Playing efficiently

[JeffBone44]

I hear a lot of talk about playing efficiently. That certainly sounds like the ideal way to play, but what does that mean to you? To me it means being relaxed, getting rid of as much tension in the body as possible, using a moderate amount of mouthpiece pressure, and not overblowing. I'm finding that when I'm playing efficiently, the more relaxed and easy I blow the air through the horn, the better it sounds, and the easier everything is. It eliminates blowback in the lower register, especially. Finally, I would say that good posture is very important, and to avoid any unnecessary extra movements with your body. I've had a tendency to raise, or shrug, my shoulders when breathing and playing in the outer positions, so I've been mindful to try to stop that recently.

What else am I missing here? I guess what I've been trying to do over the past year is to eliminate all of the counterproductive things I do while playing the trombone. Anything that you can add would be quite helpful to me.

[baileyman]

For me it's a set that feels like it takes no effort, and it's not doing anything effortful to get to different ranges (though it may move around a bit to get to different ranges, still, without that powerlifting feel).

[VJOFan]

See everything Harrisonreed says in this thread
viewtopic.php?t=30697

He gets a little militant about the idea that the horn vibrates the lips or that the lips are vibrating because of the vibrations in the horn (I haven't quite got a handle on the exact argument), but his thoughts make clear an important brass playing principal: a tube wants certain things.

If you don't fight the things that the tube you are playing likes best, you will feel efficient. Those things include frequency, air pressure and air volume.

[JeffBone44]

On the bass trombone especially, I'm finding that if I really back off on the air pressure, and blow incredibly slow and easy, especially while using the valves, the sound just pops out really easily. In a way it's the opposite of what I was always told, that in order to play the trombone properly you need to use a ton of air. Well you do, but not really. The instrument accepts a lot of air, but at low pressure, and that's what I'm learning. That's also why I struggle while playing trombone in ensembles sometimes, because I'm using a higher pressure than what the horn will tolerate. It's what I'm working on changing, and when I can do it right, I get great results.

[WilliamLang]

I find that it's using the minimum possible musculature/tension for the maximum result, especially in the classical world, where relaxed resonance can be seen as one of the main keys to the orchestral/operatic sound world.

[imsevimse]

I hear a lot of talk about playing efficiently. That certainly sounds like the ideal way to play, but what does that mean to you? To me it means being relaxed, getting rid of as much tension in the body as possible, using a moderate amount of mouthpiece pressure, and not overblowing. I'm finding that when I'm playing efficiently, the more relaxed and easy I blow the air through the horn, the better it sounds, and the easier everything is. It eliminates blowback in the lower register, especially. Finally, I would say that good posture is very important, and to avoid any unnecessary extra movements with your body. I've had a tendency to raise, or shrug, my shoulders when breathing and playing in the outer positions, so I've been mindful to try to stop that recently.

What else am I missing here? I guess what I've been trying to do over the past year is to eliminate all of the counterproductive things I do while playing the trombone. Anything that you can add would be quite helpful to me.

This is also what I think of as efficient playing.

One special thing (for me) that means to play efficiently is to have the support (not the same as lots of pressure) on the upper lip This is to remember me of what I think enables me to free the jaw and bottom lip and therefore helps me to get a relaxed sound on any equipment I play. It helps me adjust very fast to any mouthpiece. It gives me the flexibility I need and is a big part of beeing efficient to me.

Another thing is I need the feeling of "no work" to be in my lips. This means I can not feel my lips vibrating, they just do, and it is a rather effortless feeling. That is efficient

Another thing more abstract is "as small movements as possible" to succeed with the "maximum and best effect" of anything you want to do. No unnecessary moves in the embouchure and no unnecessary tensions or muscle work

/Tom

[Posaunus]

On the bass trombone especially, I'm finding that if I really back off on the air pressure, and blow incredibly slow and easy, especially while using the valves, the sound just pops out really easily. In a way it's the opposite of what I was always told, that in order to play the trombone properly you need to use a ton of air. Well you do, but not really. The instrument accepts a lot of air, but at low pressure, and that's what I'm learning. That's also why I struggle while playing trombone in ensembles sometimes, because I'm using a higher pressure than what the horn will tolerate. It's what I'm working on changing, and when I can do it right, I get great results.

If you think you're trying to push too much air through a (any) trombone, try playing a sackbut.
Takes about 1/3 as much air/pressure!

