| Welcome to the world of a middle school band director. The difference is that the person who we have who can't buzz is only 10-years-old, and is getting laughed at and teased by the other 10-year-olds who got it right the first time. Having a student who doesn't get it right pretty soon is one of the more frustrating parts of being a band director for beginners.
Some of these ideas may not be good according to some people, but they have worked for me.
1) Use a mirror when working with a student who can't get a sound out on trumpet. Let them SEE that that they are not buzzing their lips. With no mouthpiece buzz your lips and show him/her how the embouchure is formed. Then let them try in the mirror.
2) If you can't get them to buzz at all tell them to flap their lips like a tired old horse, or to make a motorboat sound with their lips. Flapping your lips to make a sound does not make a correct embouchure in any way shape or form, but it does teach them to make a sound by vibrating their lips together.
3) Once they can flap their lips, making an ugly sound without the mouthpiece, have them do it and slowly move the mouthpiece onto the lips. For lack of a better term it makes somewhat of a farting sound. If you are doing this in private with a young student (you and the student and 1 or 2 good friends) then you might even get a chuckle out of the young student.
At this point you have accomplished 3 things: You have made a sound by vibrating the lips on the horn (in this case a bad sound is better than no sound), you have broken down the wall of frustration and made the student start to relax, and you have a smile coming from the student. The smile starts to pull the embouchure into a better form, and now that the player is buzzing and relaxed it is usually a matter of a short period of time before you have an E, F and G coming out of the horn. The tired old horse embouchure usually results in a low C.
4) Your next frustration with this same student will likely come when you try to move onto the next partial series, in most books playing the A, and Bb. If the student had trouble making the initial sound, you should anticipate the problem in moving on to the next set of higher notes, and this may continue for a while.
5) If all else fails, try having the student buzz on a baritone, or even a tuba. The larger mouthpiece is easier to make the student relax, so it is usually easier to get that initial vibration and first sound. The larger mouthpiece has a set of problem all its own, but the first sound for low brass players is usually much easier than the first sound for trumpet players. If the larger mouthpiece doesn't work, you have a woodwind player, or even worse, a drummer.
One important note—you will probably be doing this in the real world with a student that you do not know very well. If you do this in private make certain that there are a couple of friends with you in the room. Playing a musical instrument often causes you to get closer, and even touch the face of a young student – it’s part of helping them to play. You are doing it as a professional, and we go about doing our jobs not thinking that this young person has never had an adult get that close to them before.
Having the friends in the room causes the student to relax, but it also makes the student understand that the closeness of the band director, and the touching of the face, hands and arms is part of playing the horn. You may even want the other student to have out an instrument to so they can see you physically manipulate that student like you might work with them.
Fears of a student misinterpreting the closeness of a band director may not sound like something you need to worry about, but it only takes one student to misunderstand your mannerisms in the classroom to ruin your career and reputation. We had a very fine band director in Baton Rouge about 10-years ago who was accused of this very thing. He lost his career, and his wife. Another good band director near New Orleans was accused of the very same thing and wound up on the defensive when he had done nothing wrong.
Never put yourself in the room with a young person by yourself. I even suggest this for private students. Someone else in the room, even if they are just filing music or doing paper work, allows you to relax and do your job.
I wonder if this is discussed in band methods classes today. When we were young it was something that really didn't need to be discussed, but now days people are lawsuit happy and you need to think about protecting your reputation and your career at all times.
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