Am I playing too much or too little, and tips to improve.

[chief757]

Hey yall. I don't really know if this is the right area to post this, sorry if it's wrong. So recently I decided I was going to start taking trumpet seriously. Ive been "playing" trumpet for 4 years since 6th grade (am a sophmore) and I never really did anything to improve myself. I never actually practiced fundamentals and only played during the hour we got at school. I didn't even practice during summer. Only about a month ago I got my braces off and a few weeks ago I started taking it home and cranking out long tones, lip slurs, technicality, etc... But I noticed since that, my lips and mouth corners BURN. Only about a minute in playing my corners are in flames and I barely can hit my high notes at the end of a song. I only play for 20 minutes and have a 20 minute break at home and I repeat usually 2 more times on top of the usual band practice at school. I don't think this is too much because I look on here and see people recommending 6+ hours a day. Just for reference the highest note I've ever played was some open valved note above a 2 ledger line c. The highest note I can consistently play over and over is a fourth line d. I don't feel like I use too much pressure. Why is my endurance so trash? I'm planning on getting a private tutor next saturday so hopefully he can address issues. Sorry for the long post. I just needed to rant and maybe someone can help.

[royjohn]

Hi chief757,
There's an old vaudeville (bet you don't know what that is) joke that goes like this:

Patient: Hey, doc, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Well, don't do that.

In this case, the doctor is right. The burn is a symptom of a muscle under stress and overtired. While you're right to be puzzled over why your corners are so tired after just 20 minutes of practice, the fact remains that they are telling you to quit. It's possible you overpracticed at some point or are overpracticing currently, but whatever for whatever reason, listen to what your body is telling you.

You could easily tire yourself out in 20 minutes of strenuous practice without rest. Possibly that is what is happening. Possibly it has something to do with a change in embouchure since your braces came off. Hard to say without seeing you play. If I were you I would take a couple of days off or do very light playing for a few days and then when practicing I would rest as much as I played. That means that during your practice play for a few minutes (say three) and then rest for 3 minutes. While resting you can listen back to a recording of yourself, you can look at the music, expression marks, etc., you can whisper practice the melody and your tongue arch for a phrase, you can practice your fingerings, or you can just do something else, like math homework or reading or something. You know, multi-task.

Play this way and also heed any signs of tiredness...burning lips (shouldn't really be any) or loss of range...and stop playing at the first sigh of those. Your idea to break your practice into 20 minute segments is also good. Endurance is going to increase with more difficult music, not by beating yourself up by playing longer and longer.

So that's my take, but if you're going to a teacher on Saturday, that ought to be one of the first things that you cover. Let's see what he or she says. Good luck!
_________________
royjohn
Trumpets: 1928 Holton Llewellyn Model, 1957 Holton 51LB, 2010 Custom C by Bill Jones, 2011 Custom D/Eb by Bill Jones
Flugels: 1975 Olds Superstar, 1970's Elkhardt, 1970's Getzen 4 valve
Cornet: 1970's Yamaha YCR-233S . . . and others . . .

[JayKosta]

[abontrumpet]

This post isn't my best work, but it's a decent starting point.

Rule 1: Keep the chops fresh
Rule 2: Quality over quantity, but slowly, over time, quality and quantity
Rule 3: Listen a lot to great trumpet players to develop your concept and record yourself often to see if you are making strides to get to it.
Rule 4: Patience. Enjoy playing and don't worry about feeling behind.

In general, you can accomplish a lot in 2 hours of playing. 6+ hours are for those people that have built up that endurance over time and are playing fundamentally really well. Break up your practice into 10 minute chunks for now. As soon as you start feeling fatigued, put the horn away for an hour+ then pick it back up. Slowly you will get better at playing easy and high quality. It takes time, just enjoy.