[harrisonreed]

The resonator/amplifier thread aside, I feel that efficient playing hinges heavily on how you use your tongue to shape the air, and the tongue is the missing link for many players seeking to be more efficient and effective. You can think of brass playing as a balancing act between the flow of air from your body, the resistance it meets from your tongue, the shape of your lip aperture, and the feedback/compression/slot from the horn. Teachers will go on and on about "big air" -- they are totally right. But that big air can be shaped into a variety of directions and flow rates just by using the shape of the tongue, especially the back of the tongue.

With that in mind, efficient playing is:

1. Having "big air" in the tank. It's not about how fast it's leaving your lungs, but more about the pressure it can push against everything in the system that comes after it. After all, we can empty our lungs through the trombone in about a second if we aren't actually playing a note.

2. Controlling the flow rate and air speed with the tongue. Think about how the volume of air changes with a "Toh" shape vs a "Tee" shape. With "Toh, the flow is slow, but the volume is large. With "Tee" the rate is high but the volume is low. You need both, and everything in between. If you are trying to playing the upper register with an open tongue position, you'll end up using your face aperture to control the flow rate instead, which is very inefficient.

3. The embouchure aperture sits between opposing forces. Let's assume you already have started the note you want to play.** You have the psi from the lungs and the volume and flow rate determined by the tongue, pushing towards the aperture. On the other side is the air in the trombone, vibrating with the pitch. Efficient playing is getting the lips to vibrate in sync with the vibrations that the horn wants to slot at, using the air rate/flow/direction from behind the lips to control the how the air in the horn compresses, and using the least amount of muscular effort to hold the aperture in that equilibrium. Inefficiencies come in when you are using facial muscles to control the air flow rate, or trying to "lip" pitches by holding the aperture in a position that the horn isn't actually vibrating at.

4. Equipment can be important, if you are doing the above 1-3 efficiently. The mouthpiece size might make it easier or harder for your muscles to hold and shape the aperture. The throat size may change what your body has to do to get the right flow and speed of air (for me, a large throat means I can use my tongue to shape the flow more). The leadpipe and trombone build in general will change how the whole thing vibrates and pushes on your lips. But it's tricky. I think people change out equipment sometimes without really understanding 1-3 above. Different equipment will still affect those things, but they might not understand why, or what is going on.

The real trick though, is coordinating all those things, 1-3, all at the same time, into a system (4) that you know in and out. That is brass playing. See ** above

[baileyman]

It's funny how tongue tuning the notes can evolve over time. The "big air" rhetoric early on convinced me to use big mouth volume. What a dead end that is. Later, last few years, I learned how to flip partials around effortlessly by tuning them with the tongue selecting partials by changing mouth volumes. This has been totally mind blowing. (If I were a teacher I would have every beginner learn to get back and forth between Bb and F partials using their tongue until they sounded like a buzz saw. By then they'd be a monster everywhere else, too.)

But lately the mouth volumes are getting much smaller and more forward. Where this really shows up is in two places. One is trilling lows and pedals. My set wants way more volume for a pedal than the low above. It's the relative change in volume that matters, though, not absolute, since the volume depends on the "tension" in the rest of the set. Looser set, smaller volume. So the low trill wants loose set and small volume on low Bb, say, then rapid volume expansion at same loose set to get the pedal, and reverse. For every set "tension" there is a mouth volume to tune a pedal. The problem is that the required mouth volume at that "tension" may exceed mouth capacity. So a "looser" set is required that works for both notes accessed by volume change. (It may be my anatomy that poops out on pedal F in this scheme. I can't find enough volume to make it pop. Oh well.)

The second place is doodling. I found after many recent years that the doodle with a biggish mouth volume is likely to get bound up, as if the mechanism is banging against itself somehow. There's a conflict in that set. It's been frustrating trying to get it to smooth out. But Carl Fontana to the rescue.

He said, when teaching people about doodling, if it wouldn't come out right, he would have them do it on the piece. Well, it feels to me to make it work on the piece forces the mouth volume small and forward. Alternating piece and horn identically convinces me that's also the way it works on the horn. For me of course. So when he says, he does no warmup, just makes sure the slurs work and the mouthpiece gets up to temperature, I think he means it. It's not a joke or brag. The efficient or tuned set is ready to go right away.

From there partial changes work just the same, with a change in mouth volume, but now it's way forward and the changes are quite small. And the same applies on the "dle", especially ascending, which takes some experimentation. For years I thought it impossible, but now I know.

[calcbone]

On the bass trombone especially, I'm finding that if I really back off on the air pressure, and blow incredibly slow and easy, especially while using the valves, the sound just pops out really easily. In a way it's the opposite of what I was always told, that in order to play the trombone properly you need to use a ton of air. Well you do, but not really. The instrument accepts a lot of air, but at low pressure, and that's what I'm learning. That's also why I struggle while playing trombone in ensembles sometimes, because I'm using a higher pressure than what the horn will tolerate. It's what I'm working on changing, and when I can do it right, I get great results.

