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rowuk · 03-15-2008, 02:09 PM

Grillnola,
this is a very common problem. As we can't see you play, we can only guess, but a couple of things come to mind right away:
breathing not relaxed. I have talked about a circle of breath a couple of times here. the left side of the circle is inhale, the right exhale. At the top and bottom of the circle there are no bumps or angles. Your breathing should behave this way too - smooth transition from one state to another. Practice that until your breathing is round, then replace exhale with play(without tonguing). Forget about diaphragm breathing and other tension builders for a while. The goal is to get a clean start in the middle register without using the tongue. This could take a couple of days!
Once this works in the midrange, practice playing higher and lower, still without the tongue! You will find that the lowest octave will become much more powerful when the tongue is out of the way! So now you have a couple of relaxed octaves and now you add a bit of tonguing. This is not easy as you need to learn to place the tongue at the top of the circle! You also need to use as little tongue as possible. Once this is repeatable, your breathing is probably squared away!
The next low range killer is too much tension. Chop builders can wipe out your low range. As you have gone through an embouchure change, it is very possible that your face is working VERY hard and that can limit your low range. Anything that beats your face up will raise the level of tension and prevent relaxed buzzing.

As I don't know what your teacher had in mind with the embouchure change it is impossible to recommend a fix. My students divide their practice time into 3 equal parts: first is breathing, longtones(mouthpiece and horn), then slurs. Part two is tunes or repertory and last is chop builders, technical studies and etudes. This time allotment is very important to build proper habits! No one facet of practice gets the upper hand. The first part reinforces the body use, the second is the reason that we even play and the third is to get better. It is critical NOT to practice music when you are tired, that is why I put the tunes second.

You need to play detective and figure out where the tension is coming from. It could be as simple as modifying your present routine into the 3 equal parts that I described. If you are a trumpet major, you may have to give up an extracurricular ensemble (or two or three) to give your chops a needed break.

03-15-2008, 02:09 PM	#3 (permalink)
rowuk Moderator Fortissimo User Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 4,374	Re: Playing Low Grillnola, this is a very common problem. As we can't see you play, we can only guess, but a couple of things come to mind right away: breathing not relaxed. I have talked about a circle of breath a couple of times here. the left side of the circle is inhale, the right exhale. At the top and bottom of the circle there are no bumps or angles. Your breathing should behave this way too - smooth transition from one state to another. Practice that until your breathing is round, then replace exhale with play(without tonguing). Forget about diaphragm breathing and other tension builders for a while. The goal is to get a clean start in the middle register without using the tongue. This could take a couple of days! Once this works in the midrange, practice playing higher and lower, still without the tongue! You will find that the lowest octave will become much more powerful when the tongue is out of the way! So now you have a couple of relaxed octaves and now you add a bit of tonguing. This is not easy as you need to learn to place the tongue at the top of the circle! You also need to use as little tongue as possible. Once this is repeatable, your breathing is probably squared away! The next low range killer is too much tension. Chop builders can wipe out your low range. As you have gone through an embouchure change, it is very possible that your face is working VERY hard and that can limit your low range. Anything that beats your face up will raise the level of tension and prevent relaxed buzzing. As I don't know what your teacher had in mind with the embouchure change it is impossible to recommend a fix. My students divide their practice time into 3 equal parts: first is breathing, longtones(mouthpiece and horn), then slurs. Part two is tunes or repertory and last is chop builders, technical studies and etudes. This time allotment is very important to build proper habits! No one facet of practice gets the upper hand. The first part reinforces the body use, the second is the reason that we even play and the third is to get better. It is critical NOT to practice music when you are tired, that is why I put the tunes second. You need to play detective and figure out where the tension is coming from. It could be as simple as modifying your present routine into the 3 equal parts that I described. If you are a trumpet major, you may have to give up an extracurricular ensemble (or two or three) to give your chops a needed break. __________________ Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.