Spot the Embouchure Issues and Guess the Crazy Fix

[PaulTdot]

From what I've seen, the majority of players do recede the jaw as they ascend...

The *best* players, however, do not, or push it forward. They have stronger and fuller upper registers and more consistent mechanics. (As Doug says, what a player does is not necessarily what's best for them.)

It can be hard to tell with a Medium High Placement/IIIB, though, especially if their horn angle is relatively low. I can't see why they wouldn't benefit from solidifying their jaw support.

Mind you, this is anecdotal - I don't have any kind of solid evidence for this.

[harrisonreed]

I do it to as I ascend to angle my aperture down, towards the edge of the rim. The cup shoots the air at different speeds into the bore depending on the angle you direct it in. For pedals, it is going towards the bore, towards the throat of the mouthpiece. This gives you more volume of air at a slower rate. For the upper register, a smaller volume of air is going in towards the edge of the cup, very fast. It hits this edge and shoots in to the bore very fast.

This is why shallow mouthpieces are easier to play in the upper register -- the target near the edge of the cup is a lot bigger, and you don't need to angle it as much.

If you are a high placement downstream player, it makes little sense to push your jaw forward as you ascent, as this angles the aperture towards the bore, just like for the pedal register. In fact, for players like me, before I had the right sized mouthpiece, my jaw would have to come so far forward for pedals that I would go to upstream playing for that register. The reason being, no matter what size rim I use, where I put the mouthpiece for me is based on the same spot on the upper lip. The smaller the mouthpiece, the higher up the bore goes in relation to my aperture. To the point where I can't hit my air close enough to the bore to play a pedal on a 5G without flopping my embouchure type.

[PaulTdot]

Yeah, that's exactly what the players who did it in reverse do. I used to do this, too.

I no longer think it's a great approach. (At least, for me, it's clearly inferior to the alternative.)

[Basbasun]

"The *best* players, however, do not, or push it forward."

Who are those best players?
I know some good players who do push it forward. Not to many. I know many best players where you can´t see any difference in horn angle. You can maybe ask them what they do, you may not get an answer.
Som "best" players do exactly what harrisonred does. I am not talking about what is correct to do, I am talking about what Donald wrote.

[harrisonreed]

Yeah, I'm sorry. It makes no sense. Why would you go against the embouchure, fight nature and physics, and blow towards the bore of the instrument in the upper register? Are you sure you just didn't mistake their embouchure type? I'm not confident in my ability to identify it even in a clear cut embouchure like Wilktone's.

Here's a pretty good example of a downstream player, at 2:24, moving the jaw forward and down for the low register, and the jaw back and up for the upper register, the opposite of what you describe. It is not a drastic movement, but it is very obvious:

[Basbasun]

Well, I say yes of course. J Allesi is a fantstic player. As a typically downstream player he behaves like a typcally down stream player. Why wouldn´t he?


What I like to see one of those "best players" that does the opposite.

[Wilktone]

I think we can agree that different players do things differently, and sometimes that is correct for the individual and sometimes it's in spite of what they should be doing (that was part of the point of me starting this topic in the first place).

Harrison, I don't think you can tell an individual's embouchure type by their jaw position. I don't think that we can tell what a player's jaw is doing by horn angle either. Jaw manipulation should probably be minimal and when it's working well it's often difficult to see it unless we're looking at very large interval changes.

The reason we went off on this particular tangent had to do with the idea that the jaw movement is what "controls the [embouchure motion]." Or maybe that particular reference was intended to mean the jaw movement "controls the [horn angle]." Harrison will need to clarify what he meant, because I want to avoid the term he used in order to be fully clear about what I'm talking about in this discussion.

[Wilktone]

What I like to see one of those "best players" that does the opposite.

If I did this right the following embedded video should start right on a downstream player that brings his jaw slightly forward to play higher. He's no Alessi, but he was a pretty excellent trombonist.

[Basbasun]

How about if we agree on trying to avoid the upstrea-downstream vocabulary? It is silly and makes missunderatndings. Alessi does place his mpc high on his mouth. Many players don´t change the angle as it shows, but he does. And it is natural for him.

Why do I react? Because there is a not so uncommon missunderstanding that just popped up.

[Wilktone]

How about if we agree on trying to avoid the upstrea-downstream vocabulary? It is silly and makes missunderatndings.

I would argue it's not silly and certainly very relevant to the discussion at hand. You're correct, it's often misunderstood so we could discuss them in terms of more upper lip inside or more lower lip inside.

The specific term I'm trying to avoid here is "pivot" because some people will use that term to mean how the horn angle is changing and others will mean the way the mouthpiece and lips slide along the teeth. Again, this is relevant to embouchure technique and I feel worth discussing.

What did you think of the Watrous video clip?

[Basbasun]

Well I think Bill W is a very good exampel of somebody who is not a typically player. I meet both Alessi and Bill and did talk about playing with both of them. They are nice people and fantastic players. I think it is good ides to watch Bill clinic,

[Basbasun]

Here is a player who do raise hi trombone angle for higher tones.

