| Lawler,
Long ago you wanted to try to play in the upper register and you're lips didn't obey your command.
Reasons?
1) Your ear may have been only telling you pitch but not color and intensity. Your muscles needed more information and they didn't get it so they stayed in the position most familiar: the middle register.
2) You started to assign blame to your lips and accompanying musculature and listened even less to color and intensity and focused on meat, the lips.
3) The fuel to play in the upper register may not have been enough to have you playing in a relaxed manner and this would further keep you in the mid register.
What to do?
Be descriptive, in a personal way, about sound in all registers. Don't just go for high notes, go for high notes that sound like ________. Low notes that sound like _______. Vibrato that makes you sound like________.
You must be able to replay your favorite trumpet pieces in your head as though there were a CD player on in the room. I mean it. The sound in your head must be as clear as a recording or live performance. Can you hear a great trumpeter playing through your daily warm up just before you do? Can you hear a great trumpeter play each and every note of whatever solo you're working on in your head?
ML
ML |