General Principles of Embouchure?

[VJOFan]

Can we come up with the general principles of effective embouchures?

Other complex activities like weightlifting and running (yes they are just as physically complex as making a buzz, they just use bigger muscles) have some generally held, main stream ways, while recognizing human differences, to explain the broad principles to guide an individual's development.

Are there basic descriptors that can be applied to effective embouchures?

I'll jump in with
- effective embouchures do move, but in consort with the mouthpiece in a predictable way that correlates with range.

A better first step might be with the muscles that are active in embouchure formation, but I can't express that idea with even the limited clarity of what I typed above.

[Wilktone]

I find this topic interesting and wish that more brass pedagogy would spend time on it. It would have helped me tremendously as a young music student and I find it helpful today as a teacher and player still striving to improve.

Can we come up with the general principles of effective embouchures?

One of the difficulties in doing so is that certain things can be different for different players. I believe that is primarily related to the individual's anatomy, but that's not an easy thing to pinpoint exactly what features correlate with what embouchure tendencies.

The other problem we have is that too often players and teachers (even very fine ones) discuss embouchure technique based on how they think they play, rather than looking for objective descriptions and comparing with many different players.

Are there basic descriptors that can be applied to effective embouchures?

I believe so. As a starting point, the three basic embouchure types that Doug usually describes are a good starting point because it takes into account the differences I mentioned above. There is a basic embouchure form that each of those types will tend to fall into when working effectively. There are common issues that you can see (and hear) when players deviate from the correct form for their type.

There are also some elements that are probably universal for all players, regardless of type.

I'll jump in with
- effective embouchures do move, but in consort with the mouthpiece in a predictable way that correlates with range.

I agree with this, but from the standpoint of effective pedagogy I think it would be helpful for you to describe how you're defining the "moving" of the embouchure.

A better first step might be with the muscles that are active in embouchure formation, but I can't express that idea with even the limited clarity of what I typed above.

I find those discussions interesting, but most books that try to describe this tend to post an anatomical diagram of the muscles of the face, maybe call out the names of the muscles of the lips, and then stop as if there's something useful to be gained there. There have been a handful of researchers who have done a more thorough look at what muscles are engaged when playing. The most recent I'm aware of is "Visualization of Trumpet Players’ Warm Up by Infrared Thermography," by Matthias Bertsch and Thomas Maca.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ermography

RESULTS: The main facial muscle activity during warm-up seems to be restricted to only a few muscle groups (M.orbicularis oris, M.depressor anguli oris,) and the "Trumpeter's muscle" (M.buccinator) proved to be of minor importance. Players without routine practice expressed an inhomogenous thermographic pattern compared to well-trained musicians.

Dave

[VJOFan]

So Doug Elliot needs to get his book written...

It seems weird that brass pedagogy is so all over the map about the most basic part of playing: the human/instrument interface. Or if not all over the map, inarticulate enough to lead to confusion.

There have to be certain embouchure related things that are essential to effective playing that once understood would allow a player to find their personal variation.

Or maybe it's not surprising. There are snake oil vendors in every field as well as well meaning people who just don't know what they don't know.

What I don't see in brass pedagogy, after decades of being involved in music, is the development of a middle ground that makes it easier to tell the snake oil form the medicine.

In only a few years of athletic training it has been relatively easy to see the forest for the trees. (Like don't buy a supplement drink branded by a jacked up You Tuber unless you can vet the ingredients with a qualified nutritionist.)

[Wilktone]

Some of the lack of understanding in the field as a whole is due to the difficulty in studying embouchure technique in the first place, although this isn't so true any longer. Back in the late 90s in order to get a transparent mouthpiece to use for my dissertation I had to have one custom made for me and while I don't recall how much I was charged, I don't think it was very cheap. Now a days, you can order one off the internet for about $35.

But the topic also has some other issues baked into it that have held us back. Because of anatomical differences, the embouchure technique that works well for one player can sometimes be the exact opposite of what another will want to do. In music a lot of things are set in how that works. A major triad is always the same three tones. A rhythm is always played the same. It's very easy for a music teacher to presume that because technique X works for the teacher that technique Y is wrong for the student.

I've argued this before many times here and elsewhere, but I believe that the greatest hinderance to a more widespread understanding of embouchure technique and pedagogy is a firmly established culture where even addressing embouchure technique is discouraged. At best it's acknowledged that because everyone is different it's too complex to address. At worst it's believed that if you throw enough air at the embouchure and have a good mental concept of the sound you want it will develop correctly on its own. I don't feel it's an exaggeration that many otherwise excellent brass teachers treat embouchure technique like Harold Hill from the Music Man. If you *think* it strongly enough, you'll get it.

Yes, Doug Elliott needs to get his book written. I've found his presentation of the topic to be the easiest to understand and he has made some significant improvements in both understanding the topic better and how to teach it best. But the basics of the information that Doug teaches have been out for a while already. His teacher, Donald Reinhardt, started writing about it back in the 1940s. Students of Doug's (and Reinhardt's) have been writing about it online, in books, and in academic papers for a while. There are even some musicians who have independently verified parts of embouchure techniques that Doug and Reinhardt have been teaching. So the problem isn't that the information is unavailable, it's that the field as a whole has ignored it (see the above paragraph).

Dave

[harrisonreed]

Too much thought and misthought and time goes into thinking about the superficial embouchure. Yes, it functions in a certain way, and different people have different ways of using it efficiently. This forum is actually full of info about it, and most of it is only really useful or even comprehensible to the person who wrote each respective version of it. The embouchure ain't 2D, but people talk about it like it is, even when they say they don't. People still talk about building muscular strength (rather than dexterity), like that actually matters. People still take about controlling the buzz at the face with the embouchure, as if that is how playing a brass instrument actually works.

Not enough talk is made about the role of the tongue and throat in all of it, or how to put the air into the mouthpiece.

All the Reinhardt embouchure type stuff is great, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to read it (although you find what you want to find in it once you've tread down that path), and it's not even half the equation.