[Wilktone]

Here is a player who do raise hi trombone angle for higher tones.

Nice find, I haven't seen that video before. Bollinger is a player with the same embouchure type as me (more lower lip inside). Upside down of Watrous, who has more upper lip inside.

So can we agree that horn angle/jaw position isn't a good indicator of embouchure type?

[ithinknot]

If I did this right the following embedded video should start right on a downstream player that brings his jaw slightly forward to play higher. He's no Alessi, but he was a pretty excellent trombonist.

https://youtu.be/CoxnhjLMVBo?t=383

The Leno videos are great.

Full disclosure - I'm a pretty lousy player in many respects, but I think I understand the following:

I'm also a IIIA, and the Bb4-Bb5 gliss looks and feels exactly like the Watrous clip - the jaw comes very slightly forward. I think it's important to note that we're only dealing with the extreme high register here - his jaw looks very neutral beginning on Bb4, and personally I'd say I feel the slight jaw engagement begin only after perhaps D5.

Actually, I don't think that this is 'to do with the jaw' per se. If I exaggerate, encourage or tense the jaw motion in any way, it doesn't help at all. Instead, the jaw is being slightly 'brought along' by upward and forward motion of the tongue root.

Ascending across the range of the instrument involves a change in vowel (ie tongue shape and position) from ah thru ee. Between Bb4 and Bb5 it's more like a change from ee to eeeeeeeeeee...

You can demonstrate this easily with singing:

With a finger or two on your chin to gently monitor movement, gliss up and down across an octave in a middle-to-high area of your range, holding an 'ah' vowel throughout. You should be able to do this with zero jaw movement.

Now try ah - ee - ah across the same octave. (Ah at the bottom, ee at the top.) The jaw comes (slightly) forward to ascend.

Now do the same thing, forcing yourself not to move the jaw at all. You can't get all the way to a really bright, resonant 'eee', and if you try to do so you'll instead be singing through a closed 'ng' sound. This is an option in singing, but it closes off the airflow to the lips - you can sing 'ng' with your hand covering your mouth, and only pinching your nose will stop the sound - so this obviously isn't an option for brass playing.
The small forward jaw motion is a necessary part of allowing the tongue to move into its smallest resonant chamber position (ie the brightest possible ee vowel) while still allowing airflow through the mouth.

[ithinknot]

Actually, what I'd really love to see is Watrous doing the lower range examples shown by others elsewhere in the video. (Is there more Leno footage somewhere?) In the few videos where he's (briefly) playing low, he has to re-place the mouthpiece considerably lower, and that would be my experience too playing IIIA on an 11C.

This is a really interesting topic, and let me pre-empt any 'Watrous was great/shifting is bad so he mustn't have done it/how very dare you' responses by saying that no one is criticising the end result, but that doesn't make analysis of any of the greats inherently unseemly. His technique worked perfectly for what he wanted to do, but that doesn't make its characteristics universally applicable to others (with the same or different embouchure types). And, of course, there's a creative feedback loop here - 'what he wanted to do' was naturally encouraged by what his technique (and equipment) did best. I'd guess certain variations are perhaps more obvious amongst jazz players, where there's more scope to 'choose your own adventure' and play/improvise to your technical strengths, though Harrison made a similar point recently about the different areas of difficulty in CL vs JA commissions/premieres.

[Doug Elliott]

Excellent observations

[PaulTdot]

My somewhat unqualified impression (I'm just making guesses; this isn't based on research) here is that, for a downstream player, it's possible to increase compression and get the "sharper" angle of the airstream we see in downstream players as they ascend in a variety of ways.

Moving the jaw up and back coordinates nicely with tongue movement (especially if your jaw is receded to begin with), so I think that's why a lot of people do that.

Moving the jaw forward (and, for some, to the side) increases compression by, perhaps, pushing the bottom lip forward against the top lip (you can see in the Watrous clip how the jaw moving forward does not push the airstream closer to the shank of the mouthpiece, but helps him increase compression).

What I can say is this:

For me, the advantage of the latter is clear (a fuller, more powerful sound in the upper register, with less motion), and I've seen many great players do this, as well. For example, Marshall Gilkes clearly raises his horn angle as he ascends. (I've watched him play closeup on hundreds of occasions, and you can easily see it in videos, as well.)

However, experimenting with some advice given to me by Doug, I'm finding I can get many of the same benefits without moving the jaw at all, so long as it is forward enough to begin with. This seems even better. (However, receding the jaw for the upper register does not do this - that is a much weaker, less consistent way to play for me.)

I agree that this is becoming a bit of a sidetrack from this conversation, though.

I'd like to hear more about "our trombonist's" progress here. Has the playing been consistently better since the "10 days" experiment? How much did the 10 days playing on a different embouchure hurt or help, in terms of consistency or endurance (aside from corner position)? Does it feel like the same muscles are being worked, or more like they were left unused for 10 days, for example?

