Quote:
Originally Posted by Manny Laureano  I am not an advocate of CONSCIOUS tongue level awareness FOR LIP SLURS. I believe a talented student will do what needs to be done without invoking a certain vowel. When you whistle a tune you do so based on how the tune goes and you don't invoke a physical awareness of the process. You just whistle.
I don't advocate it be cause to do so often exaggerates a natural process and generally diminishes the tone in the upper register. I insist on my students "pre-hearing" tones and tone color and allowing the physical process to take a backseat to the musical.
About the only remedial advice I give for consistency is asking a student to think TOE or TOOH when they're doing articulated work and I ask them to pronounce that throughout the range of the instrument.
Does this mean I don't believe the tongue changes? No, of course it does. I don't believe it needs to be invoked any more than nature asks it to as a matter of context for playing trumpet.
Flame away.
ML |
I experienced what Manny described here the last couple days - I just started playing C trumpet for the first time and the extra resistance got me focusing
way too hard on consciously manipulating my embouchure. I got myself all turned into knots trying to push the tongue and chops everywhere to make the upper register work like it does on my B-flat horn.
Today I went back to Irons and just played the exercises without
thinking what was I doing - just concentrating on where the pitches in each exercise were supposed to be and keeping mind a bit of the syllables. IMO, one of the beauties of the exercises in the Irons book is the way they very simply and unconsciously steer you back to the right physical movements without having to think about them. Lo and behold, everything just fell back into place. I could
observe what my tongue was doing in a detached way, but I didn't have to manipulate anything.
Group 21 in Irons seems to be great for this - if I can focus on "hearing" each pitch in the sequence then I don't have to think about what to do physically. Irons' text calls that Group and Group 22 the most valuable exercises in the book, and I can understand why for that reason. You'll know everything is in balance when you can play that last arpeggio C up to the high E and back down in a very even and "under control" manner.
(For the record, for me the tongue is definitely changing position as I move up and down the arpeggios - but the movements are very subtle, and when I try to
physically manipulate the notes consciously then it doesn't work for me, it ends up feeling like I am choking the notes to death...)
It's like a golf swing - if I try to consciously cream the ball with brute force or flood my mind with a lot of physical swing thoughts who knows where it will go - my longest drives and most accurate shots always result when everything physical is coordinated in sequence but I have maybe
one simple swing thought at the most.