tpetplyr

My freshmen year of college my teacher (at the time) advised me to move my mthpce up out of the red of my top lip. Now, I'm glad I did it.

Anyway for a few months, I really sucked. Range, sound (sound was much better after the first couple weeks), articulation (still working on that one but its pretty good now), all of it. Beginning of Sophomore year, I won principal in orchestra, and started getting better. Heck, now I'm almost respectable! Part of the reason it took me so long was that my teacher wasn't terribly good about showing up to lessons...I've since switched and my current teacher has helped me do wonders for myself.

Anyway, my point is, sometimes you have to take a step backward to really improve. I am far and beyond a better player now than I was before the switch. Whether I'm better now than I would have been had I not switched I can't say for sure, but I've made more progress in the last 18 months than I had all through high school, so I'm happy with it in the end.

So, if you trust your teacher, I'd say go for it. I can't tell you whether you need to or not, but sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. Just make sure you do it on sound advice and with good support.

Stuart