butxifxnot

...Let me tell you what I mean when I say I have two embouchures. I do not mean like the difference between Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, or what you would have to do to change between a trombone and a trumpet. Not that type of change. At least, not quite. When I had trumpet lessons, my instructor told me that some trumpet players, in order to play up higher, roll their top lip down a little in order to get a little 'leverage', if you will. That is the kind of thing I am talking about (although it is a little bit more than just a little lip movement. Another thing that my instructor and various judges of my sound told me about endurance and playing in general is that in order to last/ play high, there must be adequate flesh between the MP and the lips. To play lower, I loosen up the lips and have them a little thin, but doing that high makes me absolutely die. When I go up, I put more flesh in the lips). I can do that fairly quickly, but not without refraining from resetting the mouthpiece. I'm trying to work that out. Remember what Gordon's lips looked like when he moved around his range? I cannot do that with my lips without resetting into those different extremes (if you can call them that). Funny, a guy I knew with a relatively great range, in order to hit a good, solid high note, would dry off his mouthpiece. He wasn't exactly the pillar of virtue regarding trumpet playing, though. Just a thought. That was one of my problems with my endurance. Wow. You studied under Gordon for 14 years?? I better be nice to you. Be my friend!

__________________
-"More air", "open the throat", "arch the tongue"; Next
-"Long tones: my anti-drug"

motoboy

A good exercise for the transition between octaves is Schlossberg's #55. I remember 55sub5 kicking my chops in the butt for weeks before I was confident enough to attempt it during a lesson. I found it was more about keeping the column of air compressed than having anything to do with embouchre.

(But I only started playing again last week after a 16 year break so, please, no flames if I'm horribly wrong...he did ask for specific exercises)

__________________
_____________________________
Flip Oakes Wild Thing Short Cornet
CG Benge
'04 Conn-queror
20's King Liberty

butxifxnot

This has been a few months ago, and the problem is kind of passed. I still use a slightly different embouchure (I try not to in practice, but in performance this is what I do) to hit the extremes of my register, say, doing some screaming above high C. But apart from that, with good, solid air and relying less on pressure, I can use one embouchure for (typically, usually more, sometimes less when getting higher in range) two good octaves, then a little adjustment is needed, though not as drastic as it needed to be.

Minimizing pressure (or at least attempts at it) have really, really helped in this area, as has building up pure embouchure strength and not just using the extra umph that MP pressure gives.

That's me. Still working.

__________________
-"More air", "open the throat", "arch the tongue"; Next
-"Long tones: my anti-drug"