them and prescribing the right routines.

In that vein, here's another point to consider: I've talked about how it's best to get a teacher who has been through hell themselves and came out of it because they know the terrain, they know what you're going through. Yet, on the other hand, there are some teachers like Caruso, who never played trumpet but were able to help trumpet players, right? Bill Adam, while he was a trumpet player, his students who rave about him will say that the reason he was so great was because of his ability to keep the students mentally, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually on-track. What this proves is that a big part of the battle is keeping your head in the right place and not getting frustrated. There are bound to be bumps in the road. And let's face it, the trumpet is a deceptive little BITCH who loves you one day and hates you the next. So when you have those moments when you want to say, screw it, this ain't gonna work and smashing the trumpet against the wall, you kinda have to step back and tell yourself that this is what the road to success is like, just take it in stride and maintain your focus. Don't give in to that bitch and eventually, she will have no choice but to respect you.

So, to summarize my recommendations, generally speaking, learning to play with your jaw in a more forward position is very likely going to help you. Think about that Maggio chimpanzee lip position and gripping the airstream, closing in on it with the lips from all sides like a drawstring on a laundry bag with the jaw in a forward position. The flute embouchure feel. Bottom lip puckered and forward as well as the top lip. Mouth line straight across rather than frowning. Avoid the feeling of flattening the bottom lip or rolling it in, keep it pooched/puckered. This is different from some methods, but since those other methods didn't work for you, perhaps this one might.

Best of luck to you and thanks for your chronicle on that 16-wk thing.
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lambchop
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gabriel127 wrote:
...
So, to summarize my recommendations, generally speaking, learning to play with your jaw in a more forward position is very likely going to help you. Think about that Maggio chimpanzee lip position and gripping the airstream, closing in on it with the lips from all sides like a drawstring on a laundry bag with the jaw in a forward position. The flute embouchure feel. Bottom lip puckered and forward as well as the top lip. Mouth line straight across rather than frowning. Avoid the feeling of flattening the bottom lip or rolling it in, keep it pooched/puckered. This is different from some methods, but since those other methods didn't work for you, perhaps this one might.

Best of luck to you and thanks for your chronicle on that 16-wk thing.

Thanks so much for your help! I think this explains a lot of my troubles with various methods. Had too much lip stiffness doing CG, and BE with lip clamped high notes, and KT with the rolled in high notes using an arbitrary embouchure. Skype lessons as you say are not great for embouchure troubles. I did then do one LM lesson on skype and that helped me a lot since it reduced the mouthpiece pressure and introduced the Maggio style lips. I did always get worse on the whisper G with time, probably due to what you said about it. KT was leery of it causing stiffness and cut it down in his course, and also had the pencil thing on a short duration. After a while on my own, I think I never fully got the Maggio style going. Maybe doing high resolution videos like I did is a way that teachers could do things remotely, given how you were able to spot things from one of mine. Thanks again.
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lambchop
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anthony Miller wrote:
I’m a comeback player and have spent the last two years methodically working one method - Bill Knevitt 52-week Crash Course. It’s a solid weekly method that has given me a structure to practise most elements of my playing instead of cherry picking all the other ‘millions’ of methods currently available. I do try and experiment and study other suggestions I see here and other places but keep the Knevitt method as my mainstay. It’s working for me. With respect to you Lambchop it seems to me you’ve tried most other methods, or at least were aware of them, looking for a quick way to high notes. Plenty of suggestions coming at you here seem only to cloud the issue as well intentioned as they are. I have no answers for you as I’m not experienced enough to suggest ways to improve - I only know what works for me and I was lucky enough to find it early on in my comeback. If you have the money though forget the KTs of this world and try someone like John Mohan or someone proven here at TH. Good luck on your playing - and one piece of advice I can give that did me some good - join a community band, play weekly and practise tunes. Best.


Yes, I did get that Knevitt method along with the audio tapes. I don't think I'll dive into it quite yet, since I think I need to address some embouchure issues first. That method is a more organized Claude Gordon like method, but suffers from some of the same assumptions CG methods and others have. Some people can do them and some can't. That one does start off with a high A on the second or third exercise. Maybe I could do it if I got fixed up a bit first. I think I've learned a lot lately and have been able to converge on some ideas for improvement, thanks to gabriel127 and I think RobertP had similar thoughts. I think it is easy to sound pretty good on the lower register without the proper support, that shows up if you try go higher.
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gabriel127
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just some other observations that I want to share:

Whenever I tried a new exercise or routine, I always noticed some patterns. When it came to new ways of forming the embouchure to play, as I said, it felt awkward at first but over time got more comfortable and then started to feel very natural. It would become the way I played without me thinking about it.