Tom already posted a +1 to this, so I’ll make it +2. What you’re saying here is basically the most important stuff I learned from my one year studying with Mike Becker in grad school. Even in the times that I haven’t picked up the horn in a while, if I remember to do these key things, I can be mostly back up to speed in a matter of a few days.

And, in times where I do practice most every day (as I have been lately), I still can’t neglect them and have to constantly remind myself—especially as I switch horns and have to recalibrate my grip and playing position slightly to remove the tension due to the different weight distribution of say, my Bach 8 without a counterweight, versus my 50A3.

[timothy42b]

It's funny how tongue tuning the notes can evolve over time. The "big air" rhetoric early on convinced me to use big mouth volume. What a dead end that is. Later, last few years, I learned how to flip partials around effortlessly by tuning them with the tongue selecting partials by changing mouth volumes. This has been totally mind blowing. (If I were a teacher I would have every beginner learn to get back and forth between Bb and F partials using their tongue until they sounded like a buzz saw. By then they'd be a monster everywhere else, too.)

2. Controlling the flow rate and air speed with the tongue. Think about how the volume of air changes with a "Toh" shape vs a "Tee" shape. With "Toh, the flow is slow, but the volume is large. With "Tee" the rate is high but the volume is low. You need both, and everything in between.

Second quote is Harrison.

There seem to be three interpretations about why tongue tuning works but agreement that it does.

At Dave Wilken's Reinhardt hang this week Doug demonstrated buzzing from low Bb to double Bb keeping the lips constant and tuning the mouth cavity with tongue (and possibly throat if the MRI stuff is correct, but that leads down a rabbit hole.) This showed me another way to practice it - I've been attempting to learn this but it's a challenge.

It also suggests a different method of using the free buzz in practice. Warning, thinking out loud again. If you lock in the pitch with your buzz, you can force that note onto any position. Maybe those who've had bad results from too much buzzing are doing that, and maybe it even teaches strength. But using a buzz like Doug demonstrated should do the opposite. It should train your buzz to follow the mouth resonance (if that's what's happening) and therefore also follow the horn resonance in the center of the slot. Maybe. Who knows?

[Doug Elliott]

Efficiency is about coordinating ALL of those things so they agree.

[boneagain]

Efficiency is about coordinating ALL of those things so they agree.

Now THAT was efficient!

[Savio]

Dave! You are still here! Good! I'm probably less and less of an expert on everything. But still have some thoughts. Had a teacher who had a crazy good legato. She told all movements, slide, tongue, air, lips must happen together with the music. Let the music decide, or use a metronome to practice. But not in the same way that these "Star Wars" droids move. You know those droids that always say "roger, roger." (new Star Wars movie coming soon)

Think it's the same as Doug is saying? He said it more effectively yes. But efficiency is also about using as little effort as possible to move. So one way is to get older faster because then you have to think more about this.. it's actually not that stupid, think about making the least possible movements to make music. Don't have to do so much to make some sounds....

Leif

[boneagain]

Dave! You are still here! Good! I'm probably less and less of an expert on everything. But still have some thoughts. Had a teacher who had a crazy good legato. She told all movements, slide, tongue, air, lips must happen together with the music. Let the music decide, or use a metronome to practice. But not in the same way that these "Star Wars" droids move. You know those droids that always say "roger, roger." (new Star Wars movie coming soon)

Think it's the same as Doug is saying? He said it more effectively yes. But efficiency is also about using as little effort as possible to move. So one way is to get older faster because then you have to think more about this.. it's actually not that stupid, think about making the least possible movements to make music. Don't have to do so much to make some sounds....

Leif

Hi Leif!
Yes, still alive and kicking
I agree with what you say.

Reminds me of words from management guru Peter Drucker:
Efficiency is doing things right.
Effectiveness is doing the right thing.

His point: makes no difference how efficient you are if you are doing the wrong things

The beauty of Doug's statement is that by including "... ALL those things so they agree..." he pretty much covers BOTH efficiency AND effectiveness.

And SO briefly!

Nice hearing from you!

Dave

[harrisonreed]

You can't just say "Do all the things" without the context of the rest of this conversation, though. If Doug had kicked off with "do all the things all at once" you would have no idea what he was talking about.

The real trick though, is coordinating all those things, 1-3, all at the same time, into a system (4) that you know in and out. That is brass playing. See ** above

[boneagain]

You can't just say "Do all the things" without the context of the rest of this conversation, though. If Doug had kicked off with "do all the things all at once" you would have no idea what he was talking about.