Having said that, I do wonder whether there has been any adjustment to the jaw position as a result of this, as well, Dave. I tend to think of the lower jaw as the "support" for the mouthcorners (since they are, effectively, engaging against the teeth, the position of the lower jaw is really key to their engagement), and so I do wonder whether any shift in the position of your corners might be reflected in a change in jaw position, too.

[ithinknot]

Excellent observations

Thanks boss

For anyone else interested in this stuff or in any need of help, have a lesson with Doug. Can't recommend it enough.

I've been reading the Reinhardt Encyclopedia recently, and it's great, but you really really want to have had Doug explain the basics first. There's quite a lot in there that could be expressed more simply. It's not necessarily hard to understand once you've been shown how you relate to it, but if you dive in unfamiliar with the language you might decide you're a IVB with a type 12 forked tongue and roughly a 5 on the Kinsey scale, but you'll be unsure where to go from there.

Also, if you're not interested in this stuff, have a lesson with Doug anyway. The terminology is optional!

[Doug Elliott]

Reinhardt's terminology and the way he wrote is a big turnoff to a lot of players... But he did know a tremendous amount more than anybody else about the way chops work. I got lucky, I read his books and then had roughly 100 lessons with him over 10 years.

These discussions are great, dispite the fact that some of the posters have strong preconceived ideas they can't get past.

[Wilktone]

These discussions are great, dispite the fact that some of the posters have strong preconceived ideas they can't get past.

I'm sorry that you guys can't get past the fact that upstream trombonists are objectively better looking than downstream players. It's not my fault.

I'd like to hear more about "our trombonist's" progress here. Has the playing been consistently better since the "10 days" experiment? How much did the 10 days playing on a different embouchure hurt or help, in terms of consistency or endurance (aside from corner position)? Does it feel like the same muscles are being worked, or more like they were left unused for 10 days, for example?

Things are going well, thanks for asking.

The first couple of days or so after switching back to my Low Placement embouchure type I was getting tired pretty quickly. I'm not feeling that way any more, possibly due in part to practicing Reinhardt's "Endurance Routine" every day since Friday (at Doug's suggestion).

Someone listening to me before and after might not notice much difference, but it feels easier to me. I have some audio of me practicing before and after, I'll have to go back and see what sort of difference I can hear.

Consistency issues, bad days, chop breakdowns, and "dystonia" come from doing things that are inefficient, inconsistent, and sometimes harmful - or NOT doing the right things that continue to build consistency.

Since Harrison also brought up embouchure dystonia earlier, I thought I'd offer the hypothetical scenario that I hadn't been studying with Doug. Even with my background already I was having trouble getting my issues fixed. Sometimes players, like me, just get better at covering up their problems - until they can't any longer. I strongly suspect that a lot of players get diagnosed with a neurological issue when they have problems in mechanics that they just don't know about.

[PaulTdot]

Great post, Dave, and excellent observations.

For what it's worth, I've dealt with a handful of musicians suffering from dystonia-like symptoms. In a few cases, it wasn't clear what was going on (and, sometimes, whether the player was willing to genuinely try the fixes), but in all the others, principled application of the understanding and concepts we're talking about here allowed a quick and effective "fix".

I have a question for you and Doug:

After reading this thread and pondering it, I was lip buzzing today (I was about to say "free buzzing", but I'm trying to adopt Doug's much clearer "lip buzzing", so I'll use that) and I tried to adjust my mouthcorner position. I did find that I could buzz with the corners closer in to the center of my mouth, although it wasn't clear whether there was any improvement or deterioration, nor did I try to see if I could transfer it to the mouthpiece. Is that something either of you has any experience with?

It would be interesting to experiment a bit and to develop an awareness of this issue, for me, and I wonder what I can try to see, feel, and hear the differences.

[harrisonreed]

Here is a player who do raise hi trombone angle for higher tones.

Nice find, I haven't seen that video before. Bollinger is a player with the same embouchure type as me (more lower lip inside). Upside down of Watrous, who has more upper lip inside.

So can we agree that horn angle/jaw position isn't a good indicator of embouchure type?

Well... Is Bollinger an upstream player? Looks like he is to me!

It's hard to see what he's doing because the camera is moving a lot, but if he is an upstream player, I think the horn angle and jaw motion I was able to lock down in the video further validates what I'm saying. It's the opposite of what Alessi was doing -- great examples of the opposite placements and opposite embouchure types, right?

He has the same embouchure type (or at least placement) as Dave, but is angling his horn the opposite way as Dave. I think the key point is that Dave is the one having playing troubles and Bollinger is not. Maybe my idea about the crazy fix for Dave being to raise his horn angle as he ascends is not crazy at all.

[harrisonreed]

The reason we went off on this particular tangent had to do with the idea that the jaw movement is what "controls the [embouchure motion]." Or maybe that particular reference was intended to mean the jaw movement "controls the [horn angle]." Harrison will need to clarify what he meant, because I want to avoid the term he used in order to be fully clear about what I'm talking about in this discussion.

