Embouchure mechanics certificates?

[Doug Elliott]

I came across this video while wanting to reply to a different thread.

Three great trumpet players, all three different embouchure types - I'm pretty sure.

[Enelson]

Red Nichols IIIA, Pete Condoli IIIB, Al Hirt IV?

[Redthunder]

Red Nichols IIIA, Pete Condoli IIIB, Al Hirt IV?

Switch types for Red Nichols and Al Hirt.

[Enelson]

OK! My first reaction to Red Nichols was a IV, but I got confused by Hirt’s beard... Thought he was pivoting down to ascend and got fooled by his horn angle.

Can we say that Hirt’s tone is a typical, bright IIIA tone? He had a wonderful sound his whole career.

[imsevimse]

I'm not sure who is who but I think the order is like this.

The first: Red Nicols? is "High placement" player, looks to be downstream but the angle is up most of the time, or perhaps stright out.

The second: Pete Candoli? is"Very high placement" player, downstream, looks to push up to ascend

The third: Al hurt? is a "Very Low placement" player, definitely upstream.

/Tom

[Doug Elliott]

On the first one, Red Nichols, I realize you can't quite see his mouthpiece placement, but everything about his "look" and playing tells me he's upstream. Pete Candoli is definitely IIIA, and Al Hirt appears to be IIIB. His angle is high but some IIIB's are like that, almost looking like upstream but it's not. I haven't studied his chops so I could be wrong, need to watch other videos.

[Enelson]

I love Al’s typically fat IIIB sound.

[PaulTdot]

Dave (Wilktone) linked me to this thread and finally got me to sign up to this forum. (I was "Paul T." on the Trombone Forum, the Trumpet Herald, and other places.)

This has been a great thread: thanks to Wilktone for leading a thoughtful discussion and illustrating with examples! (Although, aside from the low horn angle - and the mouthpiece shank being bent to accomodate - I don't see anything strange about that last trumpet player. Looks like a pretty normal very high placement/IIIA to me.)

I agree that an "embouchure mechanics certificate" isn't in any way a practical idea, but that, ideally, anyone teaching brass should be far better informed than the majority of brass teachers are these days.

As to the three trumpet players posted above, I would guess that Red NIchols is a low placement (IV), but, with the other two, I'm not so sure. Pete Candoli could be IIIA or IIIB (I can't quite tell from this clip), and for Al Hirt I would have guessed low placement/IV, but it's hard to see with all that facial hair!

[JesusVicente]

Hi, I would appreciate it very much if you can share me your opinions about this student of mine. I already have an idea about it, but I'd like to read your thoughts.

- Its sound on middle G usually breaks, even if he is playing a perfect staccato on the rest of notes. On that note he uses both lips (as in first tuba video).
- He tried to keep upstream (I told him to move a bit down the mouthpiece on high register instead of changing to downstream). He was a bit uncomfortable, but I heard a plentier sound.
- He told me if he always play upstream, his flexibility will improve. Nevertheless, he feels more secure so far if he changes to downstream on high register.



Thanks!

[AndrewMeronek]

Are you *sure* he's playing upstream in the low register? I find it hard to tell from that mouthpiece, although looking at the low Bb that he plays super briefly, even though I can see the lower lip vibrating, it's not clear if it's in front of the upper lip. It would help if he held a long note longer and did true slurs.

My initial impression is that he's moving via Doug's 2nd type: downstream, moves down to ascend.

[Doug Elliott]

I see what he's doing but I don't think it's possible to tell from that what he *should* be doing.
That is a case where I would take a different approach to start. It's a little too involved to discuss in writing.. requires some trial and error testing to come to any sort of valid conclusion

[Wilktone]

I'm glad to see there's still some interest in this topic. I will see about posting some more video later for folks to check out.

FYI, the unusual feature about the last trumpet player I posted a while back was the horn angle, which is lower than most "very high placement" embouchure types.

Dave