The real trick though, is coordinating all those things, 1-3, all at the same time, into a system (4) that you know in and out. That is brass playing. See ** above

Fair point.

But this whole thread brings two more quotes to mind:

"Tongue and blow kid; ya follow or not?"
John Coffey

"Sempre simpiice"
Michael Mulcahy

Looking over the excellent comments I think, "Oh, but there's this.... and that..."

Then I think about Coffey and Mulcahy and realize that, ultimately, it's more about woodshedding the details into the muscle memory background. Doug's statement covers not just the thread, really, but ALL the minutiae that can drag us away from simple playing.

But I DO recognize there are many ways to reach the Goldilocks "this one is just right" of trombone playing.

[Doug Elliott]

You can't just say "Do all the things" without the context of the rest of this conversation, though. If Doug had kicked off with "do all the things all at once" you would have no idea what he was talking about.

The real trick though, is coordinating all those things, 1-3, all at the same time, into a system (4) that you know in and out. That is brass playing. See ** above

What I ACTUALLY I said was "Efficiency is about coordinating ALL of those things so they agree."

By saying "those" I was including "the context of the rest of this conversation," or more specifically the the immediately preceding post(s).

I prefer to be concise... precise... and efficient.

[Wilktone]

What makes for efficient trombone playing? A lot of us are responding with whatever concept or approach happened to click for us at the right time.

If you happened to have most elements of your technique in place but needed some adjustments to your tongue arch, for example, you might respond that the level of the tongue is the key to efficient playing. If instructions on breathing happened to be what push you over your hump then you'll focus on breathing as vital. If you happened to be overblowing then thinking about not moving so much air will click. If you're under supporting the air then moving large amounts of air will feel like the key. You get the idea.

The reductionist approach often suggested (e.g., keep it simple) is possible when enough of the elements of playing technique are already in place. If that helps a musician find the right balance between them, then they might respond that the key to efficient playing is this mental concept.

I also would consider how much the feeling of "efficiency" relies on practice and training, rather than what's physically happening when the musician plays. An athlete might have the feeling of lifting heavy weights efficiently after years of strength training while someone new to lifting weights might feel like it's too much effort. I think there's something similar that goes on with trombone playing.

Dave

[baileyman]

...
There seem to be three interpretations about why tongue tuning works but agreement that it does.
...

As in many things trombone, it seems always worthwhile to append "it appears to me" or "for me" or "in my experience" to any opinion on how things work. I'm pretty sure we are all only dealing with one physics, but how to describe how it works is like the blind feeling the elephant. There is likely validity to most all the opinions, where finding it requires translation. Some speak analytically as an engineer. Others speak metaphorically.

On the other hand, when someone who does something says this thing can be done, people should try it.

[timothy42b]

One measurement of efficiency might be how little air you use to play a phrase, or how long a phrase you can play on the same amount of air, given the same dynamics of course.

Maybe?

[imsevimse]

One measurement of efficiency might be how little air you use to play a phrase, or how long a phrase you can play on the same amount of air, given the same dynamics of course.

Maybe?

Yes, that's a good one Big topic, and interesting. Many individual opinions about efficiency here. What is mentioned depends where you are coming from. I think in general to find us a good teacher is what will be most efficient, especially when we start. To start without good help will not be very efficient.

Another thing that helps to be efficient is to learn the alternate positions and then discover where it is most efficient to use them. They do make life easier once you've learned them and know them by heart as well as the original positions. To discover all notes on six and seventh positions helps a lot.

To use a loose grip on the slide and not to stop for every note helps the emboushure to remain efficient in fast plaing. If you stop on every note with a hard grip it will create force that will push back and disturb the emboushure and the playing will then be inefficient.

/Tom

[stevenvortigern]

I agree with Doug that efficiency comes with coordination. My theory is that its the tongue, and the positioning of every other muscle that effects the shape of the space that air travels through- lips, mouth cavity, throat, abdomen, back, torso, shoulders, neck. This is too much to consciously be aware of, so efficiency comes through our unconscious mind learning through repeated good practice just how to translate our mental idea of the sound we want into a good coordinated set of muscle positions and tonguing practices to get the beautiful tone we intend coming out the bell. Its efficient because when everything is coordinated, and your body is shaped just right to resonate sympathetically with the horn, you can play a given volume using the ideal amount of air, no more or no less than is required to match your minds idea. When coordination is good, it just feels easier to do everything. The expectation of effortlessness that comes through good practice can also be mentally efficient because lack of mental tension over-clocks the supercomputer that is the unconscious mind into getting the interpretation of sound image and required muscular coordination impeccably in sync.