In the Sarah Willis video, at 3:55 to 4:10, you can clearly see the difference in jaw position between low register and mid register. She has to move her jaw so far forward that she switches to upstream. You can clearly see that she is a downstream player, because you can see the air column between her lips shooting down.



You can see her moving her jaw significantly up and every so sightly back to ascend on the ascending scales. I think it's not such a drastic motion because the French horn mouthpiece is already so small. She's also on her back, and not holding a horn to manipulate so this motion may not be exactly what she would do if she was seated and able to hold her instrument. She's also not the *best* -- she was only able to get 4th horn in the Berlin Phil....

So.... Let's look at someone who plays a bigger mouthpiece, where the bore and rim edge are further apart...



The motion here is pretty obvious. Again, this player only managed to get 3rd chair in the BSO.

All these players are trying to do, boiled down, is change the speed and flow volume and direction of the air into the cup. You do it with the jaw, the tongue, and the back of your throat (though I would avoid consciously trying to manipulate anything with your throat). All your chops are doing is holding and shaping the aperture over this underlying structure. The horn angle is just a side effect of this "pivot".

That is what I meant. I think Reinhardt was using pivot to mean this same thing.

[Doug Elliott]

"She has to move her jaw so far forward that she switches to upstream"

I see no evidence of switching to upstream. That's a common misconception. Jaw position is completely unrelated to air direction. There are receded-jaw upstream players and protruding-jaw downstream players.

And yes Blair Bollinger is an upstream player. It's too bad the facial hair and camera movement don't give any real view of his chops. On the old TTF I had posted a picture I took of his embouchure in a clear plastic mouthpiece.

[harrisonreed]

I'm basing it on this:

F

Screenshot_20210225-091403.png

Pedal Bb

Screenshot_20210225-091426.png

There may be a terminology issue, or I might be seeing this wrong.

That said, the jaw motion in all three videos is very apparent. We have three world class musicians here, all downstream players, doing the same motions.

Blair Bollinger looks upstream, the opposite, and from what I can see, he is doing the opposite motions. I'm not as familiar with upstream playing. His playing is awesome.

[PaulTdot]

I'm not sure I'm seeing the same motions, in the Sarah Willis video, that you're seeing. (And many/most brass players will adopt weird or non-typical embouchures for the extreme low register - something french horn players have to do more than anyone, in order to manage on those tiny mouthpieces.)

However, there's lots of food for thought here. And I agree on your observations of the Doug Yeo clip. I can see a bass trombone player having less to gain, perhaps, from the kind of jaw action we're talking about. It will be interesting to learn more.

[harrisonreed]

I'm not sure I'm seeing the same motions, in the Sarah Willis video, that you're seeing. (And many/most brass players will adopt weird or non-typical embouchures for the extreme low register - something french horn players have to do more than anyone, in order to manage on those tiny mouthpieces.)

However, there's lots of food for thought here. And I agree on your observations of the Doug Yeo clip. I can see a bass trombone player having less to gain, perhaps, from the kind of jaw action we're talking about. It will be interesting to learn more.

No, he has more to gain. The motion is visually larger in the bass trombonist. If the goal is indeed to blow closer to the bore for the low register (my experience, not gospel truth), and close to the rim edge for the upper register -- those targets are further apart on a Doug Yeo mouthpiece than a French horn mouthpiece. It is even more exaggerated the higher the placement is (for Yeo's embouchure type). The higher you place a fixed size mouthpiece on a face, the higher the bore goes above the aperture, the bigger the jaw movement to direct the air up towards the bore.

This is why I believe very high placement players do better with large cup diameters - their embouchure is already close to the rim edge. Increasing the diameter minimizes the jaw and embouchure motion needed to direct air towards the bore. It physically lowers the bore, keeping the same placement on the upper lip.

Likewise very low placement players like Dave are the opposite. They will put the mouthpiece on the same spot of their upper lip no matter what size mouthpiece they use. decreasing the size of the mouthpiece move the bore closer in line with the aperture.

This all hinges on accepting that the direction and speed of air into the mp is what dictates the register. If you don't accept that, then there is not much more to be gained from talking to me or me babbling about jaw motion. I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to go further, just observations from these videos.

Low

Screenshot_20210225-113010.png

High

Screenshot_20210225-113030.png

It's a big difference. Don't be fooled by the pointy tissue over his chin. Look at what the teeth do.

FWIW, these ideas and nearly identical drawings are in Ian Bousfield's book, "Unlocking the Trombone Code". As is the idea of different targets in the mouthpiece for different registers. He is a downstream player and doesn't talk about upstream playing or represent it in his book.

[PaulTdot]

We're closer to being on the same page than you think, but we're also miscommunicating a little. For instance, I should have clarified that by "more to gain" I was referring to professionally - a professional bass trombonist isn't usually going to be terribly concerned about their projection in the extreme upper register, for instance.

I agree with your observations on airstream direction; that's pretty well established. And we're in agreement about what we're seeing in the video.