Teaching people about different targets in the mouthpiece and how to change the volume and rate of air is where we need to be.

[VJOFan]

Teaching people about different targets in the mouthpiece and how to change the volume and rate of air is where we need to be.

That's just so coincidental to some of the things I have been thinking lately.

I made a big effort to grab a single lesson with "a dude" about 30 years ago when circumstances had me going past his home in L.A. The lesson helped a lot but I didn't really put the pieces together until last week.

All this stuff (how the mouthpiece and lips move over the teeth, how the aperture adjusts, what happens with the tongue and the pallet) need to coordinate to make pitches pop out with the least effort and most consistency. Then there has to be an air supply, and the slide being exactly right also helps too. When the tongue has a role in articulating and producing pitches there is another level of complexity.

With all that, I am coming to the conclusion that, when people here talk about embouchure types and pivot-shift-movement or when that L. A. guy spent a couple three hours getting me to learn "angles" to blow and places to tongue or even when people recommend sing-buzz-play or "Wind and Song", those are all attempts to find a short cut to optimization.

My life stage means that practice windows open up irregularly (today at 2:30 for 15 minutes!) but I am still making progress in understanding why things went well when I was a five hour a day practice guy and why I started to lose it just before the pandemic started. (Hint, if you are practicing all the time you either kill yourself or stumble upon effective ways of doing things, but you may not really know that you are doing them.)

[AndrewMeronek]

Maybe not necessary as a starting point for students, but to understand embouchures at a deep level for professional teachers, I would think that the literal physics would be a good place to start. Topics like:

Basics of how a brass instrument works with vibrating lips at one end and a bell at the other.
What "buzzing" literally is in terms of lip motions.
What happens to the aperture when playing higher/lower/louder/softer.
What happens to the air speed when playing higher/lower/louder/softer.
Where the air gets pointed when going through the aperture.

I can't help but see a player's physical/muscular controls being a layer of information to be applied after these.

[harrisonreed]

Maybe not necessary as a starting point for students, but to understand embouchures at a deep level for professional teachers, I would think that the literal physics would be a good place to start. Topics like:

Basics of how a brass instrument works with vibrating lips at one end and a bell at the other.
What "buzzing" literally is in terms of lip motions.
What happens to the aperture when playing higher/lower/louder/softer.
What happens to the air speed when playing higher/lower/louder/softer.
Where the air gets pointed when going through the aperture.

I can't help but see a player's physical/muscular controls being a layer of information to be applied after these.

Basics of how a brass instrument works with vibrating lips at one end and a bell at the other. It's not and can't be that simple. Otherwise you could play any note beautifully without having to change the length of the pipe. No, the vibrating air in the trombone is driven by the compression of the air into the pipe, and it wants to vibrate sympathetically at the rate that corresponds with the length that the tube is at as well as the amount of energy coming from the air (ie, rate/volume). A flute sort of does the same thing. Because we seal off one end of a brass with our lips, they have some say in the matter, but at the end of the day, they are vibrating because the air in the tube wants to vibrate, not the other way around. How we get the air into the system is what really affects the vibration, and buzzing our lips isn't how air gets into the system. Blowing air through our lips onto a portion of the mouthpiece cup is how air gets into the system.

What "buzzing" literally is in terms of lip motions. Buzzing is the lips moving sympathetically, opening and closing, with the air that's already vibrating inside the trombone. That's the "compression" or "resistance" inside the horn. The lips are held in place with the corner muscles, which is what everyone is anyways worrying so much about, and the air goes through the aperture onto and towards a place in the mouthpiece. Once the mouthpiece is filled the lips and the air in the horn start vibrating together. It is all pretty instantaneous.

What happens to the aperture when playing higher/lower/louder/softer.
What happens to the air speed when playing higher/lower/louder/softer.
Where the air gets pointed when going through the aperture.
This is where we get into trouble, because it'll be the opposite for upstream vs downstream players. One lip will be dominant. The other lip moves forward or backward in relation to the dominant lip (although the only way to do this is by either hinging the jaw or moving it forward or backwards). This has the effect of changing the angle of the aperture into the mouthpiece to move to different registers. The reason being that the low register resonates best with a slower but larger volume of air aimed near the mp throat, and the upper register resonates better with a faster but smaller volume of air aimed near the outer edge of the cup. For volume, the aperture gets wider for louder playing and smaller for softer playing. The rate of air changes accordingly, and since the horn alone cannot provide enough resistance for pp playing, the tongue and throat must compensate.

What your questions don't address at all is how the tongue affects the air rate, quality, and volume, or how it is responsible for directing the air through the aperture. It's not enough to just have the aperture angled -- the tongue also plays a huge role in getting the air to the aperture the right way. Your questions also don't address the role the tongue and mouth play in resonance, intonation, and overtones. You can completely change the sound of the trombone just by changing the shape of the oral cavity with the tongue and jaw. That's because they are also part of the system. If you listen to the best singers, they are doing the same thing. There are throat singing overtones deep in a good singer's technique that most people are not aware of, but they are tuning everything they sing with not only their vocal chords but also their mouth, nose, and tongue. Playing a brass is not really dissimilar. Everything interesting about a person's sound is here, in this paragraph, but everyone only worries about corners, and lips. It's crazy.

[VJOFan]

Maybe we need a definition for embouchure.

While the lips and mouthpiece are not everything about playing, isn't that the dictionary definition of embouchure.

We can talk about the entire playing system from posture, suspension, breathing, manipulating the slide and the inner workings of the mouth and throat, to what happens at the mouthpiece, but I won’t fault anyone for focussing on the lips and mouthpiece when I originally asked about embouchure which is…the lips and mouthpiece.

Besides, for me, focussing on the lips and facial muscles makes sense because of which muscles are most susceptible to conscious control and which muscles are more autonomically reactive.

Unless there is an effort to hold them steady the tongue and soft pallet move in response to movements at the front of the mouth. In contrast, it is quite easy to simply relax the face while wiggling the tongue around. As far as that goes the corners can have a big effect on the lower jaw position.

