A Nice Sound

[tptguy]

Author
Nicholas Dyson
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 28, 2001
Posts: 913
From: Seattle, Washington
Posted: 2002-07-03 19:53
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Alright, I received my copy of the book and video and have been through both. The information in the book intrigued me, and the video worried me.

My concern lies with the fact that the tone quality of everyone on the video was not only very bright, but very loud. They were all fine players, and the things Jerry is saying make sense to me, however, I play a lot with a jazz 4tet, and like to use a more diffused, quiet sound that blends better with the guys I'm playing with. I love Chris Botti's sound, and often times have that in my mind's ear as a goal.

So, with all the stuff in the book about a quality trumpet sound having that innate brightness and brilliance, if I make the switch should I plan on not having that sound?

Sweatin bullets in Seattle...
_________________
Nicholas Dyson
Seattle, Washington

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tom turner
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: 1629
From: Georgia, USA
Posted: 2002-07-03 21:02
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Hi Nick,

I too love Chris Botti's gorgeous mellow sound!

The "closed embouchere" systems are not some freaky thing that one does to hit high notes. You can be mellow-bright-anything you want with a closed embouchere.

I approach my trumpet, cornet and fluglehorn playing as totally different "sounds." I want a brilliant, big, fat powerful trumpet sound many times. I want my flugle sound really dark and mellow. The cornet is gentle, delicate, buttery and warm. I use SC on all horns.

E-mail me if you want and I'll send you some stuff on CD to show you.

Sincerely,

Tom Turner

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tptguy
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: 556
From: Philadelphia, Pa
Posted: 2002-07-04 20:53
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<<<My concern lies with the fact that the tone quality of everyone on the video was not only very bright, but very loud. >>>

Playing softly hides many, many embouchure errors as does playing all day in the low and middle registers exclusively. Jerry has his students practice with volume as well as brilliance, center, and focus in order to develop most correctly. Once you develop well you can use your new embouchure to play whatever you like at whatever volume and color you prefer. But, you should be forewarned that once you have developed your ears in this manner there will be many renowned trumpeters that you will no longer be able to listen to comfortably because you will recognize by the sound so many of the errors you've now overcome. So yes, like many things of value, it's a pinch of a double edged sword. Don't worry, you can always go back the other way. But, I've never met anyone that wanted to. Best regards, Kyle

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Perry dAndrea
Veteran Member

Joined: Jan 30, 2002
Posts: 134
From: San Francisco (formerly Athens, GA)
Posted: 2002-07-10 04:09
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Nick,

Did you see Doc Severinsen In Portland last month? Wow. Paint peeling off the back of the venue AS WELL AS warm, beautiful ballads with soothing roundness.

Anyway. I am one of the true stumblers with this method who finally found his way to the track, as I put it, and I realize that SC is not some trick system that you "switch" to.

It is the basis of the only way to play with strength. No matter what system you use, if you aren't giving the lips the responsibility for achieving compression on their own, then true strength aint gonna happen.

The sooner the smoke and mirrors are swept away from the discussions surrounding SuperChops, the better- this system, analyzed and presented by Jerry Callet is, in a general sense, GOOD, SOLID HORSE SENSE. The main basic principles are absolutely *essential* to playing trumpet with strength and control. The idea that the lips "wean" themselves from outside forces (such as arm pressure, overbite lip overcompensations, pivoting, etc) and stand on their own, through muscular strength to achieve the necessary compression against the airstream is the basis for the SC method, and, in the bigger picture, these basics are absolutely essential to range, strength, and endurance, no matter what "school" or "method" of playing you come from or go to.

Without the lips taking charge of that compression, you remain a slave to short endurance, lack of control, and a plethora of inconsitencies in your playing. Even if everything else is good (airstream, etc), SOME form of what we know as the SC system has to be goin on..

But then, so many perks come along with that new strength. One is the ability to *feel* where that vibration is happening, along with the ability to use these newly trained muscles of the emboucher to fine-tune what kind of sound comes out. Sorta like the way a highly trained National League hitter can either bunt, pop up, or blast a line drive down the pitcher's throat, all based on minute, but very real manipulations of the bat against a well-thrown, straight, fastball.

My tone was big before getting down in the trenches with SC. BIG. I also saw that video and made the very same observation, everything sounded so thin and bright- but, doing a lot of recording in my home studio, I also couldn't escape the feeling that this video was not exactly what I would call well "miked", and there was probably much more fullness in those tones than the camcorder mic picked up.