There's also the issue of the MRI machine - some of these small modifications (like jaw position) could be quite different with an instrument in hand. I'd be curious to see how they set this up at the facility. (I know Sarah Willis used a long tube, connecting a mouthpiece to the horn bell, outside the machine.)

[Basbasun]

I used the Bollinger youtube link as an typically player who place the mpc low. Douglas Yeo is a typically player who place the mpc high. Bill W is placing the mpc very high, he is not a typiclly player though. There are allways exceptions. We can talk all day long about exceptions. But I think we started this talking about what is typically.

[Wilktone]

My practice time on week days is restricted by my wife's work schedule, so I haven't really been able to get to trying out some of the things Harrison asked to see. I'll try to post some video of me playing with different mouthpieces, different horn angles, and a shot of my current pedal Bb over the weekend. But I don't know why I should be the only one having fun with this stuff. Why don't some of you guys take some video footage of your chops too? No pressure, of course, but I already intentionally posted some stuff where I'm not at my best to demonstrate problems.

Jaw manipulation is a very individual thing, and generally should be very little, if any.

So let's start from here. It depends on the individual and so we can only really discuss this in terms of what the specific player does, and maybe whether or not that's working correctly for them.

Think about it, the jaw is what controls most of the pivot, however you go about it, upstream or down.

All your chops are doing is holding and shaping the aperture over this underlying structure. The horn angle is just a side effect of this "pivot".

That is what I meant. I think Reinhardt was using pivot to mean this same thing.

You're leaving out the pushing/pulling of the mouthpiece and lips together along the teeth and gums. Also lip compression that manifests inside the mouthpiece as how much the lips are drawn back against the teeth and gums to reduce the amount of vibrating surface. And how much upper to lower lip is inside the cup in the first place and where the mouthpiece shank is in relation to the lip aperture.

But yes, all those things interact with each other as part of the larger whole.

She has to move her jaw so far forward that she switches to upstream.

It's too bad that we can't see how she's placing the mouthpiece, which would help give a clearer picture of that pedal tone. A lot of high brass players do something similar to this to play pedal tones, which doesn't relate to how they play the rest of their range.

Bill W is placing the mpc very high, he is not a typiclly player though.

Recall from above that jaw manipulation is very personal, but are you familiar with the expression, "moving the goalpost?" Watrous is an example of a Very High Placement embouchure type who (at least in that clip) was moving his jaw forward to ascend. It really doesn't matter in the end if he is "typical" or not, just that we can say that some really fine players are doing things differently. I'm certainly not a "typical" player, even for an upstream one.

That said, I was curious and have looked at the videos of different players that I happen to have already up on YouTube (and labeled by embouchure type) to look for their jaw positions, just to see what I would find. I won't embed them, but will post links for you if you want to look for yourself. Many of these players have very minimal jaw motions or I didn't have a very clear look at their jaw in the video, so it's going to be hard to infer exactly what they're doing. These are just my best guesses (and I'm also blasting through these quickly and just watching enough to guess).

Low Placement Types (upstream)

Hard to infer, but jaw is moving slightly forward and to the right to ascend

Too hard to tell. I think I have some clips from the side and maybe I'll look later

and Brings he jaw forward to ascend

Hard to tell because he flattens his chin as he ascends (who chin is out of frame), which makes it appear as if he's receding his jaw to ascend

Brings her jaw forward to ascend

Medium High Placement Types (downstream)

and Pretty minimal, maybe recedes jaw to ascend, horn angle is definitely tilting the bell up to ascend, though

Brings his jaw forward to ascend

Brings his jaw forward and to left to ascend

Very High Placement Types (downstream)

Recedes his jaw to ascend

Recedes his jaw to ascend (but it's mostly out of frame)

Recedes his jaw to ascend (but it's mostly out of frame)

Hard to tell (particularly with jaw drop on low Bb), but protrudes jaw to ascend

Brings his jaw forward to ascend

Somewhat inconsistent, but mostly recedes jaw to ascend

Inconsistent

If you want to keep score:

Low Placement (upstream) ascending - 3 forward, 1 receded, 1 unsure
Medium High Placement (downstream) ascending - 2 forward, 1 recede
Very High Placement (downstream) ascending - 2 forward, 3 recede, 2 inconsistent

Some of the above players are professionals and some are students, for what that's worth. I'm not controlling for whether or not things are working well for them and whether or not they are doing something that might be less than ideal for their anatomy. Consider this a thought experiment.

But can we now agree that jaw position and manipulation is personal and not necessarily indicative of a player's embouchure type?

[PaulTdot]

Great post, Dave. You've covered the bases well.

That mirrors my thoughts on Sarah Willis's "pedal tone embouchure" as well; I don't see any reason to assume that this motion is present in her normal playing range.

Another thought: if Bill Watrous's approach to playing isn't "typical" of a High Placement Player, is it possible that the "typical" High Placement Player isn't playing optimally? We have to consider all the options.