As far as a pedagogical approach, I think it would make sense to start with the most easily observable parts of the system (lips and mouthpiece). Once that seemed right, and if there were still obvious inefficiencies, one could inquire what the players feels is happening behind the embouchure then suggest cues to improve those movements. Generally the inside will, at least a little, follow the outside.

And anecdotally, years of being taught vowel shapes for range was only slightly useful. The lesson I had that taught me to focus more at the front of the system made things more secure. A study of one so take it for what that’s worth.

As a post script I am sure the role of the hands in allowing movements to happen could also be part of this discussion. But they aren’t “embouchure” either.

[harrisonreed]

Talking about using the embouchure and only focusing on the lips is like talking about punching and only focusing on the fist. The fist is almost nothing.

You can have the most perfectly formed, hardest fist in the world, but it doesn't do anything if the stuff happening behind it is wrong, and the way it interacts with the face you're punching after impact is wrong.

[Kbiggs]

I remember asking in another thread some time ago whether the mouthpiece is considered part of the embouchure. The response from a well-respected forum member was, “I’ll grab my popcorn and watch.” We still have no answer… I am, however, very interested in David Wilken’s and Doug Elliott’s views on this.

Talking about using the embouchure and only focusing on the lips is like talking about punching and only focusing on the fist. The fist is almost nothing.

You can have the most perfectly formed, hardest fist in the world, but it doesn't do anything if the stuff happening behind it is wrong, and the way it interacts with the face you're punching after impact is wrong.

While I understand the analogy, I believe a different one might be more suitable (although I can’t think of one off the top of my head…). Playing an instrument and forming an embouchure are physical endeavours, but likening them to fists and punching implies that playing music is akin to violence—which it’s not.

[Wilktone]

Fascinating discussion, everyone. I just spent a while typing out my thoughts and when I went to submit ended up loosing it all into the aether. Rather than recreate it I'll try to summarize, which is probably better anyway.

Harrison, I think you raise some interesting and valid points, but I feel your attempts to redirect the conversation to other elements of trombone technique serve to reinforce the culture of ignorance that I was criticizing earlier. To use your punching analogy, the way we form our fist (embouchure) is an important part of the overall system. Try punching with your thumb inside your fist to understand why it's good to understand the fist's role in delivering a good punch. Sure, the tongue and breathing (and other parts of the system) are very important and need to be covered as well. That could be brought up in a discussion of the embouchure, but they don't diminish the importance of embouchure as part of the system. If you don't find it interesting you don't have to participate.

Maybe we need a definition for embouchure.

In their literature review for the paper, "Fundamentals of Embouchure in Brass Players: Towards a Definition and Clinical Assessment," the authors noted how vague many definitions are. Since the lead author, Kees Woldendorp, is a medical doctor who treats performing artists with injuries their research is focused on being as precise as possible. Here's what they came up with.

We propose the following definition of embouchure: embouchure is the process needed to adjust the amount, pressure,† and direction of the air flow (generated by the breath support) as it travels through the mouth cavity and between the lips, by the position and/or movements of the tongue, teeth, jaws, cheeks, and lips, to produce a tone in a wind instrument.

Embouchure can be described in terms of “functional” and “dysfunctional.” In “functional” embouchure, the wind player has the ability to efficiently create the intended tone (or range of tones) or sound in his/her wind instrument, without causing performance-related physical complaints. “Dysfunctional” embouchure is the opposite: embouchure which does not, or insufficiently, create the tone (or range of tones) or sound and/or causes physical complaints related to wind playing.

†Pressure is force divided by surface area, i.e., the opening of a reed or the equivalent of it in a brass instrument.

I'd like to point out that in their definition they mention that the embouchure interacts with the breathing and oral cavity, which I think has been Harrison's point of view thus far.

I remember asking in another thread some time ago whether the mouthpiece is considered part of the embouchure. The response from a well-respected forum member was, “I’ll grab my popcorn and watch.” We still have no answer… I am, however, very interested in David Wilken’s and Doug Elliott’s views on this.

Well we know that the placement of the mouthpiece on the lips allows one lip to predominate. We also know that the way the player pushes and pulls the rim and lips together along the teeth and gums underneath is an important part of embouchure technique. So if you pressed me I'd have to say the mouthpiece is part of the overall embouchure system (which is then part of the overall playing technique system).

Interesting stuff.

Dave

[VJOFan]

Talking about using the embouchure and only focusing on the lips is like talking about punching and only focusing on the fist. The fist is almost nothing.

You can have the most perfectly formed, hardest fist in the world, but it doesn't do anything if the stuff happening behind it is wrong, and the way it interacts with the face you're punching after impact is wrong.

Absolutely correct, if you want to describe the entire striking system.

However, zooming in on one thing for a bit doesn’t mean that everything else disappears or is deemed unimportant. It just means a single thing is getting some attention for a bit.

So even if it is a similar discussion, it isn’t like there is no value in examining a single part of the system to make sure it doesn’t break or falter when the rest of the force is applied. It also isn’t like martial artists and boxers don’t talk about their hands. And once that looks right talk about the arm, the shoulder, the torso, the hips, the legs….

Maybe they usually go from the bottom up- I can’t remember all of my sons Karate and kick boxing lessons- but they definitely break it down, put it back together, break it down and put it back together.

[AndrewMeronek]

To Harrison: I wasn't intending to compile a comprehensive list of all embouchure attributes. As I said, I was just thinking of what a "starting point" would be, as in what is the fundamental information from which all the other detail follows.

Stated another way: the primary purpose of an embouchure is to create vibrations of some intensity. So: what is vibrating? What is actually happening when those vibrations change, in terms of the vibrations and air movement/pressure/etc. itself, before considerations of muscular controls?

