Vulgano Brother

I like Rowuk's explanation of the breathing cycle; here is a down and dirty breathing trick:

THE VULGANO TIOLET PAPER ROLL TRICK
Take a used cardboard toilet roll and stick it in your mouth (this is the "dirty" part of "down and dirty," and any type of tube will do, actually) and breathe in as fast as you can. WHAM!, the air comes rushing in. Why? The back of our tongue drops with the tube in, and opens things up. Memorize the feeling, sound and everything and start appying it to your breathing without the tube.

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www.letsbuildhope.org

rowuk

Patric,
I NEVER recommend starting over unless NOTHING is salvageable! This is almost NEVER the case. Breathing is universal. You can always work on that without specifically touching anything else. Even if I have a student that looks like they are doing everything wrong, I will still only work on breathing first. Many problems go away all by themselves. Time is never wasted on breath exercises even if you have been playing for 40+ years!

I cannot and will not work on embouchure over the internet. I do not consider this to be of help or a serious approach. Any documentation of embouchure is for informational purposes only. Each face is different and embouchure is the sum of many different things! You really need to find somebody competent locally for that!

Order of attack:
1) Circle of breath
2) replace exhale with play-without tonguing! This means inhale-smoothly exhale into a long tone transition to a smooth inhale.
3) Once we can exhale at least from low G to G on top of the staff, and exhale into lip slurs,
4) we then add a VERY LIGHT tongue just to define the beginning of the note
By then, it becomes apparent if we need external help with the chops!
5) each additional function that we add to our playing comes on the exhale part of the cycle. If it doesn't work, then we take a step back - ALWAYS!

When we play music, we try and inhale in some even beat of the music we are playing, never rushed or panicked (this is tough with some conductors that have no rhythm or knowledge of wind instruments).

VBs toiletpapertubebreathimager is a very good visualizer - as long as you don't start to gag. Relaxed inhaling is very much like a yawn.

Check out the Monette webstite. They have a good description of body use here:
David G. Monette Corporation

What I have listed here is about 6 months of hard work (of course scales, intervals and other things need to be worked on too). Once this basic stuff is down, most everything else is just a function of dedication.
Good luck!

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

brunets

Patric. I am totally with you on this path! Don't throw everything away but, yes, breathing is the root of most of the problems... (I know it because I have this problem to solve too )

I just ordered the Claude Gordon book with the appealing title "brass playing is no harder than deep breathing" in order to have a look at it.

If you come in Montreal - I know it is far from California - but I could present you to a good breathing/trumpet teacher here.

Stéphane

Vulgano Brother

Time for the VULGANO ZEN BREATH:

Inhaling in no way forces air into our lungs. When we inhale, a vacuum is formed in our lungs, and air from the outside comes rushing into our lungs. If relaxed, we can’t prevent the air from rushing in, and get a full breath.

__________________
www.letsbuildhope.org

Patric_Bernard

Haha Rowuk I think you missed the post were I said I will still keep my chops, just a different way of Breathing... Alrighty then, I'll get started on that cycle. Now wheres that toiletpapertubamajeger.

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rowuk

Patric,
I don't assume that you will keep or replace your chops. I ALWAYS start my students on the circle of breath first as the chops have to compensate for all other sins. less sinning=more chops. Once the breathing is solid, then we do things to promote a good embouchure. If we work on the chops first, we often have to compensate for inadequate breathing and body use. Many pros even breath less than optimally, holding the air in before playing. Correct breathing is ONLY in and out as relaxed as possible. There are exceptions, but then we get into very advanced playing with mature basics.

When your breathing gets better, your embouchure WILL change as air will do the work instead of overloading the facial muscles!

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.