[Basbasun]

I did experimented some yesterday. Normaly I place the mpc medium high, my jaw recede going up.
My experiment was to move the mpc up extremely high. Trying to match Bill W:s placement. Placing the mpc rim high on the lowerlip on the red part.
When I was going up (very high) I found the the mpc found anohther contact on the teeth. Now I could easily mowe my jaw forward, and it worked very good for very high range. That is not how I normaly play, but it was interesting to try.

I watched your clips Dave.
Two trumpeters are moving their jaw up and down. Sometimes I do ask if the players could do better another way.
Do you think you prove anything with the clips? I wounder what.

Paul T.
Actually we are all different, so we can agree in that nobody is "typically". In the attempt to put different embouchures in categorys I say we have to go after how the typiclly player for different types work.
There are many trombone players doing things that is not what many others do. There will allwayts be exceptions. There are many "best" players around. Bill is one of the best players. His mpc placement is very rare. If you can play very good it is good for you. If what you do is the opposite from what is very common, it is still good for you. Many very good players do thing that some say is not the best, but it works for them. Methodollogy is difficult.

[Wilktone]

I watched your clips Dave.
Two trumpeters are moving their jaw up and down. Sometimes I do ask if the players could do better another way.

Yes, please note what I wrote in that post:

I'm not controlling for whether or not things are working well for them and whether or not they are doing something that might be less than ideal for their anatomy. Consider this a thought experiment.

Do you think you prove anything with the clips? I wounder what.

I posted that originally because Harrison has a hypothesis that air stream direction is controlled mainly through the jaw position. He offered a suggestion that I should change my jaw position earlier based on this idea. According to this idea, an upstream player should protrude the jaw slightly forward to ascend in order to make the air stream go further up while a downstream player would do the opposite.

Later you had asked to see a fine downstream brass player who protruded the jaw to ascend, so posted the Leno clip of Bill Watrous doing that. Afterwards, you keep mentioning that his embouchure is not typical.

I see how "typical" Watrous's embouchure was as irrelevant to the discussion. It is one (of many) examples of a downstream player effectively ascending by protruding the jaw slightly.

So again, please note what I wrote in the post:

But can we now agree that jaw position and manipulation is personal and not necessarily indicative of a player's embouchure type?

That is the point I'm trying to make.

[Basbasun]

I see. Well I do agree with that jaw position and manipulation is personal. However for some embouchure types certain jaw movements are so common that I say they are typically for the type.
And, as I allway say, there are exceptions. I do see the reason for posting those clip.
I was more into the talk about what "the best" players do, I still clame that most "best" players do is what is typically for their type.

Here is one of the best players, enjoy!

[Doug Elliott]

Yes, Dick Nash is amazing. And that video is a clear example of the typical sound of a perfect upstream player... Huge and bright.

[PaulTdot]

I'm always for listening to Dick Nash more! A welcome remedy for many a rainy day.

As far as we can tell at this point, jaw position does not determine airstream direction. Various jaw manipulations can affect the compression at the embouchure, but it's certainly not as simple as "if you're downstream, recede the jaw to play higher", even though many players do this. It's quite individual, and it's possible to find different ways to work with your particular anatomy.

I agree that whether Bill Watrous has a "typical" embouchure or not really relevant to that question. However, I will note that his embouchure type and mouthpiece placement is not at all rare or unusual (much more common than the way Dick Nash, plays, anyway, at least in modern-day North America). There are many, many players who play exactly like this, in all genres of music.

[Basbasun]

https://callumaumusic.com/.../originals ... sed-crime/
Many of the best trombonists. If you are interested you can try to figue out their mpc place ment.

I have played with a number of low placement players many more medium high players a few very high.
Bill on this video,
well looking for placement is not the first thing you do listen to this.

Most players I played with are medium or medium high players, a number of low placement some very high placement, but as high as Bill I can remember one. I never had a student with that high placement either.
Funny enough after that many years.

[Wilktone]

I have played with a number of low placement players many more medium high players a few very high.

Please understand when some of us are talking about "Low Placement," "Medium High Placement," and "Very High Placement" embouchure types there is a bit more than the apparent placement from the outside that go into those type designations.

Very High Placement - downstream embouchure with more upper lip inside the mouthpiece, embouchure motion is to push the mouthpiece and lips together up towards the nose to ascend.

Medium High Placement - downstream embouchure with more upper lip inside the mouthpiece, embouchure motion is to pull the mouthpiece and lips together down towards the chin to ascend.

Low Placement - upstream embouchure with more lower lip inside the mouthpiece, embouchure motion is to pull the mouthpiece and lips together down towards the chin to ascend.

The references to the mouthpiece placement are general. Very High Placement types will usually place the mouthpiece anywhere from 70%-90% upper lip inside, for example. Some of them look more like "medium high placements," but because their embouchure motion is to push up to ascend they fit the characteristics of the Very High Placement embouchure type. This embouchure type seems to be the most common by far.

