Blown out cheeks - how to avoid.

[steve0930]

Hello fellow players
Blown out cheeks? -if you feel this is an issue for you / or are interested in the topic - post a reply and I can share how I worked it out (it took me 4 years.) ..but not much point me sharing my experiences if there is no want for this, not an issue for any current TH readers.

cheers and stay safe - Steve in Helsinki.
_________________
My Number 1 supporter
http://langdons.com/images/langdon-image.jpg

[Satchel]

You mean “Glassblower's Disease,” like Dizzy Gillespie? Do you mean how to avoid developing it, or how to correct it once you've already developed it?

[steve0930]

Hi..how to avoid..so playing without air puffing out the cheeks..for me the problem used to kick in more at end of the day when tired..
Steve
_________________
My Number 1 supporter
http://langdons.com/images/langdon-image.jpg

[Satchel]

Out of curiosity, I'd be interested in reading about it, but according to my teacher, the best way to just... never puff the cheeks when playing. She says it's bad form.

[Seymor B Fudd]

[omelet]

Which cheeks are you talking about? The sides (like Gillespie) or the top/bottom lips?

[steve0930]

Hi Guys
Sorry I'm not being very clear. So my problem since day 1 on the trumpet was that I never felt I had the right technique to be blowing air right into the horn. When tired in the evening this problem, almost invariably, got worse and my cheeks would be swelling out.(not top or bottom lip area as you asked Omelet) Sometimes a lot. I struggled how to sort this - internet did not help much "play in front of a mirror and keep your cheeks flat" or "tighten the corners" did not help at all. (Indeed I found quite irritating) If I'm honest i also think it was a vanity project - I just didn't feel cool playing cos I didn't feel I looked cool - this this affected my confidence playing in front of people. But most of all what irked me was the feeling that my "face set up" was not efficient.

Seymor - I don't think this is at odds with Balanced Embouchure (BE) which as you points out has nothing against or even favours air pockets - indeed BE was part of the solution for me. I guess if you have air pockets as a result of BE then they are always there .. my cheek problem would steadily get worse during the day.

Of course if someone says "Steve I have this problem.. when I play I feel the air in my cheeks more than I want /happy with /" then I can point out what i did to solve the issue but maybe I am in a club of 1 with this problem! Judging from the replies in already I think maybe I am... or was..

cheers for now Steve
_________________
My Number 1 supporter
http://langdons.com/images/langdon-image.jpg

[Billy B]

Without seeing/hearing you it is impossible to be very specific about fixing this.

In general the problem is too much tension in the center and lack of engagement of the buccinator muscles.

Four years is way too long to solve this relatively simple problem
_________________
Bill Bergren

[JayKosta]

[steve0930]

Hi again

I worry that what I write here will be that naive and simple I could be ridiculed I but if helps one start up player like myself I can take it. (cos you're right Bill 4 years is far too long!)

The Problem
I think the player is the best expert on his or her Embouchure so my ideas here are not meant to be any sort of "general solution" - but there are of course general principles for efficient embouchure. I recognized one four years ago (when I first started the trumpet ) - a Pops diagram showing a heat chart - making the point that the best players have the yellow and red heat colors (representing heat arising from tension) below the nose, in a circle around the mouth and the jaw whereas the amateurs displayed heat in their cheeks.

I was stuck in the amateur camp and could not get out. It bothered me most in the evenings when I could feel my cheeks tiring and swelling - when this happened I sometimes would even play the trumpet without the mouthpiece at all (please do not try this!) just to get the sensation of putting air directly into the horn and not into my balloon of a mouth - desperate or what?

My cunning plan (hah!hah!)
I had from the start decided that I would favour an "open" embouchure approach. One player I met who had great sound said his secret was "as open lips as possible within the mp" there was plenty of internet support for "open approach" - so I then bought a large open mouth piece (a Wedge 680MV) At one point I tried to buy an even bigger mp and Dr Dave refused to sell it to me ("any larger puts you in a minority 1% of players who play on this size he told me.)

