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How can I stop blurps?


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GeorgeB
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 9:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anytime I crack a note it is usually because I've gotten careless with my breathing, either before or while I am playing.
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JayKosta
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another item might be the physical condition of your lips, specifically flexibility, and how accurately you can feel the slight adjustments that are needed for different notes
Problems can occur from lack of hydration, chapping, general physical fatigue, etc. Seasonal changes in weather might also be involved. Diet, etc.

All of the items mentioned in earlier posts are very important.
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Billy B
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 10:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You need to focus on your air speed, tongue arch, and aperture control. These are all exacerbated by a general lack of a sense of humor.
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TrumpetMD
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

JayKosta wrote:
Another item might be the physical condition of your lips ....

Lots of helpful information in this thread. But for me, Jay hit the nail on the head. For me, chipped notes, poor attacks, etc. are driven by the condition of my chops. These missed notes may be a sign that you are abusing your chops. Stop abusing your chops, set up a playing schedule where your chops always feel fresh and relaxed, and these issues may fade away.

But technique is also important (as discussed in other replies), and may be a contributing factor. The book "Special Studies for Trumpet" by John Daniel has helped me a lot with my attacks. If you google him, you'll find a lot of YouTube videos demonstrating concepts in the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Special-Studies-Trumpet-Daniel-Music/dp/B008I3MPEK

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Vin DiBona
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While it is more likely that some embouchure issue already mentioned is causing the problem, there also is the possibility that your mouthpiece is perhaps too small in diameter or too shallow.
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Don Herman rev2
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 2:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Blurp" to me is a sort of "burp" for which antacids are the usual suggestion. It would have been my first response.

Missed notes can be related to (among other things) in no particular order:

1. Tense, tired, or over-pressed chops;

2. Embouchure, mind, etc. not "set" to play (esp. if an opening clam);

3. Lack of mental focus (hear the note before/as you play it);

4. Inadequate airflow (especially when tonguing -- the tongue should be flicking through the air like a finger flicking through water, not turning the faucet -- air -- on and off); or,

5. Something else.

If the problem is missing opening notes, you can practice getting the sound in your mind (pitch, timbre, volume, etc.) and picking up you horn and playing from a "cold" start. After usual warm-up and such, get the sound in mind, put you horn up and play it, then take the horn away for a bit, repeat. Most of my physical problems when playing are due to a lack of mental focus.

HTH - Don
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snichols
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 3:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don Herman rev2 wrote:
"Blurp" to me is a sort of "burp" for which antacids are the usual suggestion. It would have been my first response.

Missed notes can be related to (among other things) in no particular order:

1. Tense, tired, or over-pressed chops;

2. Embouchure, mind, etc. not "set" to play (esp. if an opening clam);

3. Lack of mental focus (hear the note before/as you play it);

4. Inadequate airflow (especially when tonguing -- the tongue should be flicking through the air like a finger flicking through water, not turning the faucet -- air -- on and off); or,

5. Something else.

If the problem is missing opening notes, you can practice getting the sound in your mind (pitch, timbre, volume, etc.) and picking up you horn and playing from a "cold" start. After usual warm-up and such, get the sound in mind, put you horn up and play it, then take the horn away for a bit, repeat. Most of my physical problems when playing are due to a lack of mental focus.

HTH - Don


I would tend to agree with pretty much all of this. Not having embouchure set properly, too much pressure, not hearing the note, and relying too much on the tongue instead of the air to start the sound/note could all be contributing factors. One thing that will help the embouchure setting and starting with the air would be to try playing with air attacks, or “ha” attacks for a bit, where it forces you to get your chips together and start the sound with supported air. If you feel like the air is “compressing” behind your tongue and then “explodes” to start the note, I have found that leads to more chips/clams.
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enviroman22
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GeorgeB wrote:
Anytime I crack a note it is usually because I've gotten careless with my breathing, either before or while I am playing.


I'm finding it comes out of nowhere when least expected. That's why I'm so frustrated. I can "slide" up to notes no problem but hitting a clean note in a run or on it's own is somewhat sporatic. I am Classically trained and "sliding" is not really part of a Symphony's repetoir so I feel like I'm cheating. But up on stage it sounds fine.

The delivery of my breath is in need of work I believe judging from the above information. And knowing what note my head says and be able to hit it on the fly I'll practice.

I have thin lips with no issues to speak of. Probably just need more practice time and development of breath control I gather. Both Doc Severinson and Rafael Mendez preach you need to take a lot bigger breath than you would think. I practice two sessions of 45 minutes a day when getting ready to play out. But I think I have to do that every day to be accurate probably. I think from the above I need to work less tongue (cheating) breath attack, and make sure I "sing" in my head to KNOW exactly which note I am trying to hit and to DEMAND accuracy. I will practice the Arban's book more because I know you have to go slow until your muscle memory learns the notes then I can go more rapidly with much more ease. I think that's the ticket. A daily regimen instead of my willy-nilly method of practice currently. You guys nailed it.
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HERMOKIWI
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are correct that demanding accuracy is a big part of the process. When you practice and you crack notes you need to repeat what you're trying to play over and over until it comes out perfectly and then you have to continue to play it perfectly over and over to build the necessary muscle memory, focus, concentration, etc.
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enviroman22
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 4:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.facebook.com/driscoll.james.1/videos/1703461633264183
(ran out of gas)

https://youtu.be/oVwnNAu16Vk
Wasn't practiced up when friend asked me to play last week. But this is what I'm talking about.

