trickg

Maynard playing with all but one finger below the slides -

YouTube - Maynard Ferguson Gonna Fly Now in Japan(Japanese)

I dunno - sounds pretty good to me in spite of the abnormal grip .

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Patrick Gleason
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Vulgano Brother

1. Hold your horn in your left hand with your normal grip.
2. Now squeeze your left hand very, very tightly.
3. Does the horn move? In which direction?

When we play high, we tend to tense everything up, including our grip on the trumpet -- if the trumpet moves up or down, we are transfering pressure to one lip or the other. Most great players hold their instruments in such a way that the angle doesn't change for them. If Maynard had my hands, he might have held his trumpet differently.

(By the way, anyone aspiring for entry into the Vulgano Brotherhood must know what the thrid valve slide is for, and use it and the second valve slide!)

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Tootsall

Same here: except I use the "Vulcan" grip (one above the slide, one in the slide ring, two below the slide) all the time. I had experimented on my own and found that pushing the 3rd slide open with my middle finger seems to upset the horn less than the larger motion required by using the ring finger. It does mean that the 3rd slide has to be fairly slick however and it works best if you have fairly long fingers.

It also allows me to hold the horn with the fingertips of my left hand which helps prevent excessive pressure.