Anyway, even though I thought I was headed in the right direction for months, the true realization that I GOT IT didn't happen until less than a month ago when FINALLY my lips were able to "stand on their own" (instead of mouthpiece pressure, etc) to make a solid tone.

It didn't hurt that I'd been doing LOTS of isometric strengthening exercises lately, specifically, clamping my lips together with the teeth apart and no air pressure, which was really hard for me to do at first without simply just pushing my lips into my teeth. But then, that very "exercise" started creeping into my playing- my focus was to use the flexed, roll/tuck potential of the upper lip to vigilantly keep that lower lip DIRECTLY under it, butted into it head-on, emphasizing that the vibration itself will happen where the inner, softer part of the lip is. That soft area provides 1) a GREAT SEAL against the airstream, yet 2) the remarkable ability to still vibrate under the super intense compression required to play in the upper register. The first thing I noticed, though, was the ability to seal off the airstream with this lip-against-lip-head-on configuration.

First it felt really stuffy all of a sudden, whereas before the mouthpiece felt too big and freely blowing. This is when my neck really started to swell up, without trying at all. That "stuffiness", I discovered was the newly found power of efficient lip compression. Yeah. And putting my attention on the soft inner parts of the lips that was being held shut by my new, strong lip muscles, it was easy for me to ease up on the compression for that note, bringing it to life- and I'm here to tell you: once I gained a measure of control over this compression, the tone I can produce now is humongous. Bigger than ever before.

And when opened up in the loudness department, it has more overtones than I ever imagined before.

But here's the kicker, in your department. When I started gaining the facility to play at mellow volumes, paying close attention to the vibrating area of the lips and making sure those lips are directly in line with each other, one directly above the other with the vibrating area having the ROOM to vibrate without the pesky mouthpiece pressure, I can get that big, round, edge-less buttery tone that I always wanted at some times, but could never do before.

The REASON I never could achieve it before was because I formerly used MASSIVE mouthpiece pressure for soft passages- mashing all that ham flat will give you a tone as thin as baloney when you're playing softly.

And as FOR playing softly, with all due respect to Kyle who makes a good point, the other side of the same coin is that I have found that playing softly EXPOSES some of your weaknesses, and that gaining the ability to play softly as well as loudly comes ONLY from strength. Again, this is true IF what we're talking about is playing softly with a full sound, not a thin or pinched sound.

It's always easier to just rare back and blast. We have a whole bunch of open jazz mics around town, and invariably you see so many trumpet players come in there and it's full throttle on the volume, all the way. And not very musical.

Hey, sometimes I give 'em enough juice to make even the loudest of 'em dive for cover, but not nonstop, for cryin out loud. It takes a lot of dynamic variety to really communicate musically, and it takes a LOT of strength to hold down an upper (not screamer) register note with a full sound at a whisper. And if all you do is practice loud, then that full, fat whisper aint gonna be there. That extra strength has to be cultivated.

I see this happening in my SC development. It's like an assembly line.

For a given note that represents the very top of my range at that time, first I'm able to hit it with a lot of volume. Then later I'm able to give it some control as I get stronger. As I get EVEN stronger, I'm able to hit that note softly with a fair amount of mouthpiece pressure. Then as I get even stronger yet, I can play that note softly without much mouthpiece pressure. THAT aint easy, pardner.

Meanwhile, at the same EXACT level of strength obtained where I can play that note softly with little pressure, I can now *blast* out a note several steps higher, but only at forte or louder. It takes a lot of strength and balance (there's that word again) to play softly in the mid to upper registers without significant mouthpiece pressure.

But with SC- which again is NOT a "trick" method but rather a discovery that Mr. Callet made that revealed to him how the truly robust players have been doing it all along- you absolutely CAN achieve that big round sound, because with all that new strength comes the control to easily manipulate your tone, not to mention the fact that lips given a little break from mouthpiece cramming now have the room to vibrate more fully. The tone just fills up the room more.

