The Embouchure Motion

[PhyloidealCreations]

with all of this information, can you please help me and tell me what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong and if it is natural to do all these things at the same time and still be running out of breath and my notes sounding so forced.

I know this goes with practice but I wanted to know if Im going by the right path.

Thanks dave wilkin

[wilktone]

PhyloidealCreations, there is no way I can help you without being able to watch you play in person. My best advice for you is to find a knowledgeable teacher for private lessons. Good luck!

[PhyloidealCreations]

Right...thanks anyway for replying.

[PhyloidealCreations]

With all of this, and knowing that i still am discovering and exploring the instrument, as i only play over a month or two, and knowing well too that I still wasting too much air playing the notes and I fell dizzy frequently and, because of that, my notes still sound too airy not hearing just the note but the air going out and the note at the same time;

[PhyloidealCreations]

do what you call the embouchure motion pushing the mouthpiece towards my nose to ascend and staying in the middle to play basic and low range

and i change a bit the angle the mouth does with the trumpet as shown as the wrong way considered by Farkas in your down/upstream vid.

[PhyloidealCreations]

I play with my bottom lip rolled in or receded as shown as the wrong way considered by Farkas in your down/upstream vid.

but to ascend to high notes i do, at the same time: push the trumpet against my lips slightly roll in very few my bottom lip making the stream of air going even more downstream, almost perpendicular at my face and mouth waste some air more, making more pressure

[PhyloidealCreations]

i just recently began to play trumpet. i was very unabled at the begining (i still are) but now, after watching your vids, i tryed some of the variations i had no idea that existed and, though i still suck and i use lots of air to play a note and she sounds loose yet, i think i stablished more or less my primitive embouchure:

i play with the mouthpiece nearly in the middle of the mouth but with more bottom lip than upper one (calling that downstream, i guess).

[DMGDeed]

It's good that you're trying to align the middle of your mouth with the middle of the mouthpiece. Try blowing a stream of air without any of the instrument so that you're blowing straight in front of your face, then apply that with buzz on the mouthpiece. I'm not much of an expert on embouchures myself, but I think that would help, especially if somebody could explain it better than I just did.

[wilktone]

Lining up the embouchure aperture with the middle of the mouthpiece will typically cause more problems. One lip or another should predominate, even just a little, or else the lips will tend to slip between upstream and downstream. There really is not such thing as blowing straight into the shank of the mouthpiece. It just doesn't work.

[aztec11]

I have like 3 embouchures. One of really high playing, one for really low playing and one for very basic playing with a little high and low. Horn teachers tell me that it's because I don't use as much upper lip in the mouthpiece, but I'm uncomfortable with that change; however, I do use alot of upperlip in my low register. My biggest problems in playing are when I have to change from high to low fast, or visa versa. Do you have any advice for me? -)

[nadavnaz2]

I have had (and still do, a bit) this problem. The solution? Work on changing it. Eventually if you get one steady Embouchure that fits all registers you'll also experience a great improvement in sound.

[DMGDeed]

Agreed. It generally helps to use the entire mouth. While your teachers tell you to use more upper lip, my current teacher tells me to use more bottom lip, which is actually helping me quite a lot. For me, the improvement in sound is that it becomes much, much fuller and warmer.

[AllStater09]

Agreed! I play with the lower part of my lip the majority of the time and it helps me have a nice warm tone... plus it helps what type of horn you have(laquer or gold). I also had the same type of director that kept enforcing for me to play on the top portion of the lip. But for dr.dave wilkin, I have a few questions. first and for most is it ok for you to play on your lower lip all the time. And is there a way to go up in the register with out pulling the corners? Thanks a bunch for the post.

[tpt1111]

Maybe a discussion of air and support would be helpful here...

You can have the greatest chops and mouthpiece set ever seen, but if you don't use air properly it will be useless...

[wilktone]

And vice versa, all the proper air won't help an improperly functioning embouchure. Air support is widely and well understood. The embouchure is not.

[wilktone]

Thanks for your comments, xnavtpt/jlb. I believe you have some common misperceptions about upstream embouchures that I have already addressed in a two part video entitled "The Upstream Brass Embouchure."

[xnavtptmvdon]

Thank you for the video. But, I do have to say that you are missing some key points.

The lips of an embouchure work like strings on the piano. Low notes require a big vibrating surface (pushing the lips into the mouthpiece, and using a big warm column of air). High notes require a small vibrating surface (Rolling the lips inward to make a smaller vibrating surface inside the mouthpiece and using a small cold column of air).

(continue below)

[jlb1559]

It's painful for me to watch the female trumpet player. She needs an embouchure change. The 'red' tissue of your lips are some of the most sensitive tissues on the body. Any abuse of this sensitive tissue and the lips swell up like golf balls. Every get hit on the mouth?

[undyingflame27]

Agreed.

Though as a medium high school player, I have to argue that some slight red is necessary. Reading around, I changed my embouchure so no red was on it. For the past month, I have been unable to play under a first line E. Read an article, changed it back to some red, mostly white- bam, embouchure problems solved (though upper range is dead). I swear, the frustration was getting me depressed. And yes, I'm just venting right now. Hope you don't mind.

[wilktone]

There is *always* some of the mouthpiece placed on the red membrane of the lips. Whether or not the player places with the rim more on the red of the lips is *completely* dependent on the individual. Right for some, wrong for others. Try moving your placement back to on the red and see if your range comes back.

And if you feel like you're getting hit in the mouth from playing, you're using too much pressure, not necessarily placing wrong.

[undyingflame27]

Thanks.

And I'm not feeling like I'm getting hit...just making a comment. But right now my buzz is dead. Hopefully I should work it out soon.

[jlb1559]

Although placing the mouthpiece directly onto the upper lip (the red part) lends itself to an easy vibration you will not generally be able to play high because in order to make a high note you need a smaller vibrating surface and because the mouthpiece is already so low on the upper lip your already playing on so small a piece skin that it just can't get any smaller.

[jlb1559]

And, the more you play on this 'red' part of the lip (since it is so sensitive) it swells up in a matter of minutes and then it's extremely difficult to play anything, especially high notes, and kills your endurance.

[jlb1559]

Trust me I had an embouchure exactly like the female tpt player in the video. Then I did an embouchure change to get the mouthpiece above the red and roll the lips inward (toward the teeth). Best thing I ever did.

If you don't believe me, at 5 minutes and 30 seconds into this video you can physically see the lip swelling up on the female tpt player.

[emanonami]

UMM... Where is the swelling? Swelling implies that it lasts more than 1 second. And the author of the clip plays with his mouthpiece in the red also - NO SWELLING EITHER.

The girl in the clip also doesn't normally play that way so if there IS swelling then it isn't because she's in the red, but because she hasn't yet developed the strength to play with the mouthpiece in that position. She needs to develop some puckering so that the lips will grip the mouthpiece, not the mouthpiece grip the lips

[greatpilot85]

do you think pushing/pulling is better or moving the entire horn?

[emanonami]

Just to be clear, pushing and pulling doesn't mean towards/against the lips. It means up or down.

The pushing/pulling causes the horn to move as a result of the motion and the slight change in jaw position.

Any tilting which occurs is the result of keeping the pressure even as the mouthpiece and lips moves up/down along the teeth.