| Has anyone else heard of this?
This is a method that my first teacher taught me, and it worked for me;
When I first started going to the guy, I was one of those who tensed every muscle in the body when I went up. Mr. Cooper, noticing this, told me to play my solo. So I did, and as I started going higher, he suddenly reached out and tried to yank my horn right out of my hands. Of course, it was like I had a Vulcan death grip on it, he couldn't hardly budge it. He told me to play again, only this time relaxing every muscle in my body except for the diaphragm and my lips. It took about 4 tries, but he was finally able to nearly take it away entirely.
The way that I understand this is that a lot of times people will have a tendency to tensen up as they play technically challenging or extremely ranged pieces, which actually can slow the fingers, and create too much pressure on the embrochure to the point that it actually hurts the tone. If I'm not mistaken, which I very well could be, Doc had a setup where the trumpet was suspended and he would practice some excercises in this fashion, in order to keep from getting to the point of having too much stress.
So has anyone else tried something like Doc's setup or even like Mr. Cooper? Am I correct in my understanding?
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Michael Smith
Hullabaloo: The official band of Texas A&M Basketball
Kanstul 1537/ Schilke 14
LA Olds Studio |