unable to change pitch

[JayKosta]

[trickg]

[HERMOKIWI]

[Trumpjerele]

This summer I have spent time with my son teaching him to play the trumpet. He is 7 years old and had the same problem. After 4 or 5 days he got bored and stopped showing up in the room when he listened to me practice. I don't think what happens to him is something so strange. I can think of some things that you can try, but I'm not a trumpet teacher, nothing like that.
_________________
Notice!!! Amateur musician without formal studies

Trumpet: Yamaha 8310Z
Mouthpiece: the great Yamaha11b4

Sax tenor: Yamaha YTS 23
Mouthpiece: Otto link tone edge

[abontrumpet]

1. Play a note.
2. Blow lots of free and easy air (while maintaining sound)
3. Wiggle your fingers on the valves and make nonsense noises

As non-children learners, we often have preconceptions about how things work, how the embouchure is "supposed" to be, how we change notes, what things are supposed to sound like behind the horn, etc. We have to learn how to "play" (in the child sense of the word). Through play comes quicker learning and coordination.

Spend a week on the above and I think you'll subconsciously get over your plateau.

[delano]

I don't understand the rumble here. I posted something as an answer to mr. Billy B. who I see as one of the few (last?) posters around with knowledge about the things he's posting. For some reason other members here felt the need to intervene, why? And my post was in perspective a mildly relativating defence of mr. JK, believe it or not.
I think this post is necessary to place this topic in a wider perspective.

I don't blame mr. JK, he seems to like posting about embouchure things with obviously very limited knowledge of that kind of stuff. That's legal but on the other hand, don't be upset then, when somebody with better papers is criticizing you.
And trickg and Hermokiwi are behaving irresponsible by attacking that critic. As far as I know both don't have trumpet teachers' qualifications but both seem not to consider that as a hindrance to act like one (I do). But if somebody gives on this forum a, let's say, questionable advice about embouchure to a beginner then there is ample reason, maybe even an moral obligation, for somebody with more knowledge to correct that. Let's be happy with that especially for the person with the problem!

About some criple reasoning:
mr. JK is a member for 2 1/2 years and has 1189 posts which make for 1.86 per day.
I am a member for 12 1/2 years and have 2480 posts which make 0.53 per day.

And about arrogance, let's take a hypothetical situation:

A beginner has after three weeks of playing problems with playing more than one note on his horn and asks for help.
The answer:
On day 1, hour 1, I learned a one-octave Bb concert scale, one octave up and down, and "Mary Had a Little Lamb," starting on A.

Yes, very empathic indeed.

BTW, I am no way afraid to be banned from this forum. If I am not friendly enough to American standards, it is the way it is. I despise people who openly beg in their posts for banning people from this forum, like running to your mom or dad yelling that your little brother has stolen a cookie.

[Voltrane]

Gentlemen,

When I saw the original question from the OP my first though was: How is it possible that 3 weeks beginner does not trust his teacher and ask such a question to Internet ? There is something wrong somewhere.
That is why I asked who is the teacher and were she teaches ?
After this, the only serious answer would have been: you are a kid in trumpet playing, follow you teacher. If you already don’t trust her, find another because no one without knowing you, seeing you playing, can give you any serious advice.
Don’t forget the OP knows nothing to trumpet playing so we have to be very careful with any advice: can be harmful.
The difference between a good teacher and a player even experimented and full of goodwill is the teacher has taught tenths or hundreds of students. So he teaches what he think will work for the student in front of him, no system, when the experimented player teaches in the best case what worked for him.
Sorry if it not correct.
_________________
S’il n’en reste qu’un je serai celui là (Victor Hugo)
Je m’empresse d’en rire de peur d’avoir à en pleurer (Beaumarchais)

[delano]

Well said mr. Voltrane.
I have been a teacher of law on University and High Business School for over 40 years but everytime we got people with knowledge (like lawyers) as beginning teachers, (who really believed that that knowledge was enough for teaching), they left behind groups of students in total dispair. Not out of lack of knowledge but out of missing teaching perspective and teaching insight.
For teaching you need a mindset for teaching, probably also for teaching the trumpet.

[trickg]

[delano]

mr. trickg, normally I don't react on your posts, you belong to a group of people I see no benefit in to disagree about opinions, but I make now one tiny exception. I know what made you furious about me and I'm sure you know, but to make such a noise about my two simple posts of which you don't understand the irony for even one bit and which are NOT AT ALL aimed at you, using criple reasoning only to get your gram towards me is an abuse of this forum. And there is a big difference between playing abilities and teaching abilties. For example, being a very good football player (I mean European football, you may call that soccer) makes very seldom a good coach. Though they may have more experience, more playing skills and so on, they still are lousy or, if lucky, mediocre coaches.
You don't understand it but your opinion on teaching is de facto an insult.
And go of my back, find a job, do something useful.