Ultimately, I guess it just depends on one's point of view. Muscular tension and control could be "fundamental" independent of any physics happening external to those muscles, too. Whatever the case, I think it's helpful to understand that "point of view" as a separate component of an embouchure system. It certainly would get rid of some incorrect assumptions that we sometimes see some people throw about as fact:

"only one lip vibrates"
"always blow directly into the mouthpiece throat"
"warm air for warm tone"

etc.

[Doug Elliott]

Is a bicycle part of your legs?
It is when you're riding it.
You can walk without it, but you can go a lot farther with the bike extending the power of your legs.
And the bike should fit your leg length and suit your body's physical style of pedaling, or you'll be working more than necessary.
Everything else is just details.

[VJOFan]

Is a bicycle part of your legs?
It is when you're riding it.
You can walk without it, but you can go a lot farther with the bike extending the power of your legs.
And the bike should fit your leg length and suit your body's physical style of pedaling, or you'll be working more than necessary.
Everything else is just details.

Is the bicycle the mouthpiece?

[harrisonreed]

To Harrison: I wasn't intending to compile a comprehensive list of all embouchure attributes. As I said, I was just thinking of what a "starting point" would be, as in what is the fundamental information from which all the other detail follows.

Stated another way: the primary purpose of an embouchure is to create vibrations of some intensity.

No, this is immediately the wrong starting point. I mean this in the most sincere way, and this is the basis of everything I teach my own students. The embouchure can't create vibrations -- it can only influence vibrations that are happening in the air column out in front of them, inside the brass, and vibrate with them. If it was the other way around, again, you could play any note in any slide position with a beautiful sound. But you can't.

With that as my starting point, you can see why I think it's futile for Dave to be so focused on just the embouchure, ie the lips. The freebuzzing, the mouthpiece buzzing, the focus on the corners, the chop strength building -- it's no wonder students do this their whole college career, start teaching their own students the same thing, and then their face crumbles into focal distonia. The more thought and work I've put into the overall system, the less tense my corners have become, and everything has gotten better. Better range, better endurance, and a better sound.

Is a bicycle part of your legs?
It is when you're riding it.
You can walk without it, but you can go a lot farther with the bike extending the power of your legs.
And the bike should fit your leg length and suit your body's physical style of pedaling, or you'll be working more than necessary.
Everything else is just details.

This exactly. "Let's talk about the lips, and freebuzzing (ie walking) and buzzing, and corners, and then hop onto a kiddie bike (mouthpiece/horn) that doesn't fit and try to do the tour de France."

My point, at the end of the day, is that everything your lips do when you're playing is dictated by other internal (your air, your jaw, your tongue) and external (the feedback/vibrations/resistance from the trombone) factors. Your lips literally do nothing by themselves, and trying to break down what they do and train them up without the influence of those internal and external factors is potentially detrimental to the player. It's like trying to test your new airplane design in a vacuum chamber.

[harrisonreed]

I don't want to burn Dave either. He knows what he is talking about and has dedicated his work to this one subject. I just don't think you can really get into good details of just the "embouchure" without looking at how it interacts with the entire system.

[VJOFan]

No, this is immediately the wrong starting point. I mean this in the most sincere way, and this is the basis of everything I teach my own students. The embouchure can't create vibrations -- it can only influence vibrations that are happening in the air column out in front of them, inside the brass, and vibrate with them.

From where do those vibrations in front of the lips, in the brass come?

I’ve heard the idea that on a fundamental level of physics there is no causation, but up here in the time bound world of human perceptions things have a source of origin.

How does the sound in a brass instrument start?

[AndrewMeronek]

I just don't think you can really get into good details of just the "embouchure" without looking at how it interacts with the entire system.

Again, not what I was trying to say.

[cruisebone]

I've never had a single lesson on embouchure, or any lesson really. I just put the horn to my face when I was a High School freshman, as a drummer, because the band (and two siblings) were going on a trip to Bermuda and the band director said if you want to go to Bermuda, here is a trombone and a lesson book. You have two months. LOL
Three years later I was playing lead trombone in 6 college jazz bands and a great local Latin Band which is still around today.
While studying accounting.
Doh!

[harrisonreed]

I just don't think you can really get into good details of just the "embouchure" without looking at how it interacts with the entire system.

Again, not what I was trying to say.

Right, you were trying to get just some basic starters down. Mine would be "the primary purpose of the embouchure is to focus and direct air into the mouthpiece/trombone"

[Basbasun]

Again, not what I was trying to say.

Right, you were trying to get just some basic starters down. Mine would be "the primary purpose of the embouchure is to focus and direct air into the mouthpiece/trombone"

I do not follow you. Do you like to say that the vibrating lips is not what makes the standing wave? Can you explane that so a Swede like me can understand what you are saying?
We have all seen the videos of vibrating lips, can you please explain what we are seing?
I can play my horn with a saxophone mouthpiece, the reed vibrate and makes a sound in the horn.
My lips vibrate and make the same notes with a (slightly) different sound.
I think you do mean something. But what?

[harrisonreed]

Right, you were trying to get just some basic starters down. Mine would be "the primary purpose of the embouchure is to focus and direct air into the mouthpiece/trombone"

I do not follow you. Do you like to say that the vibrating lips is not what makes the standing wave? Can you explane that so a Swede like me can understand what you are saying?
We have all seen the videos of vibrating lips, can you please explain what we are seing?
I can play my horn with a saxophone mouthpiece, the reed vibrate and makes a sound in the horn.
My lips vibrate and make the same notes with a (slightly) different sound.
I think you do mean something. But what?

Christian Lindberg, the best trombone playing Swede I know, explains it very well in his buzzing video.

The lips vibrate because of, and together with, the standing wave. If you do it the other way around, you get "a horrible sound".



He says he is talking about buzzing, but what he is demonstrating is how the face must interact with the wave in the trombone. The resistance. The compression. Whatever you want to call it.

NOTE: I don't want this to go in the direction or discuss buzzing. I just thought Christian's demonstration fits the bill

[Basbasun]

I know Christian very well, we talked about trombone playing a lot, we did have a talk that time he desided to stop mpc buzzing.
I do (ofcourse) agree with C. mpc buzing is not the same as trombone playing, but the lips have to vibrate in the actuall playing to.
Free buzzing is not the the same as mpc buzzing, but for many players it works. MPC buzzing is not the same as what the lips have react to when playing, still to many players use it with good result.
That is three different situations for the lips to start vibrate.