Bill Watrous happened to have a mouthpiece placement that was more upper lip than most Very High Placement players, but I don't really see it as all that unusual. Glancing through the Disorganized Crime video you linked to it looks like most of those players are Very High Placement types, although a couple might be Medium High Placement types. I didn't notice any that looked like Low Placement types. To tell for sure between the Very High Placement and Medium High Placement types it helps to have a clip that has a good angle of the embouchure while the trombonist is playing something that changes register enough to spot the embouchure motion of pushing or pulling the lips with the mouthpiece to ascend/descend. Most of the clips in the Disorganized Crime video don't do that enough.

Steve Wiest is a Low Placement type player who also happens to have a receded jaw and plays with a horn angle that is somewhat down, like me.



I'll try to get some more video of me trying out Harrison's suggested experiments up later today.

[PaulTdot]

That's a great find on Steve Wiest - indeed, a very similar physical type here. Fun to see some similarities.

[Wilktone]

So here are some clips of me trying out some of Harrison's suggestions from earlier. He had mentioned a smaller rim diameter and some thoughts about cup size as well. The first part of this video is me playing the same exercise on different mouthpieces. The clips are from the last set of this exercise (not the first example, see the ones at the bottom of the page).

Harrison also wondered if I was switching to blowing downstream on pedal Bb. I'm out of the anti-fog solution that I would normally use to keep the transparent mouthpiece from fogging up, but I think you can get a good enough look at my aperture to see generally what's going on. That starts around 2:22.

Lastly, Harrison suggested I try bringing my jaw forward and play with a higher horn angle. This is actually not a bad suggestion to try, but I have been down this road a while back. A trumpet player who is a former student of Donald Reinhardt insists that upstream players with a lowered horn angle (Reinhardt IVA) really need to try to get their horn angle up closer to straight out (Reinhardt IV). I didn't think it would work, but I tried for about a week back in 2008 doing my best. You can see and hear me experimenting with horn angles around 3:53.

Notice that I also demonstrate what happens when I bring my horn angle left and right. Towards the right you can hear the pitch go flat and towards the left it goes sharp. The left/right horn angle change for me is more prominent than up/down (although you should be able to see me bring my horn angle up slightly as I ascend if you look closely enough at the clips in the beginning of the video).

If you don't care to watch the video, it's hard to say with the short clips alone which mouthpiece works best, but I prefer my usual setup (Doug Elliott LTN 103 rim, C cup for jazz, G cup for orchestral). My pedal Bb is upstream. Bringing my jaw forward and my horn angle up pretty quickly chokes off the sound.

Again, those aren't bad suggestions to try, particularly the horn angle suggestion.

[harrisonreed]

I was suggesting that as you ascend, you try moving the jaw forward and horn angle up (probably as you pull down). It looks like you do, a bit, naturally. Of course, now suddenly there are high Fs being played. By the end of this experiment, I'll bet you will drop the "haha the joke is on you" bomb of a video with you playing Bb5s and other crazy stuff.

It's not surprising at all that the mid register notes you were working on with your jaw movements cut out pretty quickly -- each register has a *insert word other than pivot here*.

This thread continues to be so interesting!

[PaulTdot]

Of course, now suddenly there are high Fs being played. By the end of this experiment, I'll bet you will drop the "haha the joke is on you" bomb of a video with you playing Bb5s and other crazy stuff.

There is no joke here. Dave is just doing an incredibly honest thing and showing us his playing problems, instead of trying to cover them up. That's the way to learn! If we all only ever hear each other playing at our best, it's hard to figure out anything about brass playing... Dave has done a tremendous thing here, and given us a look "under the hood". Kudos, Dave!

[Wilktone]

I was suggesting that as you ascend, you try moving the jaw forward and horn angle up (probably as you pull down). It looks like you do, a bit, naturally.
...
It's not surprising at all that the mid register notes you were working on with your jaw movements cut out pretty quickly -- each register has a *insert word other than pivot here*.

I probably should have described what I was doing and why with the horn angle/jaw position changes. That's a trick that Doug has taught me to use to help players fine tune embouchure motion/horn angle/jaw position/etc. You move the angles around and see how far you can go right/left/up/down and listen for the tone and intonation. When you find the spot where everything works best you check a higher and lower pitch. Ideally, you want to find a track of all that stuff working in a smooth and continuous line.

For me, as my horn angle moves left and slightly up the pitch is going sharp. That would be my natural ascending direction. What I would want to do is find those spots along the path where each note sounds its best. Here's an image I put together to help describe a hypothetical embouchure motion track and how it should probably work between different ranges.



Horn angle and jaw position are probably similar. If the jaw comes forward a slight amount to ascend an octave it should probably recede about the same amount to descend an octave from the same starting point. But then again, this might change as a player develops and according to how he or she is correctly (or incorrectly) utilizing the embouchure motion, tongue position, air, etc.

By the end of this experiment, I'll bet you will drop the "haha the joke is on you" bomb of a video with you playing Bb5s and other crazy stuff.

I'll try to post that later today for you.

[PaulTdot]

I've been thinking further on this topic, and as I'm doing some reading, I've come across an interesting quote.

