What has been your journey...

[imsevimse]

Let's start with my confession....

I know what it's like to go through an embouchure crisis. I know how it feels to have to abandon everything and start over from scratch. Before I attended music high school, I had spent four years in a municipal music school with a clarinet/sax/accordion teacher who knew nothing about the trombone. I had never even heard a trombone until 8th grade when I was temporarily in another municipality and heard a student there playing the "bayerische polka" I thought I wanted to study with the same teacher, so I managed to switch and, for the first time, studied with a teacher who played the trombone. Unfortunately, I had already developed a terrible pressure/smile embouchure, and the new teacher didn't address it, so I solidified the bad technique by practicing a lot. Then I went to high school and in the first year, I studied with a trumpet teacher who also didn't make any attempt to correct my embouchure. He let me play the variations in the back of the Arban book with my smile embouchure. It sounded awful (which he also said). Then I got a new teacher in the second year. This was my salvation. After just a couple of lessons, he said, "You can play like that, but most people don't." I asked him what he meant, and he explained. However, he never explicitly told me to change my embouchure. In the next lesson, though, I informed him that I had changed it. I couldn't play anything I had played before after that. I got a certificate from the teacher exempting me from all ensembles because I was going to change my embouchure. The deciding factor was that I had never, ever played a double C with my smile embouchure, and with the new embouchure, I could hit a double C right away, although nothing else. Still, I thought, "This must be right." I started on that C and played chromatically downward until I reached the system, and the smile embouchure took over. So, I struggled for a year. There was a lot of frustration, but then, oddly enough, I got accepted into the conservatory. However, my embouchure was still completely worthless. There was no mercy there. I stayed there for four years, but I didn't improve much. It was only after I had finished that I started to solve my embouchure problems on my own. Traces of the smile embouchure lingered for a long time, but now it's completely gone, fortunately. I have tried if I can play with a smile again, but it's completely impossible now, thankfully. I remember the frustration I felt when I was 16-17 and "hit the wall" while everyone else started getting gigs and playing concerts and rehearsing with different bands. I would stay at home and play a descending chromatic scale from C down one octave for an hour. It was sadness, but I was motivated and had hope. I don't think I could handle it as well again today if I had to do the same all over again.

/Tom

[StephenK]

Wow, well done for overcoming that. I don't have a similar story, but never really had many formal lessons as a youngster, I'm sure it would have helped. I was fortunate to play quite a lot in band, with some good experienced players.
However, I think you have touched on something which may be quite prevalent, where there is a basic issue that is not being addressed, because it's difficult or the motivation of the teacher is to push through grades or new music. My daughter had an issue learning the trombone with embouchure; she wasn't progressing, and I eventually noticed the gap between the nose and lips was very small, so the mouthpiece rubbed against the nose. Teacher didn't really pick anything up.

[MStarke]

Thanks for sharing!

I have gone through a partly painful journey over the decades.
Below a simple summary - there have been more teachers, influences and experiences of course.

Started out at about 8 with a great teacher (tenor/bass at a major German symphony/opera orchestra). He had a very pragmatic approach of teaching, didn't talk very much about detailed technical stuff, but took lots of care of intonation, attention for sound, music etc. If I had practiced more, this could have gone very far.

Then upon recommendation I became "junior student" at a music university parallel to the last year of school.
Still not very technical, not much talk about embouchure or breathing. However I felt lots of pressure there (e g often >5 people practicing in the corridor at the same time, overall high competitiveness) and strangely there was a strong emphasis on playing very (!) loud. Together with everything else as a teenager - school, first girlfriend(s), youth orchestras, first paid gigs etc - this led to me putting a lot of pressure on myself, losing some of that natural playing and adding a lot of physical force. Still I don't think I had a fundamental technical, e.g. embouchure issue there.

After that year I did my civil service which doesn't exist anymore today in Germany. Worked ~40hrs a week in a kindergarden and caring for a disabled person. Exhausting, but totally important life experience that I would not want to miss today.
In parallel to that I had weekly lessons with another very good trombonist (solo trombonist in the same orchestra as my first teacher). However he kind of struggled in bringing back more ease and relaxation in my playing. It was certainly difficult to do that as at the same time I prepared for auditioning for university. Hard to find relaxation when working full-time, practicing 2-4 hrs a day and still having other obligations and interests as well.

Anyway I managed to get accepted at a music university that had been extremely recommended to me.
However this didn't go as planned. The professor who I had most of my lessons with basically put almost all students through more or less the same embouchure change. At least from my understanding back then the key point was to open up the embouchure as far as possible and push as much air through as possible. From today's perspective and knowledge an absurd idea. I might have misread it back then, but I am not the only one who could hardly play anymore after that. He does have some really great students getting major jobs, but there have been quite a few casualties along the way. Again, might have been my mistake.
Stayed there for 3 years and there were times where I could hardly play a note anymore. Within that time I shifted to mostly playing bass and contra.

