Different embochure

[tryingtolivethelife]

I was listening to Mr. Spera play Body and Soul at a staff recital last week and he had this totally different sound on the ballad. Man it was truley beautiful. You know it had that quality of being real full that cliff plays on ballads with and Mr. Spera said he plays the horn much differently on a balad. I mean this is obvious to many people who really watch a great player. I have recently found that if I spread my lips apart more when making my embochure I get a much more beautiful sound. but I have realized that there is much less buzzing this way... I know buzzing isn't what to wory about... but anyways, I was just thinking that if I sound that good playing along with the new standards with strings abesold book why not play with that tone all the time. My question being, is it all right to play with adifferent embochure set up to get different tones?? And then, why not play like that all the time? I dunno, maybe I'm forgetting something basic or thinking too much? What do you all think?

[PH]

That is too much thinking!

There is a certain basic trumpet sound that you should aspire to when you practice long tones, scales, etc. That sound tells your ears that you are not fighting the instrument, but are working in harmony with it. You can hear this kind of sound in great players of many different styles: Doc, Arturo, Maynard, Charlie Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Harry James, Dominic, Herseth, Andre...

I try to establish that sound and approach to the instrument every single day as I play my routine stuff.

However, in a musical context there are many times when I want/need a different kind of sound. I suppose you could analyze how I change my playing to get those variations, but the best way is to simply change the kind of sound you are hearing, hear it vividly, and go for it. You can get a lot of different shadings of tone, articulation, dynamics, etc. just by changing how you imagine the sound of the music.

The best example I know of for this is on a demo CD that Bach issued a few years back where they were introducing their new (then) sterling silver bells. Charlie Davis (an Adam student) plays all kinds of stuff: orchestral excerpts, legit solo with piano, a jazz ballad, and some lead stuff with a great section that included Jerry Hey and Gary Grant. He gets incredibly different sounds for each style and he plays the same horn for everything and only a slightly different mouthpiece for the lead things (3C on the lead stuff and 3B for the legit).

All he does is change his concept and THAT changes his physical setup.

[ This Message was edited by: PH on 2002-08-31 00:31 ]

[ This Message was edited by: PH on 2002-08-31 00:32 ]