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INTJ
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Joined: 25 Dec 2002
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I think it behooves us to read and try as many techniques as possible until something clicks because the above is true. As with almost anything in trumpet, it is a lot of individual discovery. What clicks for one person to get over any given hurdle may not click for another. When something clicks, you then understand what all your teachers and all you have read actually meant during whatever struggle you are having.


I agree 100% and have seen this play out in MANY different endeavors.
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INTJ
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 7:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the reason we have players describing almost the opposite way to achieve the upper range is because players tend to consider the method they themselves used as being “THE” solution. The way John Mohan fixed the same issue the OP is describing is by focusing mainly more on air. The way that I fixed my range issues was by focusing mainly on tongue arch and reducing tension.

For me personally, after years of trying more air pressure and getting nowhere, I figured out what a high tongue arch felt like and it was different that’s what I expected.

The bottom line is that we must apply all these things in the right balance to be successful.
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Stradbrother
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 9:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been dealing with the same issue. My ceiling is an E

In undergrad I was the lead trumpet player in our top jazz band. I was able to overcome my lack of range with style.

I'm in my mid twenties as a professional player and I've always had to make up my lack of range with style and hard work on other aspects of the horn.

This past year I was turned down for a professional ska gig. Everything about my playing was fine, but I just couldn't play at the top end of my range at FF for as long they needed me to.

In college I focused entirely on tongue arch, which helped my low and middle range substantially, but no matter how much I correctly play the horn, all I get is a 'whistle' sound after high E. Buzzing stops. My lips just wont vibrate that high.

Worked on that Faddis method of playing arpeggios at an extremely soft dynamic, which did work and helped me substantially in "hearing the notes" up there before I play them, but even while I'm super soft, relaxed, calm, and hearing that high F, my lips stop at E. just a whistle sound.

Extremely frustrating, but still working. Gotta get up there.
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bike&ed
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 11:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Joe & Stradbrother: If you are the accomplished artists that you seem to be (particularly Joe, as I know you’ve been a fixture of the northern Louisiana music scene for decades), I would caution you about letting these frustrations about range affect you too much. Comparing professional classical performing to high-level lead playing is basically like comparing ballet to gymnastics, and somehow expecting to perform equally well at both, without one affecting the other detrimentally. Certainly there are a tiny percentage of people who can do both well, but the skill sets are quite different, and most people can only excel at one, despite the bodily physiology being very similar for both arts.

2 examples, and there are many, many, many more:
-Armando Ghitalla discovered a loud DHC while teaching at Rice University (in his 70s), but he was long retired. Ghitalla spent his symphonic career with a high E/F range, and yet he far exceeded the vast majority of players with higher ranges than him.
-Can you imagine Sergei Nakariakov getting frustrated about his high E/F# range? He is the most accomplished classical trumpet soloist in generations, heck he may be most accurate and fluid player to ever pick up our instrument, and yet range seems to be the furthest thing from his concerns. Watching his ‘No More Wunderkind’ biographical film was very enlightening to understanding his philosophy.
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trumpetchops
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 5:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Update:

The advice below is what helped the most. I bought the 2 books mentioned below. The Irons book was nothing I didn't already have in other books. Good stuff but if you've been playing a while, you probably already have it.

The Claude Gordon book should be required for every player when they get Arban. There should be a law that you have to get both. Really, just reading the notes in the beginning are worth the price of the book.

I believe I'm on the road to fixing the problem. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't using enough pucker. The first lesson got me to warm up with the corners going forward.

Here is the next problem:

The other night at band practice, the lead player wasn't there. We played a feature piece that went up above high C and stayed up there for a while. I was able to hit the notes easily, even the F's. When I was done, the part of my lips that went in the mouthpiece were extremely tight. When I played the next tune the sound was a little airy. This went away after a few tunes and I was OK but, If I were playing another tune way up there I would have been done. I wasn't tired otherwise. I'm thinking the mouthpiece might be too big. Maybe too much lip in there? Just a guess.


John Mohan wrote:
Hi Joe,

Almost every player experiences the same thing you do near the top of their range - a good, full power note and then the notes above it, if they can be played at all, have nearly no power and are very, very inconsistent. And then if they can be played at all, it is usually when the player is absolutely fresh and not fatigued at all. There's a reason for this and it is a simple one. When you play that full-power E you are blowing as hard as you can (creating the most air pressure you are capable of creating). If you can't create more air pressure, you can't play higher. It is that simple. Well, not quite. The coordination of the tongue level (up and forward tongue arch) is required, too as is decent embouchure mechanics. But in my experience, anyone that can play notes above High C with consistency and good sound has the tongue level and embouchure parts of the equation mastered (it's the play who cracks an attempted High C and gets the Bb below it instead that isn't arching his or her tongue correctly for the high notes).

Do the Claude Gordon Systematic Approach exercises (even just stay on Lesson Two Parts One and Two) for six months *every day religiously, along with 15 to 20 minutes of Irons each day and a Clarke Study each day, and I'll be very, very, very surprised if you are not nailing F's, and maybe F#s and G's with ease.

Best wishes,

John

* If you miss a day each week of practicing the SA exercises, it won't hurt (and might even be good to have a day of rest), if you miss two days a week that are not in a row they'll probably still work, if you miss three days a week or two days in a row they might work, but if you miss more than that each week it becomes a one-step-forward-and-one-step-back situation.

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