However I managed to at least get a little bit on track again through some additional private lessons, among others with a very well-known German bass trombonist. He was basically all about fun and relaxation. Actually I have to really call him and say thank you once again.

This way I also managed to get to the Netherlands for an exchange year. Studied with another well-known bass trombonist. This was again a difficult year personally, among others as I had started studying economics in parallel. Totally different methodology there. While I never felt comfortable playing, I am pretty sure it sorted some things and brought them on track a bit. Lots of breathing and buzzing exercises involved which brought things together a bit.

Then for my last 1,5 years of studying trombone I went to another German university and had my lessons with a really great tenor trombonist.
One major factor was that I had already decided not to pursue trombone as a career at that point. So I was mentally very very relaxed. On the other hand this teacher really shifted my focus back on some very simple basics. Having a consistent and supported airstream, focusing the embouchure, playing softly, carefully extending and stabilizing range.
When I did my final exam, I did actually feel like a really competent bass and contrabass trombonist.

However I had not been able to play tenor properly for a long time.

Then came a few years where I played hardly at all.

At one point decided to pick it up again, got an alto trombone for the fun of it. I think this really helped me understand the required focus and functioning of the embouchure.
For a while I consumed a LOT of Youtube material on trombone and developed capabilities again also on tenor.
Then around 2.5 years ago I added online lessons with a US studio trombonist. For me this really really helped further developing my playing. The general idea was to get totally new perspectives - as I had already gone through so many teachers in middle Europe.
However I did not expect this to help so much with technical aspects, extending my musical horizon, but also simply motivation to keep learning.
Today I feel confident to play alto, small/large tenor and bass in semi-pro to pro situations from classical to jazz/bigband. Wouldn't have thought that I would be able to develop a good and stable (upper) register and feel so comfortable on the different instruments and styles. Of course there is much to learn, but for myself I have gone very far!

Some additional points:
- While I struggled a lot in that journey, one thing that always worked was low register on the bass trombone and contrabass trombone. While I think it has even improved today, that seems to be something I could largely compensate just with a lot of air
- Key point for me was to understand some simple basic rules for my embouchure. I don't even want to put them here as they may not be universally applicable. But there need to be guardrails that can be realistically followed also in stress situations and provide efficiency and reliability
- Obviously there have been many more teachers and influences along the way. I have learned from everyone
- Not every methodology is for everyone. I have gone through some difficult developments, but don't necessarily want to blame a specific teacher
- Although I am "only" 38 right now: Today it is much much easier to get a broad perspective on methods and their applicability than 15-25 years ago. It's much easier to reach out to teachers around the world and get the inputs you need than it has been when I was 15 or 20. And even more of course than in the middle of the 20th century

This has been a long text, but it has also been a 3 decades journey until now. Lots to learn!

[tbdana]

Wow, what a story. Thank you for sharing it.

Reading this I feel very fortunate. I guess I just kind of fell into an embouchure that worked for me for many years, though I knew it wasn't right. I had three "settings" on my embouchure: one for pedal notes and low Bb to E, one for low B to high Bb and one for everything above high Bb.

Having functioned well enough to play professionally with those chops I didn't make a change for a very long time, until one day I just became determined to find one "setting" for the whole horn. I worked on it, and it came fairly easily, though the very high register was still a challenge. I feel very fortunate I didn't have major changes to make. I had a very good teacher in Roy Main, which may be why I avoided big problems in the first place.

I have a new creeping (minor) problem, which is that sometimes I just start salivating really bad while playing. I have no idea why or what to do about it. I've never heard of anyone having that problem. So, it's always something, I guess.

[Burgerbob]

I have only recently moved away from a pressure-based embouchure. It got me very far- through two degrees, some auditions, the pro world, but I could tell that it was not something I could improve to be at the level of the people around me. There were basic things I could not play with any consistency, and doubling at a high level exposed a huge amount of weaknesses as well.

It was getting into tenor trombone at a level where I was expected to sound like tenor players that gave me most of the motivation- I couldn't take the pressure route and do what they did. This was in maybe 2018, and only now do I feel like I have approached some level of actual ability on the instrument... it's been a long while.

What I don't like is that all the advice I was given, and advice I have given myself in teaching, was correct- and I still wasn't playing correctly. It all makes more sense now, but I can absolutely see how someone can go just slightly the wrong direction for literally decades without knowing what they are missing.

[Ted]

I started on trumpet, and someone from the local wind band was teaching me. But my third (or fourth) teacher instantly noticed I was doing something wrong. He took a clear mouthpiece during the third lesson and asked me to play on it. Instead of vibrating my lips to make the sound, I kept the tongue in between my lips and my tongue was vibrating together with the upper lip to make the sound. Obviously, I could start all over again. I still think it's odd none ever noticed that, and also think it's odd that none of my teachers ever, talked about forming an embouchure.

