Quote:
Originally Posted by B15M  What if we took a mouthpiece with the smallest hole possible and still play. Then we took the most powerful player in the world and had him or her play on it. Lets say the mouthpiece hole is so small that the player was always pushing the maximum amount of air through it.
When the player moves the tongue to the roof of his mouth, does the pitch go up? We have already restricted the amount of air so why would the pitch change? |
I believe that the counter pressure in the mpc cup would make it very difficult to make the lips open/close (vibrate) if the mpc hole is
smaller than the embouchure aperture. It would be like blowing air through a 10 inch concrete wall.
About 15 years ago, the very fine cornetplayer/soloist/conductor/teacher, John Hudson (UK), visited my band to conduct the band at the Norwegian Nationals. He showed us that the tuningslide could be manipulated, by pulling the slide in, started the tone, and pulled the slide out and kept the tone at the same pitch until he had pulled the slide out of the cornet.
By doing this, he showed that a strong embouchure itself had the ability to keep the notes in pitch. We had the possibility to control the pitch with a tuning meter. I believe he started the note with open valves pitch Bb with a strong "downbend" and ended with a strong "upbend". (15 years ago..) I can't remember if he mentioned the tongue position, but may be my memory is out of tune...
veldkamp has earlier in this thread given us some good words about tongue position and use of "facemuscles"