RountineTracker: Summer 2019

Hey everybody,

Here’s what’s inside BTB’s ‘RoutineTracker’ for the summer of 2019:

• How to improve your upper register articulation (might not be what you think).
• A new method for reducing mouthpiece pressure (never before revealed at BTB).
• A new tweak that has improved flexibility between ranges – big time.
• A sample two-part warm-up for you to try.
• And an introduction to possibly the greatest book ever written on brass playing.

Plus!

• A full-blown rant on how stupid trumpet players can be!

You don’t want to miss this one.

How To Use This Article

Keep in mind that what and how I practice is of no particular importance to the universe. However, you might find something in here you like. Please be sure to apply these ideas in a way that is suitable to your current level as a trumpet player and your current practice habits.

Summer 2019

For starters, summer here in Lancaster City means it’s time to grow some veggies. Excited by the prospect, we started a garden.

Let’s take a look:

Nature found a way.

Here’s An Awesome Book About Brass Playing

Before we jump into this season’s practice routine, I want to introduce you to a book that has had a dramatic impact on my playing in a short time.

‘The Art of Brass Playing’ was written by Philip Farkas shortly after retiring from his long-held position as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principle french horn player. The book is basically an analysis of the brass-playing embouchure along with recommendations for the proper formation and development of said embouchure.

Despite the fact that many of his CSO contemporaries – renowned pedagogues themselves – preached more of a “hear the sound vividly in your imagination and go for it” approach, Farkas really digs into what makes our chops tick.

While not everyone will appreciate such deep analysis, I have to say it may be the best book I’ve read on brass playing to date. And if that weren’t enough, two or three of Farkas’ points have completely changed my trumpet playing life in just a few short months.

Let’s start there.

A reading from the book of Farkas.

The Jaw and Teeth in Trumpet Playing

The first piece of the embouchure puzzle Farkas addresses is the function of the jaw in controlling the teeth aperture. His basic suggestion is to line the bottom and top teeth up as much as possible.

Taking a look at the skeletal structure first and foremost makes perfect sense. Other athletes do it – posture – and it absolutely changes the way the surrounding muscles coordinate and develop over time. Since prioritizing experimentation with a more lined-up teeth aperture – above all else – a few long time issues have nearly vanished over a period of about eight or nine months.

Before we go on, I’d be remiss not to mention that some of the greatest trumpet players in the world have noticeable down-streams (a bell pointing down). However, there a lot, and I do mean a LOT of fantastic lead and jazz trumpet players that have trumpet bells that either stick straight out or are in a slight up-stream position (bell pointing up).

Initial Experimentation With The Forward Jaw

A number of years back I began raising my horn angle simply to mimic players I admire. Then, after some time practicing “molasses slow” lip slurs, I found a closer teeth aperture that felt easier and sounded good. Still, the lower teeth were slightly recessing just above the staff.

After reading the Stevens/Costello embouchure analysis book, I messed around with a forward jutted jaw while trying to play high notes. This lead to some interesting results, but also headaches, so I laid off the high range.

For some reason, while reading Farkas’ book, it clicked. The lined up teeth (and forward jaw) is not a high-note trick. It is a means of developing an embouchure that allows great flexibility with minimal changes from register to register.

By keeping the teeth as a constant, the embouchure muscles are encouraged to rely more heavily on changes in isometric tension rather than a pronounced pivot. This, in effect, raises the ceiling on your range potential as you can keep developing greater isometric strength and coordination over time.

Ironing In The Forward Jaw

One of the first things that helped getting the teeth lined up was taking a general look at posture, particularly the idea of beginning every movement by imagining the crown of the head floating toward the ceiling.

This imagery, taught as the Alexander Technique, allows the jaw to kind of slide forward a tiny bit. Reinhardt called it the “two-position.” The alternative to the two-position is a slightly cocked-back head (tight neck) that recesses the jaw.

Imagining the crown of the head floating toward the ceiling before playing, along with just kind of getting the bottom teeth a bit more out front got me going.

What Happened While Using The Forward Jaw 100% Of The Time

Did I instantly get better with the forward jaw?

This is important so listen up…

NO!

OF COURSE NOT!

We OBVIOUSLY have to PRACTICE!

Would someone please, PLEASE TELL ME WHY so many trumpet players think they can put their lips some way, dangle some gadget from their mouth, buzz their lips or WHATEVER and think it’s going to make ANY DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER IN THE NEXT DAY OR TWO?!?!?!?!?

…you get it.

Exercise #1: Reinforcing The Forward Jaw Through The Pedal Range

I am still practicing the pedal tone routine learned from jazz trumpet phenom, Alex Sipiagin.