[hyperbolica]

My story isn't nearly as dramatic. I started playing trombone at the usual time, and starting in high school I started taking private lessons. The first teacher had me playing Rochut, solos, Arbans and switched from my Remington original to a Bach 5G. Then I switched teachers after about 2 years. The new teacher was a bass trombonist, and I credit him with a lot of my sound. The first thing he had me do was to change from my 5Gal to a Schilke 51. He played a Bach 50b2 with a 1 1/2G. Next was to rework my embouchure. It wasn't bad previously, but it wasn't good either. I'm sure the stuff he told me to do wouldn't be taught these days, but the result worked out. He had me pucker and put as much lip into the mouthpiece as possible. I found that almost impossible to play, but over time I adapted it so that it started working. I wasn't literally puckering, and wasn't literally cramming all that lip into the mouthpiece, but it was more than before. I don't remember what I was doing before, but after that, my flexibility and range really started to take off. I do credit interval studies with a lot of that, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been possible without a new embouchure. I still do pull my corners in and down when I play.

After that I didn't have any more embouchure adjustments, aside from starting to play DE pieces after I'd taken 10 years off the horn. That was more just getting used to a larger rim rather than changing embouchure. And that change happened almost instantly. Also, I had been setting my chops for the wrong pitch, so I was cracking a lot of notes, and had to pull out my tuning slide way too far. I would only buzz high, and couldn't buzz low. I'm probably too set in my ways to make any real embouchure changes. There's a strong connection between the chops and the ear, and you have to train that just like you train the voice to sing on pitch.

[SimmonsTrombone]

A small piece of my journey. I had played in school, majored in music for awhile, moved on to something else but kept playing in bands. Then I was a car wreck and came out with a left frontal traumatic brain injury. I had lots of problems speaking and reading books. I kept practicing my horn with exercises and fooling around, so my lip was in shape. I was called by the Union to play a July 4th gig. The director called up the first march, I opened the book, and realized I didn’t know what the key signature was, the time signature, or the notes. Luckily he counted off the piece before I panicked and I found if I just played without thinking, I could play perfectly well. So, wherever music resides in the brain is not in the area I injured. Dealing with this injury has been fascinating in a way.

[MrHCinDE]

Thanks to those who have posted already.

Mine is not so dramatic, more of a slow burner. I started on euphonium and from about 13yo was taking lessons with a top professional euph player. We spent a lot of time on sound, technique and musicality. I don‘t recall ever talking about embouchure, much more about breathing. I added Tuba about 15yo and trombone about 17yo. By the age of 18 I‘d got ABRSM grade 8 on all three but would later realise I was in fact very much in the stage of fake it till you make it.

I continued to get by and could play decently in various groups, even with many paid gigs until I joined a local village band about 6 years ago. Overall the standard of the band was below what I was used to and I thought I would mainly enjoy the social aspects but it turned out the conductor was an excellent trombonist and educator. I learned about many things I‘d basically been doing wrong (but compensating for) over the previous decades, even simple stuff like making full use of the slide for fine-tuning rather than lips and some basic tone production stuff. This was backed up with a handful of online lessons with an embouchure specialist and others, plus a lot of hard work at home during the lockdown.

Now I’m in a comfortable place with my playing, I can play anything I come across in the symphonic, brass band, symphonic wind and polka band worlds and adapt sound and general playing approach to fit into the section/ensemble pretty well. My embouchure is efficient and flexible enough to play several hours doubling between Tenorhorn/1st Trombone parts in polka band or trebling between tenor trombone, alto trombone and euphonium in a 10-piece brass ensemble. Minimising the amount of lipping the intonation was a key part to improving my sound and stamina, along with some changes to embouchure mechanics. Within a day or two of practice I can play a respectable level of tuba and bass trombone so the improved upper part playing is not at the expense of the low stuff.

That’s not to say I don’t want to improve though, my next focus items are to open up my sound in the upper range (I want to play the slow movement from the Mozart Concerto later in the year) and to work up 30 mins worth of recital material to as good a standard as I can.

[Ramhorn]

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[Ramhorn]

A small piece of my journey. I had played in school, majored in music for awhile, moved on to something else but kept playing in bands. Then I was a car wreck and came out with a left frontal traumatic brain injury. I had lots of problems speaking and reading books. I kept practicing my horn with exercises and fooling around, so my lip was in shape. I was called by the Union to play a July 4th gig. The director called up the first march, I opened the book, and realized I didn’t know what the key signature was, the time signature, or the notes. Luckily he counted off the piece before I panicked and I found if I just played without thinking, I could play perfectly well. So, wherever music resides in the brain is not in the area I injured. Dealing with this injury has been fascinating in a way.

That is fascinating and scary. Amazing resiliency.

[imsevimse]

Interesting reading from all.

/Tom

[SamTheTrombonist]

I stared in with grade sucked
Sixth grade I met a girl that I really liked that played trombone so then I had motivation to get better (I was a HUGE simp)
Seventh grade somehow me and her are still friends and enjoy playing together to this day