See why I'm frustrated? I'm even embarassed to put this up on a real trumpet-player's site. So ridicule was not what I needed. I needed help which in the end I got in Spades! Thank you again!

I'm gonna start doing that blowing rather than tonguing. That'll fix 'em!
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1974 & 1981 Schilke MII Bb


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Richard III
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 5:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

enviroman22 wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/driscoll.james.1/videos/1703461633264183
(ran out of gas)

https://youtu.be/oVwnNAu16Vk
Wasn't practiced up when friend asked me to play last week. But this is what I'm talking about.

See why I'm frustrated? I'm even embarassed to put this up on a real trumpet-player's site. So ridicule was not what I needed. I needed help which in the end I got in Spades! Thank you again!


You play better than 90% of the people here. Don't worry. One of the issues is playing consistently under the pitch. Another is squeezing out tiny aperture style of playing. And then there is the low quality of the rest of the band.
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enviroman22
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 5:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="Richard III"]
enviroman22 wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/driscoll.james.1/videos/1703461633264183
(ran out of gas)

One of the issues is playing consistently under the pitch. Another is squeezing out tiny aperture style of playing. And then there is the low quality of the rest of the band.


Support Your Local Musicians in Pittsburgh at least. I haD TO post it on uoutube as I couldn't upload it here to show you. I play in a good paid band, Acoustic Daze. The Tiny aperture I adopted from a Bach 7C (lifetime mouthpiece) to a Schilke 15A4A because the 7C "chipped" even MORe, if you can believe that. I switched from the Bach Bb trumpet to Schilke less "chips" and easier in the upper range. Thank you. Thank you for that nice compliment.

Good tips and I forgive myself. You should too, initial poster. This was many lessons'-worth.
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Don Herman rev2
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You were never ridiculed. You were given advice based upon the data given, which has evolved over time as more details were provided.
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enviroman22
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don Herman rev2 wrote:
You were never ridiculed. You were given advice based upon the data given, which has evolved over time as more details were provided.
You are correct. I am not. I apologize for being the jerk I accuse others of being.
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MrOlds
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If initial attacks are an issue try;

The Merri Franquin method. Starting at page 115. Brush up on your French or follow the directions provided by Zaferis above.

R. Shuebruk Lip Trainers for Trumpet. Don’t skip the early stuff

Not-so-long-long-tones on Peter Bond’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. They cover 85% of playing. Start a note. Start a note and change a note. End a note. Maintain a good sound for a reasonable amount of time. Make reasonably small, gradual changes in your mechanism. Devilishly simple, but covers so much.

QTones app. Randomizes pitches, volume and inflection. Play each entrance in time with a metronome. Do each one three times perfectly before advancing to the next random challenge.

Have fun.
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enviroman22
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 7:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrOlds wrote:


Have fun.
Mais Oui! Merci Beaucoup mon frere!
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Brad361
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PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2021 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Deleted.

Brad
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HERMOKIWI
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PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2021 2:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm cool with the frustration the OP expressed. Trumpet is a difficult instrument fraught with problems and chipping notes is certainly one of the most frustrating problems we encounter. He's expressed his understanding that the TH community as a whole wants to contribute and help players with the myriad of problems they encounter and I find his comments in that regard to be sincere. We all feel frustration at times and I think we all need to focus now on welcoming the OP to the community. He gets it and he's made that clear.
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jengstrom
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PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2021 4:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing that hasn’t been touched on here with respect to breath control is the turn around. The turn around is the transition from inhale to exhale. There should be no delay in that transition, no building up air pressure and then releasing the tongue to “pop” the note. The chops should begin to vibrate at the very beginning of the exhale. Being able to do this will reduce or eliminate chipping.

The Shuebruk attack exercises are excellent practice for this.

On the now defunct TrumpetMaster site, user Rowuk used to talk about the Circle of Breath, which was a different way of saying the same thing. I have included a copy below. The formatting didn’t copy well, but the info is intact.

Rowuk’s Circle of Breath Explanation

“This is what I "knew" from reading your first post. That is why I took the liberty of answering the way that I did.

As far as amount of practice goes: Assume that we live in Washington DC and want to celebrate Christmas with family in New Jersey. We have a couple of options to get there - research a couple of things and travel a short path northbound, or believe someone else and travel south. If we stick with it long enough, we will get there regardless of our choice, but one path is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT and the longer route involves losses that we find about on that path. It can be the trip of a lifetime, but has NOTHING to do with the original goal. So it is with embouchure changes. If we jump into the deep end of the pool too early, we may not drown, but it won't be much fun struggling to get back to firm ground.

