| Well, I believe there are two time when a trumpet player should definitely worry about the tension in his body. The first is obviously when the player goes up to the upper register of the horn. The second is when the trumpet player is trying to play soft (around piano to pianissimo), especially at the upper registers. Both are more mental problems than anything, the upper register being pretty much the easier of the two to solve, in my opinion, just loosen up and put lots of fast air into the horn. But the second one, for some odd reason, has to be one of the hardest obstacles to overcome. Players have a tendency to tensen up, shutting off the airflow, thinking that less air is needed for lower dynamics. This just totally jacks the tone all up. In reality, the amount of air shouldn't ever change. I believe that dynamics are mostly controlled by the tension of the diaphragm and the embrochure, but as always, the air should take precedence.
Of course, I am not a professor, or even a music major, so I could be totally wrong on all that. Just my personal observation is all this is.
Michael
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Michael Smith
Hullabaloo: The official band of Texas A&M Basketball
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