mobile chops
Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:16 am
For some time longer than a year, perhaps two, I have been working the idea that the chop musculature tunes the buzz into a relatively broad range and that the tune of the mouth cavity drives the precise tuning. New things keep showing up as I run through my routine on this idea.
Lately I have been trying to find variations on an old familiar flexie--I cannot remember who is responsible for it but I'm sure you all know it: Bb F D Bb F D Bb F Bb. In partials that's 4 3 5 4 6 5 4 3 4. Previously I have turned it upside down: 5 6 4 5 3 4 5 6 5, a very worthwhile thing to do, especially for the upward slur with control and good time. And I have moved it around. Like 2 1 3 2 4 3 2 1 2. Or 7 6 8 7 9 8 7 6 7. Upside down too. I usually do quarters, then eighths, sixteenths, whatever until I cannot keep time with the metronome. Those are conventional variations.
Then I wondered about how the tongue was driving the slurs and whether there was some independence to gain there. So for the original exercise, the tongue may be in EE at partial 6 and AH at partial 3. That EE might be way up close to the teeth. So I began to move the whole scheme back in the mouth to see if it worked. It did. So I moved it as far as I could (feels like almost to the throat), and it worked. So I began alternating these locations on repeats, close medium and far, and they work. (The sound of the horn changes pretty dramatically on these.) And then gliding front to back to front randomly through the repeats, and that works.
All this time the musculature of the chops doesn't feel like it is doing much of anything. They seem to mostly takes a position and hold it. (Now, I cannot prove that's what's happening, but it sure feels like it.)
So I started to wonder about other independences. Like, maybe lip roll? I try with the lower pouted out, kinda vertically in line, or tucked in and under. (I'm pretty sure this points the air direction all over the place.) And it works, and gliding between these positions, too. The aperture shape I think may be pretty constant, but the spot on the lips that jiggles goes forward/out and back/in depending, certainly not all in one spot.
Horn angle? However high, however low, or right or left or diagonally, as long as there is a seal to the piece, it works. Moving from one of these to another while playing, works. For some of these the chops have to "reach" to touch the piece, but it works, full range, full flex.
I used to thing I needed a certain "anchor point" but horn angle moves that point around. In fact, the point can move in a circle and the chops work.
Rim position? High, low, left, right, they work.
Now, one thing I do notice is a preference for a certain position, where the rims sits, where the horn points, where the tongue sits in some sort of neutral position. But I am wondering if that preference is there just because that's the familiar position, that I've been dong it sorta in that location for a long time, because I can move it somewhere else, and it works fine, if strange feeling, in lots of other configurations.
As a result, I'm thinking, if you can get a buzz going, you can drive it by tuning your mouth with your tongue, then the rest may pretty much a matter of preference.
(Please notice I use words like "may", "seems", "could be", etc., because all this has very little certainty to me. All I can do is report, this is what it feels like is happening, and if anyone finds something useful, then that's a good thing. But I would never insist this is the gosh darn truth, but it useful to me thinking this way.)
Lately I have been trying to find variations on an old familiar flexie--I cannot remember who is responsible for it but I'm sure you all know it: Bb F D Bb F D Bb F Bb. In partials that's 4 3 5 4 6 5 4 3 4. Previously I have turned it upside down: 5 6 4 5 3 4 5 6 5, a very worthwhile thing to do, especially for the upward slur with control and good time. And I have moved it around. Like 2 1 3 2 4 3 2 1 2. Or 7 6 8 7 9 8 7 6 7. Upside down too. I usually do quarters, then eighths, sixteenths, whatever until I cannot keep time with the metronome. Those are conventional variations.
Then I wondered about how the tongue was driving the slurs and whether there was some independence to gain there. So for the original exercise, the tongue may be in EE at partial 6 and AH at partial 3. That EE might be way up close to the teeth. So I began to move the whole scheme back in the mouth to see if it worked. It did. So I moved it as far as I could (feels like almost to the throat), and it worked. So I began alternating these locations on repeats, close medium and far, and they work. (The sound of the horn changes pretty dramatically on these.) And then gliding front to back to front randomly through the repeats, and that works.
All this time the musculature of the chops doesn't feel like it is doing much of anything. They seem to mostly takes a position and hold it. (Now, I cannot prove that's what's happening, but it sure feels like it.)
So I started to wonder about other independences. Like, maybe lip roll? I try with the lower pouted out, kinda vertically in line, or tucked in and under. (I'm pretty sure this points the air direction all over the place.) And it works, and gliding between these positions, too. The aperture shape I think may be pretty constant, but the spot on the lips that jiggles goes forward/out and back/in depending, certainly not all in one spot.
Horn angle? However high, however low, or right or left or diagonally, as long as there is a seal to the piece, it works. Moving from one of these to another while playing, works. For some of these the chops have to "reach" to touch the piece, but it works, full range, full flex.
I used to thing I needed a certain "anchor point" but horn angle moves that point around. In fact, the point can move in a circle and the chops work.
Rim position? High, low, left, right, they work.
Now, one thing I do notice is a preference for a certain position, where the rims sits, where the horn points, where the tongue sits in some sort of neutral position. But I am wondering if that preference is there just because that's the familiar position, that I've been dong it sorta in that location for a long time, because I can move it somewhere else, and it works fine, if strange feeling, in lots of other configurations.
As a result, I'm thinking, if you can get a buzz going, you can drive it by tuning your mouth with your tongue, then the rest may pretty much a matter of preference.
(Please notice I use words like "may", "seems", "could be", etc., because all this has very little certainty to me. All I can do is report, this is what it feels like is happening, and if anyone finds something useful, then that's a good thing. But I would never insist this is the gosh darn truth, but it useful to me thinking this way.)