I still do not really know what you are trying to say, sorry about that.

[timothy42b]

Two thoughts.

I'm reading a book called Beginners, about an adult attempting to learn new skills along with his child. He talks about chess and singing. Computers have been able to beat humans at chess, but in the past they were programmed with algorithms that understood the principles. The strongest player in the world now is one that was completely unprogrammed; it just learned by playing games with no idea of strengths or proper approaches, and it learned in 9 hours. But in those 9 hours it played 44 million games.

Trombone is a little like that, isn't it? For much of the trombone world we try to improve by playing with little idea of how things really work. The problem is we don't live long enough to try 44 million times.

Second thought was about Stephen Pinker but I ran out of time.

[afugate]

I still do not really know what you are trying to say, sorry about that.

I don't think Harrison means the lips don't vibrate. I think he's saying that when done correctly, the standing wave produced by the horn causes the lips to vibrate when the embouchure is set correctly. So the player shouldn't be trying to produce a vibration (or buzz). They should be trying to get the embouchure into a position where it will vibrate.

Perhaps this is where different approaches would require different resistance at different points in the horn.

--Andy in OKC.

[harrisonreed]

I still do not really know what you are trying to say, sorry about that.

I don't think Harrison means the lips don't vibrate. I think he's saying that when done correctly, the standing wave produced by the horn causes the lips to vibrate when the embouchure is set correctly. So the player shouldn't be trying to produce a vibration (or buzz). They should be trying to get the embouchure into a position where it will vibrate.

Perhaps this is where different approaches would require different resistance at different points in the horn.

--Andy in OKC.

+1

[afugate]

The current state of embouchure study in brass playing makes me think of golf before the advent of inexpensive high speed video.

Before then, players with unconventional golf swings could be very successful at the highest levels. Today, there are few golfers who do anything unusual, because golf teaching has coalesced into a list of standard swing practices that make it more likely for someone to be successful.

This thread has been very thought provoking for me, as a trombone player with the equivalent of an "ugly golf swing." I just hope I live long enough to eliminate the majority of the bad habits I developed over the years...

--Andy in OKC

[Wilktone]

No, this is immediately the wrong starting point. I mean this in the most sincere way, and this is the basis of everything I teach my own students. The embouchure can't create vibrations -- it can only influence vibrations that are happening in the air column out in front of them, inside the brass, and vibrate with them. If it was the other way around, again, you could play any note in any slide position with a beautiful sound. But you can't.

Huh?

The vibrating lips is what sets the standing wave vibrating, which then oscillates back to the lips and creates the resonance. The lips absolutely create vibrations. I can bend a pitch away from the natural frequency the instrument wants to play (albeit with an unfocused tone) and make the instrument play the pitch I'm buzzing. That is my embouchure telling the horn what pitch to play, not the other way around.

With that as my starting point, you can see why I think it's futile for Dave to be so focused on just the embouchure, ie the lips.

You presume that because I'm interested in the embouchure that I was A) always focused that way, and B) always focused only on the embouchure. I mostly participate to discussions where I have something unique or valuable to contribute that other people haven't said first. Since I've studied embouchure technique more than most, those are the conversations you'll see my participation.

When I teach (and practice) I address breathing, tonguing, slide technique, ear training, expressive playing, theory, history, and a myriad of other related topics as the need arrises. Many players come to me specifically to diagnose issues with their chops, so often my lessons are focused on that, but when issues are caused by something different that aspect of technique gets addressed instead.

So I'll thank you to not put words into my mouth.

The freebuzzing, the mouthpiece buzzing, the focus on the corners, the chop strength building -- it's no wonder students do this their whole college career, start teaching their own students the same thing, and then their face crumbles into focal distonia.

The typical case of a brass player who develops focal dystonia (or at least symptoms consistent with focal dystonia) are not players who focused on embouchure their whole career. They typically were "natural" players who never really thought much about embouchure until things started breaking down. My source here is Jan Kagarice, but that appears to be confirmed by other folks too (some of who are associated with Kagarice, for what that's worth).

The more thought and work I've put into the overall system, the less tense my corners have become, and everything has gotten better.

Again, putting some thought into the pieces of the puzzle don't discount the importance of the overall system. The point is to be able to diagnose how the pieces fit together, not to obsessively focus on one thing.

Your lips literally do nothing by themselves, and trying to break down what they do and train them up without the influence of those internal and external factors is potentially detrimental to the player.

You keep discussing the "lips" as if that is what everyone else thinks "embouchure" is. You're the only one stating this in your arguments against studying embouchure technique. Everyone else agrees with your point. Is it time to move on from that and move the discussion forward?

I just don't think you can really get into good details of just the "embouchure" without looking at how it interacts with the entire system.

See above. It's time to move on.

The lips vibrate because of, and together with, the standing wave. If you do it the other way around, you get "a horrible sound".

Right. And learning how to get your lips to most efficiently interact with the standing wave is what embouchure technique is all about. Time to move on?

So the player shouldn't be trying to produce a vibration (or buzz). They should be trying to get the embouchure into a position where it will vibrate.

Whether you're trying to produce a buzz or getting your lips into a position where they vibrate you're still talking about the embouchure. Let's all agree that the air and standing wave and way we shape the oral cavity and where the slide is and all the other factors that go into playing are important and also interact with the embouchure. Maybe then we can move past whether or not the discussion can be useful and actually get into discussing it?

[afugate]

Right. And learning how to get your lips to most efficiently interact with the standing wave is what embouchure technique is all about. Time to move on?

+1

--Andy in OKC

[BGuttman]

Reginald Fink talks about directing the air stream to different locations in the mouthpiece for different ranges: more toward the rim the higher you go and more toward the aperture the lower you go. Doesn't this imply that different parts of the lips are used for different ranges?