I think you can really see efficiency at work in how good of a tone you can get on low Eb to low B (in regular unextended 3rd through 7th position) without triggers. On real notes, the horn is a big helper that allows us to play nice sounds with a lot of wiggle room in the coordination. We can still get a decent tone even if coordination is sub-optimal. On these false tones, everything needs to be a lot closer to just right to get a decent sound.

[Doug Elliott]

your body is shaped just right to resonate sympathetically with the horn

That's like Harrison's "Efficient playing is getting the lips to vibrate in sync with the vibrations that the horn wants to slot at"

I think those descriptions pretty much say that the horn plays you... I guess some people feel it that way.

I prefer to think of it, and feel as if, I'm playing the horn and telling it what to do. Not that the horn is telling me what to do. Of course you have to give the horn what it wants, and that's a little different adjustment for each instrument.

The horn resonates sympathetically with me and what I'm giving it.

[imsevimse]

I think you can really see efficiency at work in how good of a tone you can get on low Eb to low B (in regular unextended 3rd through 7th position) without triggers. On real notes, the horn is a big helper that allows us to play nice sounds with a lot of wiggle room in the coordination. We can still get a decent tone even if coordination is sub-optimal. On these false tones, everything needs to be a lot closer to just right to get a decent sound.

Yes, the false tones reveals if you have an efficient setting to play THEM and possibly you will be more efficient when you then press the trigger and play them as real notes. I think they have helped me a lot, but they can be practiced many ways. Since I've done a lot of practice on the false notes I want to add that they should be practiced with different articulations, short and long, soft and loud. Concentrate to get a good sound, as good as a normal note and not just settle with pitch and any sound. Practice them In every possible musical way and then I believe they can contribute the most to the real thing. Yes, it's hard at first and you might think it's impossible, but if you settle with less then you practice them as noice and then they will remain noice and it will be something else than efficiency, may help to warm up and free things up but they will not help to play the real notes efficient. They must sound good to sharpen efficiency on the real notes (my belief)
Can they be that good? They can be as good as the trigger notes and possibly even better since they are more open (no trigger involved ). I learned them one position out from the octave so on 1:st you have the Gb and on 7:th you have the C. The B can be found at a slight raised regular 6:th position and that is from a different series of notes on the horn (don't ask me how that works I just do as told ) or you could bend the C down to B on the 7'th (but IMO then you are actually practice bending a false note). I learned to play the false notes on these positions from a now retired old school professional bass trombone player who made his career on a single bass and who could use these notes just as easy as the regular notes, without anybody notice a difference from his normal notes. In the early 80'ies he was the first call bass trombone player in Sweden in any style, commercial or classical on a single valve bass.

your body is shaped just right to resonate sympathetically with the horn

That's like Harrison's "Efficient playing is getting the lips to vibrate in sync with the vibrations that the horn wants to slot at"

I think those descriptions pretty much say that the horn plays you... I guess some people feel it that way.

I prefer to think of it, and feel as if, I'm playing the horn and telling it what to do. Not that the horn is telling me what to do. Of course you have to give the horn what it wants, and that's a little different adjustment for each instrument.

The horn resonates sympathetically with me and what I'm giving it.

Yes, I agree. When I play then I'm leading the horn and the horn is not in charge. To adjust to the equipment is another thing (for me). I have the feeling I adjust and do changes to switch to the different mouthpieces as well as to difference of horns. The vibration in the lips isn't something that feel different on other mouthpieces but the contact feels different. When it comes to a switch to another horn. I can let the character of the new horn color the sound and make that influence the rest of my playing, or I can compensate for the difference in character. Practically this means that If the horn wants to sound darker I can let it be darker or I can lighten it up willingly just to think of a lighter sound or I can compensate with a mouthpiece switch to help that happen. I usually just go with the character of the horn.
If anyone change horn and want the new horn to sound just as the horn they come from, then why change horn? The exception to this is if the horn is worn out. I guess it could be an understandable reason in this case to find another horn just to be like the one you are comning from. To change a horn to get a "better" horn? What does that really mean? I'm the one who make my horn sound good AND bad and nothing is for free. Everything that's going to be a success is about efficiency and nothing in my playing technique is about trusting in luck.

/Tom

[JeffBone44]

Lots of great information here, thank you. It's a lot to read through and understand all of it.

One thing I became aware of while playing in both orchestra and big band earlier this week is that when I attempted playing a difficult passage, my lower right arm and hand tensed up a lot and became really stiff. Once I became aware of that, when playing the same passage again in rehearsal, it was a lot easier when I relaxed those areas.