================================================
The Solution

1. Closing the Embouchure - 1 year ago
I started Jeff Smiley's Balanced Embouchure (BE) and within 2 or 3 weeks my Embouchure was closing up without any conscious decision on my part. I was delighted with my progress. I was now playing top of the staff with ease and a lot more often - the balloon cheeks was now more in control BUT still there - especially in the evenings.

2 Moved from downstream to upstream - 3 months ago
This was a very small change in my set up / nothing dramatic / slight flexing of the lower lip but I was now blowing air on to tip of nose and not jaw. The evening balloon cheeks were now only 40% of the balloon size. I felt I was on the way. My latest (last?) Wedge Mp Top arrived (in 3 years I went 680 - 665 - 650 - 640)

3 The Face Set Up - 1 month ago
I started to think a lot more about the face. I remembered one of Charlie Porter's "forming embouchure" You tube videos. I fixed up a zoom lesson. Charlie was great - I didn't manage in the lesson to work out my set up but I said to my Number 1 supporter "something good will come from this" I carried on experimenting.
I then went for
1) engage the wrinkling nose muscle (you know when you are using it cos it lifts your top lip and displays your top teeth)
2) and then mp to face (Charlie in his instruction does it in reverse order)

4 years ago one google answer I found for "stopping cheeks blowing out" was "imagine drinking bitter lemon juice" this now made more sense.

(Quick BE point - Seymour not quite sure how it has happened but this new set up has been terrific for my TOL ability.)

===============================================
Time to be a Crusader
So there you have it. If someone ever asked me (unlikely) the secret of my embouchure I would reply "it's like those old Crusader helmets with the metal strip coming down over the nose.. that's the area where my face is holding everything together"

And riding in to battle of an evening feeling like a Crusader is clearly for me a lot more preferable than my old Mr Balloon Man outfit.

cheers and stay safe Steve in Helsinki.

PS. Drinking tea in bed this morning I said to Ljuba "Jay thinks i should elaborate what do you think?" to which Ljuba said "Jay's right - why hide behind a bush"
_________________
My Number 1 supporter
http://langdons.com/images/langdon-image.jpg

[delano]

Though blown out cheeks seems to be a little contra-intuitive looking for a good embouchure I can still imagine that it can be for maybe only a very few people a possible method for free blowing, in other words to get rid of blockings in the airstream. Blown out cheeks is then used as a way to relax and free the throat.
This is only an idea of me but I sometimes use it when I have problems to stay relaxed there.
Dizzy could play very high notes with it so it must be possible to play that way.
Another example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ_BjtbP_Lk&ab_channel=JFNYBB

(go to 1.01)

[chapahi]

Cat Anderson's whisper G method got me off puffy cheeks.
_________________
Sima, Kanstul 1525 Flugel and Kanstul pocket trumpet. Olds Super

[steve0930]

Hi Chap-a-Hi

Thanks for your input - I had not heard of the Cat Anderson whisper G approach so I checked it out - and felt a difference - not so much in the cheeks but in the whistle set up feel it seemed to impart.

I used the indirect approach - so did not change anything on my embouchure set up but playing straight after * a 20 minute whisper G practice C s above the staff never coming out easier and the shape / effort felt the same as a G on top of the staff.

Jolly nice when The Pro's come in to help run of the mill self-taught Beginners like myself!

Stay safe - Steve in Helsinki

*
If I ever wrote a book on learning (unlikely given my background is History so i know nothing about neurons in the brain) I would call it "The last 5 seconds" cos I think the brain (at least mine) has this amazing ability to take what it just did as its starting frame of reference - it has an inbuilt "clear history / reset" button. Eg if I play on an old tuba I have for 45 secoinds then revert to normal trumpet mp it will seem ridiculously small and "foreign" even if I have just played on it on and off for 2 hours.
_________________
My Number 1 supporter
http://langdons.com/images/langdon-image.jpg