[VJOFan]

So the answer to my original question seems to be…no.

It is not possible to describe the physical characteristics common to all effective embouchures.

I knew there was wide variation in what people do to make brass instruments work, but I was hoping we could figure out the most important underlying “laws of embouchure”. Oh well…

I have mostly played “naturally” with about three periods in my life where I became embouchure aware. Each time I made a few improvements.

But in the last five or so years I have realized how everything revolves around that little interface area between man and machine.

Keeping that tiny spot of sound energy production stable and undisturbed is why everything else matters.

It’s why how the left hand holds the horn is important: the angles on the face have to be right for all registers.

It’s why how you move the slide matters: maybe that low B cracks because the horn gets thrown to the side in seventh position.

It’s why everything behind the lips in the oral cavity has to support the range, volume and timbre.intended.

It why learning to control the breath, but not impede it is important.

Cracks, cacks, clams and no shows happen at the lips, so I’m very interested in making that area of interface between me and the instrument continue to work better.

[CaptEquinox]

General principle: All wind instrument embouchures involve holding the mouth in a state of controlled tension. The “wind” part means air. While sounds are not literally blown out of the instrument, the air is needed to induce a standing wave through vibration. Just as true for woodwinds, right? Things get more specific after that. It really is possible to know these “chop specifics”, and focus one’s awareness on them in practice. However, a musical performer ultimately performs in the moment. Things need to be fairly automatic so the musician can make music.

[Wilktone]

Reginald Fink talks about directing the air stream to different locations in the mouthpiece for different ranges: more toward the rim the higher you go and more toward the aperture the lower you go. Doesn't this imply that different parts of the lips are used for different ranges?

This is true, but probably a little more nuanced than Fink's description. It's been a while since I read this book, but if I recall correctly he only discusses it for downstream players (which are more common).

Leno's film will show you what this looks like. I've posted it a number of times before in other threads here, but search YouTube for Lloyd Leno "Lip Vibration Among Trombonists" and you should find it.

So the answer to my original question seems to be…no.

It is not possible to describe the physical characteristics common to all effective embouchures.

It's not impossible, it's just difficult to do so in text alone. Photos and video help. I've tried to do this on my blog a number of times, so you can poke around there or send me a message and I'll send you a link or three if you want.

I knew there was wide variation in what people do to make brass instruments work, but I was hoping we could figure out the most important underlying “laws of embouchure”.

Well, one law might be "everyone's different." Understanding how those individual variations work within the context of the broader embouchure type pattern is helpful. A lesson with Doug will get you started with understanding your own variations and is a good starting point to then understand how to address that with other players. It just takes time and experience to learn what differences are likely to work long term and which might be worth correcting.

[CaptEquinox]

Reginald Fink talks about directing the air stream to different locations in the mouthpiece for different ranges: more toward the rim the higher you go and more toward the aperture the lower you go. Doesn't this imply that different parts of the lips are used for different ranges?

You might be thinking of Denis Wick here — Trombone Technique p19, although Fink does talk about the direction of the airstream in chapter 4 of The Trombonist's Handbook. (Both Wick and Fink acknowledge the existence of upstream players, by the way.)

[harrisonreed]

No, this is immediately the wrong starting point. I mean this in the most sincere way, and this is the basis of everything I teach my own students. The embouchure can't create vibrations -- it can only influence vibrations that are happening in the air column out in front of them, inside the brass, and vibrate with them. If it was the other way around, again, you could play any note in any slide position with a beautiful sound. But you can't.

Huh?

The vibrating lips is what sets the standing wave vibrating, which then oscillates back to the lips and creates the resonance. The lips absolutely create vibrations. I can bend a pitch away from the natural frequency the instrument wants to play (albeit with an unfocused tone) and make the instrument play the pitch I'm buzzing. That is my embouchure telling the horn what pitch to play, not the other way around.

The lips vibrate because of, and together with, the standing wave. If you do it the other way around, you get "a horrible sound".

Right. And learning how to get your lips to most efficiently interact with the standing wave is what embouchure technique is all about. Time to move on?

It can't be both, Dave. Sorry. This is where I get confused, when people want to have a serious chat about the basic principles of embouchure, and we can't even agree on the absolute most basic concept in brass playing -- playing in the center of the pitch, ie letting the horn dictate the vibrations. You're contradicting yourself here. Yup, you can lip pitches by increasing the resistance in the face and trying to force the lips to create the oscillations -- lots of people sound like that's how they learned to play, and they don't sound good. I'm sticking to my guns, but yeah, time to move on.

It would be cool to talk about air speed, tongue position, the role of the throat, keeping the embouchure in equilibrium while the forces from your body and the resistance of the air in the horn meet. That already got downvoted, so...

[Wilktone]

...letting the horn dictate the vibrations.

Well, yes and no. It's a complex interaction. My point is that since I can force the horn to go where my embouchure tells it to (and for the record, that also is done in the oral cavity and with the air as well, not solely with the embouchure), it's the embouchure that is dictating to the horn where to go. Having precise control over the embouchure is what enables us to play where the horn wants to resonate best.

It would be cool to talk about air speed, tongue position, the role of the throat, keeping the embouchure in equilibrium while the forces from your body and the resistance of the air in the horn meet. That already got downvoted, so...

What I think other folks are struggling with is your dismissal of the topic as a whole because it appears you'd rather talk about other things. We can certainly talk about those other areas as vital.

[Wilktone]

You might be thinking of Denis Wick here — Trombone Technique p19, although Fink does talk about the direction of the airstream in chapter 4 of The Trombonist's Handbook. (Both Wick and Fink acknowledge the existence of upstream players, by the way.)

Yep, I think you're right. I have tried to find my copies of those books, but I may have lost them over the years. I did site both those books in my dissertation and can confirm that Wick did acknowledge the existence of upstream players and also states that those players represent a minority.

