Walk in

[jicetp]

Hi

Just read this thread and this post struck me :

BStrad43 wrote:

I learned from all the guys out here in LA who studied with Stamp that free buzzing is actually an octave lower then what you would play on the regular horn. Buzz the mouthpiece by sustaining one pitch (G in the staff) and then pull it off and you should be buzzing an octave lower. If free buzz pitch is higher then the octave lower G, you are using too much tension to play it. The goal is to be relaxed. Try free buzzing the lower G and then put on the mouthpiece to see if what happens.

For years, I thought it was at pitch and thus like a lot of you, built up a lot of tension. But now that I do it an octave lower, it is actually quite beneficial. I only do the free buzzing for about few minutes and it really loosens things up. That is it and off to a few minutes of mouthpiece buzzing and I am ready for anything.

Remember, everything is down an octave for free buzzing.


Doesn't this contradict the Walk In exercise ?

All the best

JiCe

[BeboppinFool]

[jicetp]

Thanks Rich for your post.
My questioning is that as a IIIb and having read multiple posts about the Walk In exercise, I diligently try and apply these concepts to my playing.

As an eternal curious, I even designed some variation of it, to see what would happen :

As a proud owner of your Focal Point book ( as well as all the others ), I have my week planned with 3 different Focal Points :
middle C / middle E / G top of the staff
I try to walk in with these 3 pitches to see where it will lead me.

So my ' concern ' when reading the mentioned article was :
am I aiming too high/tight - whatever....?

Thus my posting here to see what others think about it.

I know there are different point of views for everything ( even trumpet related topics ) , like this one :
embouchure set up

some like it relaxed all the way
some like it as relaxed as possible
some like it firm
some like it ' tight '

I know semantics dont always carry the actual doing of the thing ( objectivity/personal sensations/different languages specifics as in my case ( being French ))

I LOVE to experiment and see for myself whats working or not for me, but I have this tendency to not settle on one way of doing it......

I think my playing as improved over the years, but I still will be curious to experiment with others views, pedagogies.....

If anyone has some input to share with this related buzzing/walk in exercise, I'd be more than happy to read it

All the best

JiCe

[Doug Elliott]

As a trombonist, buzzing a middle Bb and walking in makes a lot of sense, and Doc's lower limit of buzzing F in the staff also makes sense.

In my conversations with him about buzzing for trumpet, it was a lot less clear which octave he meant. In my own teaching I find it useful for trumpet players to buzz into low C, same note I would buzz into as a middle Bb, which is a very easy note for most people to buzz regardless of instrument. And I do teach walking into the same pitch, not switching octaves. On tuba you wouldn't jump down an octave.... Although it can be done and might have an application.

There was actually a similarly related situation, where Doc would have you buzz into phrases of an etude. If the starting note of a phrase was beyond your buzzing range, either above or below, he would have you buzz a note within your buzzing range and then change notes on the walk-in. That was just so you could do it, not to change notes or octaves as a rule.

And as for terminology -
I say "freebuzzing" because to most players "buzzing" seems to mean mouthpiece buzzing.
And I say "buzzing in" because to most players "walking in" doesn't mean anything.