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Originally Posted by iainmcl  Hi. I used to use waaaay to much pressure as well. It got to the point where my teeth ached and my right-hand pinky finger was starting to get a bend in it from the hook. I had to re-learn because of this.
Chasefan has offered up some good tips there, but you might also want to look at how you hold the Trumpet itself. Are you holding it in what some call the "Death-grip"? That is, left-hand thumb behind the valves and the rest of the left-hand fingers all wrapped around the valves. It's a bit uncomfortable at first, but try 2 fingers above the 3rd valve slide and 2 below. You'll have to alternate back and forth for a while until your fingers get used to the stretch, but it's definitely worth trying.
This will alter the balance of both you and the way you hold the horn. It will give it a more 'up-down' feel, rather than 'fowards-backwards'.
It's hard to explain without showing you, but it'll definitely help (assuming that you even hold it in the "death-grip" in the first place.
Best of luck |
I'm glad you mentioned grip.
A couple of years ago I also altered my grip in order to accomodate minimum pressure.
My left palm no longer touches the valve casing to any significant degree.
I don't hold the trumpet with fingertips, which would be too extreme and impractical, but I do restrict most of the grip to the fingers inside the knuckles.
If my palm does touch the valve casing, it is merely a light brush against it.
It really helped when I stopped trying to BLAST the high notes (such as F above High C) and settled on playing high notes medium loudness, because the amount of mouthpiece pressure I was using was directly proportional to how loud I was trying to play.
Then I discovered that what I thought was "medium" loud could still be heard by people a block away from my house, so apparently it is louder on the other end of the trumpet
BTW, different embouchure types play better with different grips.
The grip that Maynard Ferguson used in the 1970's with just the index finger above the 3rd slide seems to work well for some such downstream types.
I am upstream (airstream inside the cup is projected upward) and I find that most of my fingers above the 3rd slide works best.
Apparently the type of grip you use slightly affects the tilt of the trumpet, and different embouchures need different tilt, especially in the upper register.
ChaseFan