The gist of the routine is to get to where you can play a pedal C with as close to your same embouchure as possible for the middle C. Once you can do that, you start connecting more and more range to the pedal C. While I haven’t dedicated as much time to it recently, I still get down to the pedal C at the beginning of each practice day and then at least once more later in the day.

Using the pedal range to explore the jaw position was super helpful. Since the pedal register was pretty chaotic to begin with, I hardly even noticed the initial weirdness caused by moving the teeth around. After maybe a month or two, I was playing pretty good in the pedal range while keeping the teeth lined up. At that point, adding a little more range and articulation was a natural progression.

Initial Trumpet Playing Benefits Of More Lined-Up Teeth

Some of the first things I noticed from changing the teeth alignment were kind of weird.

For example, one evening while improvising, I found myself playing lines down into low F, E and Eb territory. While that wasn’t overly exciting, at one point I played a line into the pedal range and then continued the line by jumping up over an octave with practically no change in horn angle or chop position – and that seemed good to me.

Something else that has improved with a more lined-up teeth aperture is that the mouthpiece now has a more solid base to rest upon. I used to think the lower lip needed to be nudged forward to meet the mouthpiece – something I remarked on while experimenting with other forms of embouchure strengthening (e.g. pencil exercise, facial flex, etc.). These days, with the teeth lined up, it doesn’t seem like as big a deal.

The even resting place for the mouthpiece also gave me a greater ability to play on wet chops, as well as keeping the sound and range going as the chops start to spread. These were both long-term struggles of mine. The added security has been huge while improvising.

Exercise #2: (Way) More of the Same

After the pedal tone warm-up, the bulk of my practice sessions have been dedicated to the same triad exercise I covered this past spring.

If you didn’t read that article, this is the basic pattern:

Essentially, I employ this scale pattern in all keys and all registers. The basic method I prefer for developing technique is to find the tempo I can play it “perfectly,” and stay there until getting a complete run-through without errors (all keys, all range). At that point, the metronome gets bumped up one click for the next day.

Tempos are tracked in the Practice Tracker.

Practice Trackers are the things embouchure dreams are made of.

Most recently, with the aim of spending 100% of my practice time reinforcing the new jaw position, I cut the tempo pretty drastically. With the change in teeth alignment, the embouchure contraction and point of articulation inside the mouth also changed. This accounted for a reboot period of diminished range, technique and sound*.

*The Skill of Chill, anyone?

And for the record, BTB subscribes to the idea that if some change to your playing embouchure improves a long-standing weakness in your meat-and-potatoes playing range, or is more physically comfortable – go there. With patient, systematic practice you can usually take a good starting point and develop excellent range and endurance – even if that means taking a few steps back now and again.

How to Improve Upper Register Articulation

Something new to this Summer is that I’ve completely cut the range building lip trills from my daily routine. Not only were they a bit much with the new jaw position, but Farkas’ chapter on articulation offered a logical alternative that fit well with what I was doing.

Farkas notes that the articulation of a pitch is happening at the lips rather than the tongue. This means that if you tend to have trouble articulating a note, it’s probably the lack of appropriate tension in the embouchure that’s to blame – not something the tongue is doing.

Farkas likens the lips to a guitar string. When strummed, the guitar string produces a musical tone because of the inherent tension held in the string. On the trumpet, this means that each note requires a certain amount of tension at the aperture. A little too much, or not enough of that tension, and you frack the note.

When the embouchure can hold the pitch ‘on its own,’ it doesn’t really matter how the tongue articulates inside the mouth. The sound of the articulation is achieved simply by blocking and unblocking the air-stream. This is why we can double tongue – articulate in two completely different spots inside the mouth – with no trouble. It also implies that we can articulate in the same manner regardless of range.

Farkas’ recommendation is to practice breath-attacks on notes you typically have trouble articulating. This teaches the embouchure how to create the appropriate amount of tension for that note. Once you can consistently breath-attack the note, you will find tonguing that note very easy. This concept can be used to develop and expand your playing range by practicing breath-attacks at the periphery of your current range, both high and low.

Practicing Your Embouchure ‘Grip’ To Reduce Mouthpiece Pressure

While practicing breath-attacks in the upper register, we need to be acutely aware of the temptation to apply more mouthpiece pressure. While the urge can be great, we can counteract this tendency by manually contracting the embouchure toward the mouthpiece. Purposefully ‘gripping’ the embouchure awakens the mind-muscle connection which we can use to improve our strength and control over a greater playing range.