"For attaining the higher register, the simultaneous use of the stretching back of the lips and cheeks and the raising of the diaphragm is of prime importance." -Max Schlossberg, 1875-1936

There was a well-known Canadian brass teacher by the name of Don Johnson (Don passed away about five years ago), who was quite methodical and thoughtful in his teaching, and famous for his ability to diagnose and fix "chop problems". (He also studied with Reinhardt for a short period in his formative years.)

Johnson wrote that he was always surprised to see that Schlossberg turned out so many great players if he was telling them to smile as they ascend, while many/most other teachers would never give such advice.

His eventual conclusion was that great players do "smile", but only to a certain point, and never beyond it.

That was where he ended up, finally: that brass players should "smile as they ascend, but only to their natural corner position".

This observation of his (whether right or wrong) reminded me of this thread, so I thought I'd share it.

[Wilktone]

"For attaining the higher register, the simultaneous use of the stretching back of the lips and cheeks and the raising of the diaphragm is of prime importance." -Max Schlossberg, 1875-1936

Yes, I believe that the "smile to ascend" was much more common in Schlossberg's time. It works, to a degree, by stretching the lips tighter, but too much of it limits high range and endurance. Today there's a consensus that it's best to not do that.

His eventual conclusion was that great players do "smile", but only to a certain point, and never beyond it.

That was where he ended up, finally: that brass players should "smile as they ascend, but only to their natural corner position".

Like Doug is fond of saying, this depends on what you are already doing and where you need to go. He had at one time asked me to consciously try to pull my mouth corners back to ascend in order to get the back to where they should be, but I had no success at being able to bring them back by smiling. After playing for 10 days on the opposite embouchure type, I'm now able to consciously do this. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the over puckering had become a conditioned response to playing and I couldn't make the correction by simply working on it. Drastically changing my playing around for a time changed how my mouth corners felt enough that I was able to bring the correct sensation and action into my normal playing.

[imsevimse]

I've found that to try to move certain muscles by will is very difficult. To me I need a different mindset, get a different picture to be able to do the change.
I can imagine to reverse ones playing has that same effect, from downstream to upstream or the other way. Not a bad idea to open up ones mind.

/Tom

[harrisonreed]

I understand that you need to smile to attain the higher register, as per the 140 year old advice. But how do you "obtain" the higher register though??

[imsevimse]

I understand that you need to smile to attain the higher register, as per the 140 year old advice. But how do you "obtain" the higher register though??

When I started to learn the teacher I had could not play trombone or any brass. I was self taught until I came to an Hungarian teacher who was a trombone player. He taught me a lot of technical things but did not say anything about my smile emboushure. I was 16 years old when I came to a teacher who addressed the issue. He did not force the change, he just explained what my issue was and what most successful people did. I did the change myself. He did not talk much about what was wrong, rather what to do and I appreciate that. It worked for me. I had to complete redo everything and relearn from scratch. I could not play in any ensembles for a year, but three years later I was accepted after audition at "The Royal Accademy of Music" in Stockholm. It took years to rework that smile-emboushure.

I have not heard many successful stories of people who did that (reworked a smile emboushure) would be interesting to hear how people like Doug and Dave and others with that kind of experience address that specific issue? I only know what I did. Maybe start a new thread for that specific problem?

/Tom

[ArbanRubank]

Whenever I watched Bob Havens perform on the Lawrence Welk show, I thought he had a slightly peculiar embouchure which definitely worked well for him. It looked to me as though it where halfway between a frown and a smile embouchure; kinda straight back.

Here's a clip of him showing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNLamzHT34

[Wilktone]

I understand that you need to smile to attain the higher register, as per the 140 year old advice. But how do you "obtain" the higher register though??

You can't, really. That's the problem. Back then range above high Bb (or high C for trumpet) wasn't all that common.

I have not heard many successful stories of people who did that (reworked a smile emboushure) would be interesting to hear how people like Doug and Dave and others with that kind of experience address that specific issue? I only know what I did. Maybe start a new thread for that specific problem?

The quicker you can address it the better. As you note, it's not easy to just simply not do it, particularly if you have been smiling to ascend for a while.

Fixing it can be similar to things that I've been working on to correct my over-puckering. Lip buzzing to strengthen the muscles at and under the mouth corners that should be locked in place. Buzzing into the instrument for downstream players (or in some cases, switching for a bit to a downstream embouchure if the player is upstream). Maybe even practice intentionally puckering to ascend to counter the urge to smile (but don't let it get overdone).

Upstream players, by the way, are quite prone to developing a smile embouchure.

Whenever I watched Bob Havens perform on the Lawrence Welk show, I thought he had a slightly peculiar embouchure which definitely worked well for him. It looked to me as though it where halfway between a frown and a smile embouchure; kinda straight back.

He is a great player. He's still playing, according to his Wikipedia page. I don't see his mouth corners coming back to a full-fledge smile embouchure. Here's an example of a "smile to ascend" player I happened to photograph.