Wick did acknowledge that there are a "small minority" of players for whom the reverse is true. This is apparently caused by a short upper lip and an undershot jaw and rarely are such players successful according to Wick, although he stated that there are just enough of these upstream type players to prove exceptions to the rule (Wick, 1971, p. 18).

The citation of Fink I have in my paper states:

...the trombonist must at least mentally aim the airstream at the lower part of the mouthpiece cup (Fink, 1977 p. 12).

I didn't write anything in my paper that Fink acknowledged upstream embouchures and since that was directly relevant to the paper would probably have mentioned it if I saw it. I could have gotten sloppy and missed it or just neglected to cite that info though.

[timothy42b]

The embouchure can't create vibrations -- it can only influence vibrations that are happening in the air column out in front of them, inside the brass, and vibrate with them. If it was the other way around, again, you could play any note in any slide position with a beautiful sound. But you can't.

Kind of an extreme position, but there's a factor here that I never see discussed.

Traditional view, the lips buzz causing the air column to resonate. That goes back before Benade, probably to Helmholtz who died in 1894. As a pressure pulse (positive or negative) hits the end of the horn it reflects, arriving back at the lips at the right time to either assist the lips in opening or closing. In this view the air column resonating does two things: amplifies and stabilizes.

If the lips buzz at some frequency other than the resonance, the air column vibrates at that frequency, but with neither the amplification nor the stabilization characteristic of resonance, so it takes a lot of effort, but it can be done. You can play any pitch in your range in any position - but of course not with a beautiful sound.

What I never see speculated on is the yank factor. Suppose I buzz middle C in first position. If I do that into the horn, with great effort and focus I can play a weak middle C, but with equally great effort the horn tries to yank my lips AND my brain onto a Bb or a D.

How does that interaction work, and why is it so strong? Try it and see, this is not a simple problem. There is a psychological reaction as well as a physical one.

[VJOFan]

As far as what timothy42b says above, the embouchure can also be displaced or disturbed by vibrations, that are not part of the standing wave, that travel into the horn from the bell. Like an extremely loud timpani blast or out of tune players.

If you have ever sat in with a beginner band you will recognize the fatigue that sets in much more quickly than it should given the music being performed.

[harrisonreed]

The embouchure can't create vibrations -- it can only influence vibrations that are happening in the air column out in front of them, inside the brass, and vibrate with them. If it was the other way around, again, you could play any note in any slide position with a beautiful sound. But you can't.

Kind of an extreme position, but there's a factor here that I never see discussed.

You called it extreme, but then everything you wrote about was your observations that agree with what I was talking about. You almost described verbatim what I was talking about. This thread is about fundamentals of embouchure, and I offer "let the horn do the work, don't force it at the face", but I seem to be taking a little flak.

In any case I agree with almost everything you wrote except that the "pressure pulse" doesn't bounce back off the end of the horn -- the is no end on the other side of the mouthpiece, just a bell, and that's open. The air just vibrates back and forth inside, shedding waves of air out the bell. It becomes closed on your face end every time the lips close, when the air compresses into another wave in front of the lips.

I'm sort of done with this conversation though, especially after I was told I was dismissive of the subject (after I've offered my ideas over the last 7 years of stressing over this subject, not just here but in the other thread as well). Talking about how to form your lips and use your embouchure without talking about the forces that hold it in place and make it work is sort of like talking about how to manually hold a parachute in the right shape in the vacuum of space.

[Wilktone]

This thread is about fundamentals of embouchure, and I offer "let the horn do the work, don't force it at the face", but I seem to be taking a little flak.

It occurs to me that is because the way you're describing things as "let the horn do the work," is a playing sensation. We've been interpreting your suggestions here more literally. Of course the horn doesn't do the work on its own, the player does this by focusing the embouchure to vibrate at the correct frequency (in part).

I'm sort of done with this conversation though, especially after I was told I was dismissive of the subject (after I've offered my ideas over the last 7 years of stressing over this subject, not just here but in the other thread as well).

You have to admit that you've been a little unclear with your thoughts here and that it was easy to interpret your point of view as being dismissive of any discussion about the embouchure. You called embouchure "superficial."

Too much thought and misthought and time goes into thinking about the superficial embouchure.

You mentioned that we should be talking less about the embouchure and more about the tongue and air.

Not enough talk is made about the role of the tongue and throat in all of it, or how to put the air into the mouthpiece.

What your questions don't address at all is how the tongue affects the air rate, quality, and volume, or how it is responsible for directing the air through the aperture. It's not enough to just have the aperture angled -- the tongue also plays a huge role in getting the air to the aperture the right way.

You also frequently created a "straw man" out of the points that others have tried to make, that we're unconcerned with other parts of the overall playing system and how they interact.

Talking about how to form your lips and use your embouchure without talking about the forces that hold it in place and make it work is sort of like talking about how to manually hold a parachute in the right shape in the vacuum of space.

Talking about using the embouchure and only focusing on the lips is like talking about punching and only focusing on the fist. The fist is almost nothing.

It is possible to talk about the lips and how the lips function in the embouchure system while (temporarily) removing other parts out of the equation for the point of coming to a deeper understanding. Yes, we want to be able to see the forest for the trees, but if we want to understand the whole ecosystem it's very useful to understand the role the trees play in the entire forest. That is the point that I think some of us feel you're being dismissive of.

I don't want to burn Dave either.

And likewise, I'm not trying to dump on you here. However, I would like to challenge your viewpoint somewhat and try to have a more charitable interpretation of what we're trying to say while still holding us accountable to effective communication. This is a two way street. I think we can all do better here.

Dave

[VJOFan]

Once the sound is happening, it's game on for harrisonreed's message.

The sound has to be started though. It also has to be restarted a lot while playing. Those are the moments when having a sense of where to be for the upcoming sound is very useful. The lips are not useless in playing the trombone, and knowledge about any part of playing is not useless.

That is where the conflict in the thread is perhaps centered. The impression I, and it seems others, got was our colleague harrisonreed came into the room and simply said, "Stop talking about that, it's wrong." That's just a perception- no one is responsible for my perceptions and it is easy, in text, to "mishear" someone's intent- but that is where the responses querying why it was so wrong to simply talk about lips seem to have begun.