[trickg]

Bringing this back to something that's actually worthwhile to this thread, to our Original Poster, chucalim, keep us posted on your progress. Hopefully in a couple of weeks this will be just a bump in the road and your embouchure will start to develop.
_________________
Patrick Gleason
- Jupiter 1600i, ACB 3C, Warburton 4SVW/Titmus RT2
- Brasspire Unicorn C
- ACB Doubler

"95% of the average 'weekend warrior's' problems will be solved by an additional 30 minutes of insightful practice." - PLP

[Voltrane]

Patrick wrote « To point a point on it, I didn't criticize any of what Voltrane posted that was on topic. I criticized the fact that he wanted to tear down another member who was trying to offer advice, regardless of their pedigree. « 
No offense intended but are you sure you don’t confuse me with someone else? I never wanted to tear down another member and do not read something like that in my 2 posts.
Where do you think I did this?
Thanks.
_________________
S’il n’en reste qu’un je serai celui là (Victor Hugo)
Je m’empresse d’en rire de peur d’avoir à en pleurer (Beaumarchais)

[trickg]

[Voltrane]

Ok! I feared that my English was even worse than I thought!
_________________
S’il n’en reste qu’un je serai celui là (Victor Hugo)
Je m’empresse d’en rire de peur d’avoir à en pleurer (Beaumarchais)

[HERMOKIWI]

[trickg]

[chucalim]

Hi everyone,

thanks for all your advices, exercices, video link, personal opinion... and passionate debate (didn't expect to have it going that way).

Regarding my teacher, having posted here is not a lack of trust, but since she had never had this issue with a student, I was searching for similar experience. She has a music teaching degree and teaching is her job. I fully trust her, even if she hasn't succeed to "click" me yet. She refers to me as "the phenomenon", ahah, I'd rather be the "high extended pitch phenomenon". She works in the local music school where I studied the piano, violin and drums. Full confidence in the institution.
(Btw, a work colleague - trumpet player for years - thought I was laughing at him not be able to make a low G and tried 2h long to have me doing it. Exercices, test, explanation,... Final conclusion "you must have something wrong with your anatomy")

For now, we explore the low pitch area (below low C), to find some confidence and relaxation that we could use for higher notes. Maybe also something to work on the position of the MP on the lips... we'll see.

Today, just after my course, a 14 year old beginner started his course with a full scale warm up, easily. Soooo frustrating

Thanks again to all, teachers or not.

[Wilktone]

chucalim, without being able to see how you're playing everything you get from a forum topic is just a guess. Some may be educated guesses, but it's sort of like trying to get a medical doctor to give you treatment without an examination. Similar symptoms can be caused by a wide variety of issues both in health and brass playing.

It is unusual to not be able to get up to a third space C in the amount of time that you've been playing. Keep in mind that different anatomical characteristics can make a musician's embouchure function sometimes in the exact opposite way from another player. Unfortunately, these things are not widely recognized in the field and many fine teachers aren't sure of how to teach some of the less common embouchure types or even are aware that there are different ways to play.

Hypothetically, if I was working with you in a lesson I would experiment with trying to start playing on the third space C from the beginning rather than on the low C and bringing it up. My first step would be to try to get you to have a firmed embouchure formation where the muscular effort is concentrated at and just under your mouth corners and your chin would be held flat. Getting your lip formation in place could get you moving forward by itself.

I would also test some different mouthpiece placements (higher, lower, even to one side) and see how far up, down, and to either side of your lips you could place the mouthpiece and see what works. Everyone's anatomy is different and it's not always obvious where the mouthpiece placement is going to work best. Some players have very unusual looking placements. It's important to go after where it sounds and works best, not how it looks.

As a beginner, I would also be spending some time to make sure that you're holding the trumpet consistently in a correct way and also that your posture is good. This helps in other areas, but the way you hold your instrument and sit or stand is going to affect the way the mouthpiece is placed on the lips and how it is held there. It's important for beginners to establish good habits early and to be consistent with that.

It's OK to seek the advice of other teachers too, if you have other options. Your current teacher can be a very fine one but sometimes it takes hearing the same advice put a little differently to make things click for you. There are some excellent teachers who are teaching online through video chats now, so there are plenty of options for a one-shot lesson too.

Dave
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wilktone.com

[kehaulani]

Dave, how's he going to play a Middle C if he can't play above a Low C?
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"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird

Yamaha 8310Z Bobby Shew trumpet
Benge 3X Trumpet
Benge 3X Cornet
Adams F-1 Flghn

[Wilktone]