I believe in evolution, not revolution. I only touch embouchures with a one on one live lesson venue. No internet or other proxy environments. Read on and you will realize why......

Want proof of how relaxed this has to be (it has nothing to do with the equipment):
Rashawn Ross With Adam Rapa Gives A Lesson On How To Play Triple C! - YouTube

Any doubts now where I am coming from?

There is nothing "deep" or "difficult" about the Circle of Breath. We can watch any infant when they sleep to have a perfect example.

By popular demand: the circle of breath:

1) The first step is a prepared body. If our chest cavity is "collapsed", we have to inflate it with force. That is pretty stupid. When we are sitting or standing up straight but relaxed (yoga is VERY good for this), all we have to do is inhale. We can get a huge amount of air without having to pressurize the lungs by force. Learning to prepare the body for playing is easy with beginners and increasingly difficult for players with more experience as they have to break habits to make new ones! It is important to have this activity monitored.

2) Once the body is big and relaxed, we draw a big circle. The left side (moving clockwise) is inhale and the right side is exhale. Notice at the top and bottom of the circle that it is still round - no disturbances. Our transition from inhale to exhale and exhale to inhale must mirror that. We do not hold air in, it is either moving in or out. We have to practice getting BIG breaths without building up tension in the throat or upper body. We use the diaphragm to inhale, but subconciously. We don't need to think about how those muscles work, we just give them the big, relaxed body and they know what to do!
We do not need to "push" our air out, we just exhale. Generally students have a BIG problem getting a big breath and then just exhaling. There is so much "learned" tension present that they need weeks to get this down.

3) Once our breathing works (in my lessons that means when I am satisfied - not when the student thinks that they are done), then we replace exhale with play. We do not tongue notes, we just switch to exhale and what happens, happens. The goal here is to develop the breathing apparatus and lips so that we are so relaxed that sound comes at the peak of the circle with no kickstart by the tongue. A couple of weeks of long tones this way shows us a lot about everything that we have been doing wrong. Notice how Rashawn in the youtube just exhales a triple C? Completely free of hard work! This is how it has to work in every register. Just exhale the note. 

4) When I am happy with this stage, the student exhales into lipslurs - same principle - no tongue! Just exhale! Another couple weeks goes by to "perfect" this (it is never perfect) and we have made a considerable step forward. Our tone is no longer dependent on the tongue to reliably speak - regardless of how high or low, loud or soft. Generally with no tongue applied, we can lipslur a fifth to an octave more than we had before. The range caves when making music because we are still missing too much stuff.

5) At this point I have very specific things to learn to add the tongue. Critical here is that we do not use the sledgehammer tonguing that we needed when we were using pressure, we have to develop infinitely small "T", "D", "K", "G", "L", "R" attacks that are only used to "articulate" the beginning of the tone that occurs at the peak of the Circle of Breath. The tonguing must occur EXACTLY at the point where we switch from in- to exhale. If we tongue too early or late, we screw up the transition. This means we are back to long tones and trained ears and eyes to insure that old habits don't screw up what we have now carefully built. Once longtones work, we can tongue the initial intro into the lipslur. If our tone without attack was clean, the articulation is only frosting on top of the cake!

6) Following this, the student gets easy tunes like from the hymnbook and we work on proper breathing and articulation of real music.


This Circle of Breath is as far as I am concerned the biggest deal in trumpet playing. Without being able to do this, the rest can't ever click. It is as simple as inhale/exhale. The problem is understanding what we have done to ourselves: how sloppy we sit, stand, walk. How crappy our posture is, how caved in our upper body is, how tense our neck and shoulders are because we hang our heads, how brutal our tonguing is to kickstart a screwed embouchure that uses excessive pressure to enable playing at all. In addition we have a learned unwillingness to accept very small steps of improvement because we have learned to download cheats and believe the idiots that claim to have silver bullets for problems. We do not even notice the small improvements and therefore get frustrated that we haven't experienced the "miracle". I won't even get into lifestyle and attitude.

The human state is a product of what we repeatedly do. We need challenges and successes. We need the wiseness to prepare ourselves adequately for the challenges any time that we can. That foundation can carry us a long way if it is solid.

I am very passionate about process and that is why people get angry with my "approach". I don't really care. They can put me on their ignore list, go somewhere else or rally enough people to drive me off. TrumpetMaster is for free and to be honest, I am here because what I do has helped quite a few. If the community changes for what I consider to be the worse, I have no financial or emotional ties.

I saw my lifes motto in a pub in Belfast a couple of years ago: Life is too short for cheap beer. We can add a lot of other things important to our wellbeing besides beer to this motto.”

John
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GeorgeB
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PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2021 4:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

enviroman22 wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/driscoll.james.1/videos/1703461633264183
(ran out of gas)

https://youtu.be/oVwnNAu16Vk
Wasn't practiced up when friend asked me to play last week. But this is what I'm talking about


I agree with what Richard said. There was some cool playing there. I think some extra time spent on breathing exercises would be beneficial. I could easily detect those moments during your solo when you were running low on air...especially when playing those higher notes.

All the best,
George
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