How To ‘Grip’ The Embouchure

According to Farkas, the overall tension in the embouchure is created by two antagonistic movements in the face – the smile and the pucker.

To get a feel for this, pucker your lips forward into a kissing face. To make the kissing face, the orbicularis oris (circular muscle around the lips) contracts and shortens. The cheeks also relax in this position so that they may stretch forward during the kiss.

Now try a close-mouthed smile. The smile is generated not by the lips, but rather by the cheek muscles contacting against the molars. The orbicular oris relaxes and stretches back toward the ears in a smile.

Now start with either the smile or the pucker, and then slowly introduce the antagonistic movement while keeping tension in the starting muscle group. In other words, contract the cheeks and start to pucker while keeping the cheeks engaged, or start with the pucker and then contract the cheeks while maintaining slight tension around the lips. When we do this, the two forces essentially play tug-of-war maintaining a needed overall tension in the total embouchure.

You can practice this while playing in a range just the tiniest bit outside your current comfort zone. Breath-attack a note, and try either contracting the cheeks against the molars or shortening the distance between the corners of the mouth. Practicing in this way won’t necessarily give you the proper balance for playing, but it is a legitimate means of training the embouchure muscles in holding the inherent tension needed to play across the horn.

Adding Breath Attacks To Routine For Upper Register Development

Following these basic guidelines, I decided to increase the range covered by the basic triad pattern, breath-attacking in the registers I can’t yet easily and consistently articulate. If this interests you, I suggest curbing your appetite for the high notes if you don’t already have some good playing habits established that reduce overall reliance on mouthpiece pressure.

As far as getting through the routine goes, I like to start on the highest key and work my way down. Right now, that means beginning with D major and breath-attacking up to ‘high A.’

It looks a little something like:

I play these in a Caruso-esque way and keep the chops set while breathing through the nose. At a slow tempo (today was 58 beats per minute), the above exercise can take anywhere between 2-3 minutes. It is very tiring to the embouchure, making it critically important to keep tabs on mouthpiece pressure and embouchure contraction.

Once the top octave is completed – which is really more of a workout than anything else – I then jump down an octave and play a variation on the pattern in 8th notes. Going up and down a few times is a nice way to get some more repetition with the tongue and fingers, plus a bit more connection and flexibility between registers.

After this, I’ll move to Db major and do the same thing. Then it’s just a matter of working down through all the keys in ten-minute chunks interspersed with breaks of about 10-20 minutes.

Once I hit the highest note I can tongue easily, I’ll drop the breath-attacks completely and tongue everything in 8th notes.

So if high D is feeling good today, G major looks like this:

Then the lower octave:

And so it goes to the bottom of the horn. As you can see, the lower octave runs out of range pretty quickly. After F# major there’s basically only the upper octave version to practice on each key. However, once reaching F major, it’s nice to connect down into, and back out of, the pedal range.

Split up into ten-minute chunks, and at my current ability, the entire routine takes about an hour.

General Playing Results From The Above Routine

By breath-attacking in the upper register, playing across the full range of the horn with scale patterns that cover one and a half to two octaves each, and playing pedal tones (also breath-attacked) while aiming to keep the same embouchure as the middle register, my embouchure, sound and playing confidence have greatly improved.

On gigs, this has meant being able to play with a full-bodied mid and low range without losing lead chops, plus lots more endurance as an improviser along with lead responsibilities. It also seems like I’m recovering much more quickly from day-to-day and set-to-set.

There also appears to be an improved ability to play by ear (improvise) just by virtue of playing the same thing over and over again.

Believe it.

A Sample Two-Part Warm-up For You To Try

Part 1:

• Pick some easy exercise in the mid / low range. I like the major triads outlined above; descending from root – 5th – 3rd – root, beginning on middle C.
• Set the timer for 10 minutes.
• Before setting the mouthpiece to your lips to play, lick the rim. This reduces friction and forces the embouchure muscles to contract a bit more. There won’t be as much temptation to use additional mouthpiece pressure in the mid / low range.
• Continue through your warm-up procedure, always setting the horn down between drills. Keep licking the rim of the mouthpiece before playing.
• If you find yourself wanting to ‘get through it’ – deliberately move slower.

Part 2:

• When the timer dings, set your trumpet down and walk away for 15-20 minutes. The break is part of the warm-up.
• After your break, do what you do.

Thanks For Reading!

I hope you found this both helpful and inspiring. Please share in the comment section how you’ll be applying some of these ideas to your own practice routine.

Obligatory Finley

Finley shedding the nose trumpet.

Please share how you will be applying some key point from above to your own routine in the comments below.