[chief757]

Thanks for the responses. I'll try to limit playing while my chops are burning but it'll be hard. The pain starts so fast and because I have to play in band, we recite our songs a lot. The pain doesn't start as quickly when playing an actual song and when I'm playing loud. Soft playing basically starts the pain instantly. I also noticed while playing my cheeks are very stiff and my whole mouth in general is tight. Maybe I'm tensing my mouth too hard? I'll have to wait until I get that private tutor to see

[Billy B]

[Jaw04]

[royjohn]

I wrote before giving some suggestions for some rest in playing and avoiding overpracticing/overplaying. All that and a lot of the other advice you've gotten here seems good...however, thinking about your situation and the fact that you get this burn all the time with relatively little playing leads me to believe that the way you are forming your embouchure is wrong.

If you form your embouchure with a little roll-in of the lips, you can lip buzz (and therefore play on the horn) a top line F with very little lip to lip pressure using the corners or the muscles of the lips. You say "M" and place the mpc on the rolled in lips. When the air blows against the rolled in lips it tries to force them to blow open and they actually are pushed tighter together by the air.

So I'm thinking that maybe you are using rolled out lips, which have to be held together by muscles making lip to lip compression and by the corners an this overload on the corners is causing the burn. You're fighting yourself.

As you overload the corner muscles, they become chronically overused and fatigued, which might be why the burn starts rather quickly. The solution is rest for the corners and a different embouchure setup...some other people have also suggested that something is quite wrong about your embouchure.

So, yes, do get a private teacher who knows something about embouchure formation. If they don't address this, I don't think your playing will improve...but don't give up, just look for a teacher who can help. There are even "chop docs" on the web who can give you an on line lesson and diagnose and fix this problem.
_________________
royjohn
Trumpets: 1928 Holton Llewellyn Model, 1957 Holton 51LB, 2010 Custom C by Bill Jones, 2011 Custom D/Eb by Bill Jones
Flugels: 1975 Olds Superstar, 1970's Elkhardt, 1970's Getzen 4 valve
Cornet: 1970's Yamaha YCR-233S . . . and others . . .

[Patrick Hasselbank]

[Billy B]

Interesting that none of the advice here addresses the use of air.

In my 50 years of teaching I have found 90% of problems stem from a poor concept of sound and improper use of air. Get these under control and the embouchure will follow.
_________________
Bill Bergren

[JoseLindE4]

1. Find a good teacher and listen to them -- practice what and how they say to practice. They'll likely help you develop and organize some sort of daily fundamental routine to help you grow more effectively based on where you're actually at.

2. Listen to lots of great trumpet players. Fill your mind with great sounds.

3. When in doubt, organize your practice around an alternation of singing and playing. Sing a passage; play it; sing it again; play it again; repeat slowly until death. There are other ways to work, but this is a good one when you don't know what to do. It keeps you fresh and constantly works on improving the mental signal, which is the most important part of the equation.

4. For the most part, practicing making tired sound only makes you better at making tired sounds. We want great sounds, so practice making great sounds.

5. Ignore what anyone says about how much they practice. We all count "practice time" differently. If I sit in the practice room for 3 hours and spend 1 hour blowing the horn, 1 hour singing, and 30 minutes listening, and 30 minutes on the internet, how long did I practice? More practice often helps, but a number isn't really all that important.

[deleted_user_7354402]

I noticed that you said you recently had your braces removed. That’s a big change. I have helped quite a few people retrain their embouchure post braces.Here’s a couple thoughts:
1. Everything is new. Your muscles are reacting to the lack of braces k ol your teeth. Certain parts of the muscles are overstrained and certain parts are underdeveloped. With that in mind, I would suggest practicing 5-10 minutes at a time. And secondly, starting at a modest dynamic (mezzopiano). The quieter dynamic will help your embouchure muscles “focus” and develop good form without working too hard at a louder dynamic to make your lips balance with the air. As the lips strengthen and your embouchure settle stage dynamics will come. But remember, without braces, everything your muscles instinctively want to do from the years of braces, will have to be reassessed without braces. Things will feel odd or wrong to how you knew how to play them. Embrace this time to reassess how you played things before,
2. I find Clark technical studies or things like it (any moving slurred scalar passages) are great for keeping the embouchure relaxed and a reinforcing a steady air stream. I would suggest this in place of long tones for now. The static long tone can be really tiring. The big caveat here though, is that you are striving for consistent vibrant sound on every note. In other words, “how” you play matters more than “what” you play. Play with the goal of making the notes “sound” easy. Stay in the register you are comfortable with for a couple of weeks. Focus less on the amount of work you are putting into the horn but how effortless you can make the sound. With your intention on the “effortless” sound, your body will begin to figure out how to use the least amount of effort necessary to sound great.
3. Practicing on Fresh muscles is key to developing good habits at this stage. Limit practice to 5-10 minute stretches (15 if the muscles don’t start burning too early.) Maybe set a timer for 5 minutes and then rest 5 minutes. Or play for 10 minutes every hour. Practicing on tired chops right now will only serve to reinforce a strained sound, the constant feeling of work on your face, and old habits that maybe worked with braces but will not work anymore. Your muscles are developing. From what you wrote it sounds like you exhausted them by working too hard for too long a period of time. Sometimes being serious about playing trumpet is being serious about playing in a “healthy” manner. It’s not as fun as double forte above the staff but it is more critical to the long term progress of serious trumpet players.