Also, when playing jazz solos, sometimes I have a tendency to play too loud, but I probably don't have to. If I just play at mezzo forte, I'll probably be heard just fine, and it's a lot easier to play cleanly and accurately at the lower volume.

The problem is that when I remember one thing, I usually forget something else that I need to do. As Doug said, playing efficiently is really about coordinating all different aspects of my physiology together.

[boneagain]

One measurement of efficiency might be how little air you use to play a phrase, or how long a phrase you can play on the same amount of air, given the same dynamics of course.

Maybe?

Ah... be careful what you wish for... you might just get it!

I HOPE we are discussing making music efficiently. If so, metering the amount of air per phrase COULD result in a quite unpleasant sound, yet rate highly on efficiency!

1) the timbre could suffer from UNDER supply of air;
2) the flow could suffer from inefficient slide and other motions;
3) sync with the rest of the group could suffer...
etc.

I like Harrison's description of how complex the process is.

In this kind of system, balance will be the key.

I am skeptical that we could come up with a metric that would not emphasize one bit over others, and end with the quest for efficiency degrading the whole system.

But I AM enjoying ALL the posts in this thread!!

Dave

[imsevimse]

One measurement of efficiency might be how little air you use to play a phrase, or how long a phrase you can play on the same amount of air, given the same dynamics of course.

Maybe?

Ah... be careful what you wish for... you might just get it!

I HOPE we are discussing making music efficiently. If so, metering the amount of air per phrase COULD result in a quite unpleasant sound, yet rate highly on efficiency!

1) the timbre could suffer from UNDER supply of air;
2) the flow could suffer from inefficient slide and other motions;
3) sync with the rest of the group could suffer...
etc.

I like Harrison's description of how complex the process is.

In this kind of system, balance will be the key.

I am skeptical that we could come up with a metric that would not emphasize one bit over others, and end with the quest for efficiency degrading the whole system.

But I AM enjoying ALL the posts in this thread!!

Dave

It's a way of pracice that could lead to more sound with less air and thus more efficient playing, naturally sound must be as good as possible. You could play the music with less volume and be able to do longer phrases. If you've practiced the Bach Cello suites you know what I'm talking about.

/Tom

[timothy42b]

It's funny how tongue tuning the notes can evolve over time. The "big air" rhetoric early on convinced me to use big mouth volume. What a dead end that is. Later, last few years, I learned how to flip partials around effortlessly by tuning them with the tongue selecting partials by changing mouth volumes.

Tongue tuning or mouth resonance is something that has been talked about more recently; I don't recall much if any discussion from long ago. Reinhardt did talk about it in the Encyclopedia. I have Farkas somewhere but couldn't lay my hands on it this morning; I think he talked mostly lip tension and air.

I came across a couple things that seem related:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... hypothesis,(Henrywood%20RH%2C%20Agarwal%20A.

That is an interesting article on the physics of whistling, which seems to be a Helmholtz resonator. But it also mentions contribution of the buccal space in the high range.

And this person is an expert whistler who thinks he can teach it. (I can make breathy sounds that vary in pitch, as I attempt to do the tounge tuning thing, but so far have not produced an actual whistle. But I am expanding my range.)


He believes the breathy sound is white noise, and the Helmholtz resonator filters out all but the note it is tuned to. (The implication here is that a helmholtz resonator should not have much harmonic content - but I think I here some.)

[timothy42b]

We do talk about vocal cavity in the sense of varying the vowel sound, with variations on Tah or Taw in the low range, Too in the middle, Tee or Tiss up high.

But I can sing a two octave scale on Ah. The idea that pitch should be included in the vowel had not occurred to me and I can't recall hearing it in any of those discussions.

[JeffBone44]

Had a lesson with Doug last week. There were many flaws in my mechanics that needed correction. My mouthpiece placement and sweet spot changed over the years. My pivot is now angled towards the right side for the most optimal sound in the mid to low register instead of the left. The most important thing is that I learned how to set my embouchure correctly even before putting the mouthpiece to my lips so that I'm more prepared to play. Good news is that after this, my sound has opened up a lot more and intonation is more accurate. Articulation and response is more immediate too. I'm not wasting as much air either, which is the name of the game in terms of playing efficiently. I'm also focusing on using muscles further from my bottom lips and this is helping too. This is just the first step, but I'm on a much better path now towards where I want to be.

I'm not sure what might have caused my embouchure/pivot direction to change, but a few years ago I had all four wisdom teeth pulled. My dentist explained this was necessary to do as they were pushing against other teeth and would have eventually caused bone loss. So perhaps after this the shape of my oral cavity and teeth may have changed over time as all of that settled into better position.