Then, when progressing to more rigorous routines, I might notice on a given day, "hey, this is working, I couldn't do this before, it seems easier." And I'd get excited, so I'd really milk it, you know, practice hard, work the **** out of it. And then a day later, all of a sudden it would feel kinda stuffy, swollen, the sound wouldn't speak as well and I'd start to think, well, "that was just a fluke, I knew it seemed too good to be true." And it would feel lousy for the next several days. But after those several days, sometimes a week, I'd have another good day. And this good day was better than the last.

So I began to realize that on the good days, I was working it too hard causing minor swelling, lactic acid, lymphatic buildup, and that's what made things feel and respond like **** for a few days after. So over time, I began to heed Doc Reinhardt's quotable advice when things felt good, which was, "Be polite. Get up from the table while you're still hungry." Over-practicing can lead to forming bad habits, not to mention plenty of frustration.

It's kinda like when you go to the gym, work with a personal trainer and you're doing barbell exercises. They always tell you not to put as much weight on the bar and horse it fast and hard, because this can cause the weights to go off-balance and then you can injure yourself trying to correct, etc. They tell you to do the reps slowly, controlled, and balanced.

The same thing goes for trumpet practice IMO. If you work on keeping your correct form with your embouchure while practicing the exercises instead of trying to push yourself too hard, this yields better results. You want to train the embouchure to get the job done maintaining correct form because this will keep the progress moving forward. You want to train the lips to perform the tasks with as little strain as possible.

So often people get into rehearsals or gigs where they're forced to play what's on the page and play it NOW, they can't tell the band director, "excuse me sir, we have to stop every 30 seconds, I can't play that whole tune all at once because I have to rest as much as I play. All the good teachers say that I'm supposed to do that, so you're just going to have to be patient and stop the band for me every 30 seconds and give me a 30-second rest." So this is where people have no choice but to do what they have to do to get through a rehearsal or gig, but it just increases the urgency to practice with good form in the practice room so that eventually, we can play through rehearsal or gig without losing that good form.

Back to my main point, I became conditioned to start looking for progress on a weekly basis, rather a daily basis or every few days. The lips need time to heal and strengthen, just like with weightlifting.

In Roger Spalding's "37 Weeks to Double High C" he doesn't even want you playing every day, he recommends practicing every other day to let the tissues heal. I don't know if that is necessary if you pace what you're doing properly. There's more to just trumpet playing than muscles and tissues, there's also the neurological/coordination aspect of it, and I think it's good to reinforce and work those aspects of playing on a daily basis. In other words, it's not just muscle strength involved, there's also muscle memory.
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Anthony Miller
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 17, 2019 9:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The ‘high A’ you refer to is a goal. Knevitt says go as high as you comfortably can. When I started the method after coming back my highest note was G on top of the staff. After working it for two years I can reach a D above the staff doing the arpeggio type exercises. I’m blowing Bb above the staff playing with the band. It’s a progressive method not a silver bullet! Good luck.

lambchop wrote:


Yes, I did get that Knevitt method along with the audio tapes. I don't think I'll dive into it quite yet, since I think I need to address some embouchure issues first. That method is a more organized Claude Gordon like method, but suffers from some of the same assumptions CG methods and others have. Some people can do them and some can't. That one does start off with a high A on the second or third exercise. Maybe I could do it if I got fixed up a bit first. I think I've learned a lot lately and have been able to converge on some ideas for improvement, thanks to gabriel127 and I think RobertP had similar thoughts. I think it is easy to sound pretty good on the lower register without the proper support, that shows up if you try go higher.
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mrhappy
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 6:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gabriel127 wrote:
when progressing to more rigorous routines, I might notice on a given day, "hey, this is working, I couldn't do this before, it seems easier." And I'd get excited, so I'd really milk it, you know, practice hard, work the **** out of it. And then a day later, all of a sudden it would feel kinda stuffy, swollen, the sound wouldn't speak as well and I'd start to think, well, "that was just a fluke, I knew it seemed too good to be true." And it would feel lousy for the next several days. But after those several days, sometimes a week, I'd have another good day. And this good day was better than the last.

So I began to realize that on the good days, I was working it too hard causing minor swelling, lactic acid, lymphatic buildup, and that's what made things feel and respond like **** for a few days after. So over time, I began to heed Doc Reinhardt's quotable advice when things felt good, which was, "Be polite. Get up from the table while you're still hungry." Over-practicing can lead to forming bad habits, not to mention plenty of frustration.


This is EXACTLY the rollercoaster that I've been on!! Haha!
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Numerous posts split out. Personal attacks are against the UA. Last warning.
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lambchop
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anthony Miller wrote:
The ‘high A’ you refer to is a goal. Knevitt says go as high as you comfortably can. When I started the method after coming back my highest note was G on top of the staff. After working it for two years I can reach a D above the staff doing the arpeggio type exercises. I’m blowing Bb above the staff playing with the band. It’s a progressive method not a silver bullet! Good luck.

Ok, that makes sense. Sounds doable but challenging. I think I could make that kind of progress. Thanks.
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lambchop - I sent you another PM. Do you not get the notification popups?
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