Go for it. Hell, you don't have to pledge allegience to it at the exclusion of other good advice. It's really been listening to all sides that helped me simplify the SC method as a NO-nonsense launch pad to strength in playing.

pd


_________________
"Don't forget- P R A C T I C E ." -Doc Severinsen

http://perrydandrea.com/doc.wav

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William Bentley
Regular Member

Joined: Jan 16, 2002
Posts: 42
From: Nashville Tenn
Posted: 2002-07-10 15:50
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Perry
Sounds like you have had some more revelations over the past months. I like your comment that SC has opened a door to you for an even rounder bigger sound!
I had a similar story like you. I had convinced myself that SC could not make a big sound with the small mouthpieces the SC guys kept taliking about. When I saw Lee Adams the first time he warmed up for about 20 seconds before my lesson. I could of been fooled that he was an orchestral player because his sound was so fat. He was using a tiny Callet Varicup .590 diameter mouthpiece. I could barely make a sound on it much less play a full sound on it back then. I was dependednt on my Bach 1 1/2 C and other monster mouthpieces 1X and so forth. After understanding that the lips needed to compress against the air going through them my control started improving. YES YES YES! I soon made my first mouthpiece downsize to a Bach 3C my trumpet peers thought i was a looney tune talking about DOWN SIZING.
I caught a bunch of flack for working on superchops all of my buddies told me it was nonsense and just for high notes. Sheesh what a lie they telling me im glad i didn't listen to them.
Congrats Perry you have a good description of chop function. I notice you mentioned balance. I have investigated Jeff Smiley balanced embouchure it looks good too. Lee suggested it as a good thing to look over and spoke highly of Jeff Smiley.

Regards
WB

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tom turner
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: 1629
From: Georgia, USA
Posted: 2002-07-10 21:44
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Hi Perry,

Congratulations for having guts . . . and for perservering! Now that you've made the big breakthrough NO ONE can take it away from you or hold you back!

I too am a tone player. Gosh, I guess all us guys who can't (or once couldn't) play the high stuff convinced ourselves that upper register playing wasn't that big a deal. Now, we are STILL tone players . . . who can also play the high stuff and do it all night. THANKS SUPERCHOPS!

No . . . high notes AREN'T the reason to switch to Superchops. I can think of plenty of other more important ones. Things like:

Greater endurance (several TIMES greater)
More CONSISTENT great tone (not just when others are "fresh.")
Better flexibility
Less damage to the chops (we don't want to end up like one of my idols, Freddie Hubbard).
Control and good tone at ALL volume levels (even very low).

Perry, your post was so complete and hit all the benefits and revelations! Congratulations again on your breakthough. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!

Warmest regards,

Tom

PS: Yeah, you were also right about the sound quality on the SC videos. To make a long story short, this is an electronic recording problem (low quality, lo-fi audio that's from a cheap, on-camera mic that is distorting the sound at times), NOT a performer problem.

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Perry dAndrea
Veteran Member

Joined: Jan 30, 2002
Posts: 134
From: San Francisco (formerly Athens, GA)
Posted: 2002-07-12 19:09
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Tom,
Turns out the best IS yet tome. The lips, to have the strength to stay compressed, apparently employ the support of all kinds of facial muscles above and below the lips- watching other top players will confirm this.

This update also gives a nod to JC's further teaching about tongue position, in Trumpet Secrets. This new info about the tongue's important function in all this has helped tremendously.

So, in a sense, though the lips must be able to hold compression, they don't do it "all on their own."

PD

"Don't forget- P R A C T I C E ." -Doc Severinsen



[ This Message was edited by: Perry D'Andrea on 2003-05-19 17:13 ]

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Nicholas Dyson
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 28, 2001
Posts: 913
From: Seattle, Washington
Posted: 2002-07-12 19:49
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First of all, thank you to all who have responded, you've set my mind at ease. I was thinking the quality of sound on the recording was what the problem was. Plus the fact that the video is probably a copy of a copy of a copy....

2nd of all, thank you especially to Perry for his great posts, and fabulous writing... if you ever break down and start writing poetry, I've got a whole catalog of tunes I would love to set your lyrics to!!!
_________________
Nicholas Dyson
Seattle, Washington

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PhilPicc
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Jan 16, 2002
Posts: 1219
From: Clarkston, Mi. USA
Posted: 2002-07-14 10:38
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Does everyone go through a stage where nothing but air comes out the end of the horn?

I have always played with what I consider a closed embouchre with my theeth apart. I got started on this when I read a post about tonguing against your upper lip, and how you could tongue much faster this way. I had slowly allowed my tongue to move quite high on my pallet. Sure enough when I moved it to between my teeth my speed greatly increased.