[timothy42b]

My pivot is now angled towards the right side for the most optimal sound in the mid to low register instead of the left.

It's kind of strange. Mine has changed too, or possibly I forgot what it was supposed to be and did it wrong, I dunno. But I have old notes from Doug that has me pulling down and left for low, and I'm convinced I ended up down and right after one of his lessons, but who knows? Memory is faulty.

After some struggles with my playing last year I took more lessons and carefully reviewed some of the earlier material trying to do it right this time, and I went back to down and left after some experimentation. The difference for me was quite small, as far as I could tell. But my low range had disappeared and has now mostly come back. I think due to a combination of mouth pitch and pivot, but also consistent low lip pressure and relaxed face above was needed to even attempt those track exercises in the staff.

[JeffBone44]

My pivot is now angled towards the right side for the most optimal sound in the mid to low register instead of the left.

It's kind of strange. Mine has changed too, or possibly I forgot what it was supposed to be and did it wrong, I dunno. But I have old notes from Doug that has me pulling down and left for low, and I'm convinced I ended up down and right after one of his lessons, but who knows? Memory is faulty.

After some struggles with my playing last year I took more lessons and carefully reviewed some of the earlier material trying to do it right this time, and I went back to down and left after some experimentation. The difference for me was quite small, as far as I could tell. But my low range had disappeared and has now mostly come back. I think due to a combination of mouth pitch and pivot, but also consistent low lip pressure and relaxed face above was needed to even attempt those track exercises in the staff.

In the bass trombone money range (low F to pedal Bb), I can play louder if I play my old way, pulling down and to the left on the pivot, but the sound isn't as resonant and open as if I pivot the new way, down and to the right. I think it's a matter of finding where that range centers the best on the right side. A few times in the past week I have found it and it was glorious. I'll get the hang of it pretty soon and the change will be worth it.

Doug is also having me practice my concert pieces, etudes and orchestral repertoire without using any tongue at all. Just glissing and natural lip slurs so that I can concentrate on connecting the registers together evenly and with minimal embouchure change.

[harrisonreed]

More food for thought, towards the end, on using the arch of the tongue to shape the air for the register we are playing in. Alessi likens it to whistling.

[baileyman]

Recent octave experience may be relevant. Previously I've found that a good octave slur down to pedals needs to start with a small mouth volume. So it goes, low Bb with small volume, large volume then pops the pedal Bb. Reverse is easier.

And previously, an octave slur to high Bb works well with a medium sort of volume and then the high shows up by moving to a small volume.

I interpret these two ranges as being near static "sets" that can be navigated by mouth volume. But what about navigating all four Bb's?

For that I find going up is ordinary for the low octave, but for the next, in order to be ready for the top octave, the middle octave motion is perverse. From low Bb with small volume the next octave needs a larger volume. The coordination is totally backwards. But it works, preparing for the top octave slur. I believe what happens with the perverse tongue movement octave slur is that the "set" must adjust to compensate for the tongue movement, and that adjustment is tuned to make the top octave slur.

Going down is similarly weird, as the low Bb needs a small volume so as to be able to open up and pop the pedal.

[tbdana]

A tremendous amount of content in this thread. Kudos to you all. I don't understand half of it. I guess I just play organically and have never thought about most of the stuff written here. And good thing, because knowing my brain I'd have been too busy obsessing about all that minutiae and would have completely screwed everything up. LOL!

I can play from low E (E2?) to double-Bb (Bb5?) and back down with the same "set" and just enough mouthpiece pressure to maintain an air seal, so I guess I must inherently be fairly efficient, even though I couldn't tell you what I do. Someone inspected my embouchure yesterday as I did arpeggios up and down between F2 to F5, and concluded that he couldn't really see any movement except a slight tightening of the corners, which he said was good. I don't think about sets, or pivots, or what resonates, or mouth cavity, or any of that. I just play. I guess I'm lucky that I was taught well. And even though I don't understand a lot of this, I find it very interesting. But I'm going to try not to think about it when I play or I'll surely mess up my embouchure completely. LOL!

Thank you and carry on! Very interesting.

[imsevimse]

A tremendous amount of content in this thread. Kudos to you all. I don't understand half of it. I guess I just play organically and have never thought about most of the stuff written here. And good thing, because knowing my brain I'd have been too busy obsessing about all that minutiae and would have completely screwed everything up. LOL!