All that said, a good teacher is what any serious musician should seek out. The best advice I have is to call the nearest University with a good music program, talk to the trumpet professor there about your situation and ask if they have recommendations for teachers. They should have an idea of where the good teachers are working based on who they hear auditioning for their programs. I would suggest calling, college trumpet professors tend to be busy and email never seems to be something most like to do. Who knows, maybe they’d even want to work with you. Or maybe they have a student who would be great.
This is the basic advice I give to students who had face changes. The right teacher will reassess equipment and routine. A mouthpiece change might help hold firm corners on your lips. But you would probably be guessing as the right direction and a decent teacher would have a better idea of what direction to head.
For now, little segments of relaxed easy practice. You’ll get a sense of when you can expand. Practicing for short periods of time with clear focus and relaxation more regularly is better than an hour straight of struggle. Get great trumpet sounds in your head (Alison Balsom has what I consider to be one of the purest and easiest sounding tones, Hakan Hardenberger is also great but is usually a bigger sound, which is great but something you might need to slowly grow into) by listening regularly and emulating sound. And be mentally flexible. If something is not working, reimagine how you want it to sound and reimagine what your body and face can do that might help make that sound possible. Trial and error. It’s okay if it sucks because you tried something that didn’t work. You learned what not to do. But keep working until the sound you imagine yourself making matches the sound you are actually making.

I hope these thoughts help. Good luck

[abontrumpet]

[chief757]

Update.
I went to a music store last night and picked up a new mouthpiece. Weirdly they didn't have any brass players at the store when I went there but the dude let me try out a sweet bach stradivarius (Don't know the exact model, but the guy said it was a professional trumpet). Anyway, I tried out many different ones including a 1 1/2 c, 3c, and a bobby shew lead one. The 1 1/2 didn't seem too different from the 3 but I just didn't feel right in the 1 1/2. Don't know how to explain it. The bobby shew was very weird. I could barely play a scale on it without missing notes and anything above a normal c was impossible. So I settled on a 3c. Earlier during band I tried it out and it felt decent. Articulating and tonguing was greatly improved compared to my usual mouthpiece I've played on since I started trumpet. (7c) I only issue I have is right now. I didn't really feel that corner pain as bad, but now my actual lips are hurting. Not too much pain but I can still feel something in my lips. Sorry for the many posts. I have a state meet for cross country this weekend so I'll have to postpone that teacher until the following saturday, or try to find one during the week. I also might not bring the instrument home for a few days to rest my chops a little.

[trickg]

Ultimately if you want to take the trumpet seriously, you're going to have to play just about every day. The trick is going to be learning how to practice in a productive way. Some people might say "practice correctly," but that can be a bit different for different people.

You are going to have to find the things that work for you, and it's tough for a young student to be introspective enough to identify that, hence the reason that it's going to be important to be assessed by someone more experienced who knows what they are looking at so they can prescribe the right things for you to work, and just as importantly HOW.

Just don't get discouraged - go after it, but find someone who can actually watch and hear you play who can help you to move forward.
_________________
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

[JayKosta]

[abontrumpet]