At any rate, I've picked up a few interesting ideas in the chats, so thanks to everyone who has posted to this point.

[Wilktone]

Can we come up with the general principles of effective embouchures?

Are there basic descriptors that can be applied to effective embouchures?

OK, this is far from perfect, but I've taken a stab at answering this question on my blog. Since I include imbedded images and videos that are more work than I feel like doing right now here, I'll just post the link. If I feel the urge and have time maybe I'll recreate it here in the thread for ease of discussion. Questions and criticisms are welcome and appreciated.

https://wilktone.com/?p=6800

Dave

[VJOFan]

OK, this is far from perfect, but I've taken a stab at answering this question on my blog. Since I include imbedded images and videos that are more work than I feel like doing right now here, I'll just post the link.

https://wilktone.com/?p=6800

Dave

This is absolutely helpful in helping to organize my thinking.

Thank you!

[baileyman]

Elsewhere on Dave's blog he has a video of a Swedish (?) fellow experimenting with a mechanical embouchure. Sounds terrible! But it does make noise. It tries to copy the two lip human configuration. But I do not think it copies anything like a moveable tongue. It appears the lips are attached to an enormous mouth volume, maybe a pint or more. And it has some kind of lip tensioning device, I think, though it did not change partials.

For this model I would like to see a piston in the mouth chamber to adjust the volume. The super-blatty sound might just clean up with a mouth volume closer to a tablespoon rather than a pint, and such a device could verify the concept of mouth tuning. (Wouldn't it be a surprise to show such a piston could induce partial changes?)

I suppose that it is worthwhile, trying to get the thing going, to first copy some anatomy. But it is not clear to me that is necessary. People think of having two lips, I think because of the underlying musculature. But suppose the orbicular oris was uniformly capable all the way around. Then we might not think of two lips. I would bet people could play just fine, and I'd bet the machine could do the same with circular lips. That we think about things like two lips, air direction, upstream etc, could be artifacts of our own asymmetry. Without asymmetry, which "direction" would one blow? It seems the horn would not care, since radially speaking, it's symmetric everywhere.

So, after a ramble, the relevant point could be as far as principles go, the most basic ones would describe what is necessary for any lip and mouth of any configuration to work, and then there would be other principles for dealing with our asymmetry.

[CaptEquinox]

Referencing the original post, consider the "general" part — a general principle is a starting point. A general principle's value may end up being as psychological as anything else.

Below is part of Ed Kleinhammer's general embouchure description from The Art of Trombone Playing. It's pretty good.

The embouchure is to the brass player what the reed and embouchure are to the woodwind player, since the vibrating lips of the brass player serve precisely the same purpose as the reed. When a column or stream of air sets the lips vibrating, musical sound results, amplified and improved in quality by the addition of the overtones from the instrument itself. Faster vibrations produce sounds of higher pitch. Slower vibrations produce lower-pitched tones. The function of the embouchure is to tense and relax by the use of its muscles to produce an aperture between the upper and lower lips of a size to produce the the desired number of vibrations per second when held steady and when motivated by the air passing through the lips.

[Wilktone]

Below is part of Ed Kleinhammer's general embouchure description from the The Art of Trombone Playing. It's pretty good.

There are a couple of points I would quibble with.

When a column or stream of air sets the lips vibrating, musical sound results, amplified and improved in quality by the addition of the overtones from the instrument itself.

The instrument isn't really an "amplifier." The sound we're hearing is the oscillating column of air inside the instrument.

The function of the embouchure is to tense and relax by the use of its muscles to produce an aperture between the upper and lower lips of a size to produce the the desired number of vibrations per second when held steady and when motivated by the air passing through the lips.

This is a bit misleading. It's not really the size of the aperture that produces the desired number of vibrations to play a particular pitch, it's the amount of lip tissue allowed to vibrate. A loud high note can have the same size aperture as a soft low note. I've posted Leno's film in other topics before, but you can clearly see how the amount of lip tissue that vibrates correlating with the range being played.

For this model I would like to see a piston in the mouth chamber to adjust the volume. The super-blatty sound might just clean up with a mouth volume closer to a tablespoon rather than a pint, and such a device could verify the concept of mouth tuning.

Yeah, that would be nice to see. If it's the post that I'm thinking of I had reached out and asked them about the "lip" ratio inside the mouthpiece, thinking that it might work better if they tried to make the mechanical embouchure upstream or downstream. His response was that he tried different mouthpiece placements but the centered one worked best (and acknowledged it wasn't very good).

(Wouldn't it be a surprise to show such a piston could induce partial changes?)

I'll hunt around, but not too long ago I was discussing a paper that did something like that. My recollection was that they were able to induce intonation and partial changes with some sort of mechanical system designed to how the oral cavity affects the sound on brass instruments.

This is absolutely helpful in helping to organize my thinking.

Thank you!

You are very welcome! Take it with a grain of salt.


Dave

[Wilktone]

I'll hunt around, but not too long ago I was discussing a paper that did something like that. My recollection was that they were able to induce intonation and partial changes with some sort of mechanical system designed to how the oral cavity affects the sound on brass instruments.

Found it.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ment_sound

In their conclusions:

CONCLUSIONS
In this study of a model player of wind instruments:

1. Vocal tract geometry dominates the timbre of the sound of the didjeridu, and less strongly affects the timbre of the trombone.

2. The tract geometry affects the played pitch by typically 20 cents over both instrument-dominated and reed-dominated regimes in both instruments. It can also cause a transition between different playing registers.

3. Raising the tongue, or the tongue tip, increases the height of peaks in the vocal tract impedance, and so more effectively couples it to the instrument resonances and to the reed or lips. This gives wind players a method of fine pitch adjustment, by variably coupling a largely imaginary impedance. It also explains the intonation problem sometimes introduced by double tonguing.

My bold emphasis above.