Now to my problem and I know Perry that you addressed it in you great post. I am having a stuffiness problem and sometimes I get no note. You mentioned about backing off on the compression. Are you speaking of the lip compression or mouth piece pressure or both? I should further state that this does not occur all the time, but probabley more often than not.

I have been at this for about 4 months. Short time away for spring concerts. I'm a believer in the system and have seen glimpses of what it can accomplish. I am just wondering if my problems are just part of the normal progression process.

Thanks,
Phil

_________________
Philip Satterthwaite

[ This Message was edited by: PhilPicc on 2002-07-14 10:41 ]

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tom turner
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 12, 2001
Posts: 1629
From: Georgia, USA
Posted: 2002-07-14 16:04
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Quote:
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On 2002-07-14 10:38, PhilPicc wrote:
Does everyone go through a stage where nothing but air comes out the end of the horn? . . .

. . . I am just wondering if my problems are just part of the normal progression process.

Thanks,
Phil

_________________
Philip Satterthwaite



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Hi Phil,

Oh yes! Of course! The first night I couldn't get a sound to even come out of the horn for about two hours STRAIGHT! Then, for a while that night I could make the nastiest little sound around tuning C and that was about it. I felt like my head would explode and that I would pass out too!

The second night was better . . . after about twenty minutes I finally scratched out the puny sound that took a couple of hours the night before

THE PROBLEM . . .
The reason most scoffers fail at SC is that they try it for a few minutes and expect "Maynard" to show up . . . and when he doesn't, their ego "tells" them to go back and "accept" a modification so they can quickly return to their tone of the past.

Learning SC after "smilin'/puckerin' for years is like trying to quit smoking . . . it is so tempting to allow yourself to go back to how it "used to be." However, you must COLD TURKEY to get best results!

Because Lee Adams had personally shown me the BETTER WAY (SC), I decided to not yield to my "inner voice," but to perservere no matter what until I triumpthed with SC. My progress, according to Lee, was NOT normal . . . for within a couple of weeks I had it down . . . but what a TERRIBLE first week!!!!!!!

Hang in there . . . DON'T CHEAT . . . and you'll reap the rewards!

Sincerely,

Tom Turner

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PhilPicc
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Jan 16, 2002
Posts: 1219
From: Clarkston, Mi. USA
Posted: 2002-07-14 16:35
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Hi Tom, thanks for the reply.

Since May 19th which was my last concert I have stuck with it. Like I said I believe in the system and know I am going to be an even better player down the road. It is a little strange when you have played at a reasonably high level to go on stop. I expected a backward slide, and since I am not performing over the summer it is not that big of a concern. I am working on building this system from the ground up by building a good base to work from.

It is however nice to have the progressive patterns confirmed by players who have gone through the process and play successfuly with the SC system.

Thanks again,
Phil
_________________
Philip Satterthwaite

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Nicholas Dyson
Heavyweight Member

Joined: Nov 28, 2001
Posts: 913
From: Seattle, Washington
Posted: 2002-08-02 17:03
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Hey there,
wanted to post this in here, because it's certainly not worth starting a whole new thread for....

Anyway, I'm still liking what the SC stuff is all about, but I really can't afford to take the time off playing to dedicate the time (whether it's 4 weeks or 4 months) to solely doing SC.

I have, however, been consciously focused on using less pressure and keeping my corners loose. I find that in performance this works great, until I start getting tired, then it's back to the Armstrong method. The good thing is, the more I keep the pressure thing in the front of my mind, the better my endurance is and the less I find using the Armstrong. I have even gone so far as to use the 'octave key' in the opposite direction. I have been putting my pinky on the valve side of the ring, and pushing out in an effort to keep the pressure off and help myself get used to it. I've noticed a little shake in my sound, and have been able to control it A LITTLE BIT by bunching even more and consciously pushing my chops to meet the horn, rather than pulling the horn to meet my chops. Still, with the no pressure deal, my comfortable useable range is about a high D. I'm comfortable (as one can be) up to an A above that with the pressure.

Wow, okay, all that being said... does anyone have any thoughts, or exercises that I can use or incorporate to make this switch to SC easier while remaining in the trenches and playing on a regular basis?

_________________
Nicholas Dyson
Seattle, Washington