rowuk

Hornguy,
there are many functioning combinations. With Dizzy, he in fact has a huge oral cavity, but the blown out cheeks may be a stiffer outside wall, which could compensate OR his chops were strong enough that the added inefficiency was not of consequence.

WE have to be careful assuming that the valid technical explanation suggests a universal solution - it doesn't.

My only point is that when we are playing, that there is no such thing as fast air (considering the physics of a trumpet, it can't even exist at pressures our body can generate). What does exist is air pressure in front of and behind the lips. When that is in sync, we have better high chops!

Boplicity

I get that. What I'm trying to ask, and not so clearly as a non-acustician, is does the tension of the muscles make the flesh vibrate differently as opposed to the lips buzzing differently. Like if you used different woods in a loudspeaker for example.

rowuk

Yes. If you want to try an experiment, push your tuning slide in a bit next time you are playing somewhere and notice what happens to your sound when you are forced to relax. Generally you have a few intonation problems that go away after a week or so (G on top of the staff for instance.....). Your endurance goes up and the sound gets more "core" and projection. If you do the opposite - pull the tuning slide out a bit, you have to play with more tension and your endurance goes down and the sound gets thinner. Most every player that I meet plays high and could benefit from "relaxing".

dlewis

Rowuk

This site learns so much from you thank you for giving us all something to think about

oldlips48

rowuk,

Pushing the tuning slide in a bit to "force" a relaxed approach to stay in tune is a very intriguing idea. I'll be trying that one....

Thanks,
Steve

rowuk

The idea is not mine. Dave Monette "forced" me to do this when I picked up my first horn at his shop. His tips on body use published on his website tell a very big truth!

DLEWIS,
sometimes I think I am giving too many TMers a reason to stay on the keyboard instead of behind the mouthpiece!

Robin

jdostie

Maybe, but in my case anyway, it's helping me between lessons when I am trying to figure out why things aren't working.

mike ansberry

Someone said earlier on that it isn't really the air moving through the horn that is relevant, but instead the speed of the air moving through the lips. That seems like a crucial point to me.

rowuk

The problem is that we do not have the speed at the lips, the horn won't let us. We have air pressure on both sides of the lips. If you want to test how fast your air is, fill up, then blow air through the horn without playing a note. Then fill up again and play some note in the middle to upper register. Your air is GONE very quickly when not playing (= fast), but seems to last forever when playing. That should be proof enough that your air can't be too fast - even when you are playing lead or the Brandenburg Concerto!!

If we are playing correctly, we are relaxed anyway. Fast air just doesn't (can't) happen - when playing.

I know that this is tough to accept after YEARS of misunderstanding. The believers only paid attention to what happens when we do NOT play. Now YOU know the rest of the story.

Vulgano Brother

I've worked some lousy lead players that "forced" me to pust my slide in too. It is fun!