I can play from low E (E2?) to double-Bb (Bb5?) and back down with the same "set" and just enough mouthpiece pressure to maintain an air seal, so I guess I must inherently be fairly efficient, even though I couldn't tell you what I do. Someone inspected my embouchure yesterday as I did arpeggios up and down between F2 to F5, and concluded that he couldn't really see any movement except a slight tightening of the corners, which he said was good. I don't think about sets, or pivots, or what resonates, or mouth cavity, or any of that. I just play. I guess I'm lucky that I was taught well. And even though I don't understand a lot of this, I find it very interesting. But I'm going to try not to think about it when I play or I'll surely mess up my embouchure completely. LOL!

Thank you and carry on! Very interesting.

I don't think it is efficient to think to much of the technical stuff when actually playing music. It must be practiced and when finally mastered then have trust and just do it.

/Tom

[Doug Elliott]

Exactly.
Read Ozzlefinch's last post in the thread "Reading is Fundamental"
The same applies here.
It's not that hard to learn about reading, music theory, AND the mechanics of playing. It's all the same thing. Knowledge gives you the power to be creative, spontaneous, and strong.

" It must be practiced and when finally mastered then have trust and just do it."

"Never tell anybody that they should stay ignorant because the knowledge is too hard to learn. That is utter, complete, and absolute nonsense and nobody will ever convince me otherwise."

[Ozzlefinch]

Exactly. We practice so we don't have to think when performing, we should "feel" the music. Practice is done to develop habits, and habits are done without thinking. If you are struggling while performing, then it's because your practicing was deficient in some area.


"Have trust and just do it". Wise words.

I was always told to play with confidence, but I didn't really understand that until recently. As it happens, there's no need to try to hide the fact that I played a wrong note because everybody heard me do it, so I might as well own it and move on. I found that more often than not, playing a bad note with confidence is sometimes the best way to hide the fact that I just made a mistake because most people will think I did it intentionally for "effect" or something. Playing timidly for fear of mistakes is probably the worst way to approach a performance.

[Kbiggs]

Exactly. We practice so we don't have to think when performing, we should "feel" the music. Practice is done to develop habits, and habits are done without thinking. If you are struggling while performing, then it's because your practicing was deficient in some area.


"Have trust and just do it". Wise words.

I was always told to play with confidence, but I didn't really understand that until recently. As it happens, there's no need to try to hide the fact that I played a wrong note because everybody heard me do it, so I might as well own it and move on. I found that more often than not, playing a bad note with confidence is sometimes the best way to hide the fact that I just made a mistake because most people will think I did it intentionally for "effect" or something. Playing timidly for fear of mistakes is probably the worst way to approach a performance.

^this^

Apologies in advance for the long post. I've (obviously) been thinking about this a lot lately:



Confidence can be difficult to acquire, though. Our minds will tell us something like, "Oh, you can't do that," even when we have played that lick as close to perfect as we can. Then what happens to the confidence? It's gone. Developing the habit--and yes, it's a mental habit that can be fragile at times--of "playing a bad note with confidence" is another skill to learn.

A friend/mentor gave a small lecture to a group once. He said, "Performance equals potential minus distraction."

Pe = Po-D

Pe = Performance: what happens at any moment during a performance

Po = Potential: what you are capable of doing, your ultimate potential, the best you are able to play (not perfect, and not the best ever as played by your hero, but your best)

D = Distraction: all the stuff that your mind wants to bring up that will distract you from your performance, like bills to pay, errands to run, deadlines to meet, what's for dinner, how did I miss that note when I practiced it a thousand times?, etc.

We can't control what happens in a performance, but we can do our best to control or ignore/put aside some distractions. We set up our chair and stand so we have enough room for the slide. We can wear appropriate concert dress, depending on the weather. We can practice and increase our potential, and thereby gain confidence. And some distractions we can control: I'll pay that bill tomorrow, or I'll pick up that loaf of bread on the way home.

The distractions I have the most difficulty with are self-judgmental thoughts like, "You're not a real musician because a real musician would do xyz, not abc," "Here comes that lick, the one you always screw up... and there, you did it again," "How did you make that mistake? That never happened in practice or rehearsal," etc. You get the picture.

I have to continually remind myself that those thoughts are not in my control--they'll pop into my head at any time--but I can control how I respond or react to them. If I panic in response, then I'm not in control. If I believe that negative thought, that I have no confidence, then my performance suffers. However, if I notice the thought, acknowledge that it's only a thought (probably fear-based), and then consciously put it aside and return to the music, that's one small building block of confidence. I might still chip a note, or play the wrong note, or whatever, but I can get back into the music more quickly and easily than if I mentally berate myself during a performance.

And sometimes, we just have to fake it until we make it. If that's the best I can do, well that too is a form of confidence.

[Doug Elliott]

We ALL go through that entire scenario every time we play.