oldenick

I have just had two very different ideas about trumpet playing come at me almost at the same time. After many years of playing I have just purchased and started working out of Charles Colin’s Advanced Lip Flexibilities book, and after going through Nick Drozdoff’s website now know what a Flow Study is. In one way or another I have been doing this stuff off and on for years but for some reason they have become a focus of my practicing in the last month. When I was a student I was taught to play with my jaw down corners locked and to use as little motion as possible throughout the range of the horn. The only instruction as to the tongue was for articulation, we were taught “the tip of the tongue behind the top teeth.” It worked, still does, but in my travels I kept coming in to contact with guys talking about tongue level. I never really understood what they were talking about; my tongue was down in the cavity of my mouth moving as little as possible. When I read the introduction to the Colin book he says the sides of the tongue should be touching the sides of the top teeth and the tip should be down on the front bottom teeth. This sounded insane to me but I tried it and the air was not choked or cut off as I expected and suddenly the aw ee sounds made a lot more sense. This seems to contradict the jaw down no movement concept of my college days. It also seems like you can play both ways without any real change to the embouchure. Has anyone else dealt with these two concepts? I am going to keep plugging away with the Colin book and continue to develop that flow studies concept of a big connected sound. I would be interested to hear anyone else’s thoughts or ideas about this stuff.

Thanks
Nick

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Lawler PS 1
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Vulgano Brother

Hi Nick!

I'll try not to be confusing in my conciseness--in my way of thinking most of trumpet playing consists of a "both/and," rather than an "either/or."

While the tongue level may (and I guess does) change when playing, I find it better to think of it as a symptom of good, efficient playing, rather than the cause.

The Colin approach can and does build technique, and has tons of "proof" that this approach works. Lots of players have improved and even had breakthroughs by consciously isolating the tongue level in practice. No bad-mouthing here.

Some players, however, have taken it to an extreme, and while having tons of technique also have sounds that are obnoxious and irritating--great for the screech chair, but out of place in a cathedral. The trumpet, in their hands, becomes a megaphone.

The flow studies are more "organic," and tend to get the trumpet to resonate more. Rather than using the megaphone concept where the trumpet amplifies and directs the "buzz," the idea is to get the whole air column excited, both in the trumpet and in the room. This too can be taken to the extreme, and some name players using this approach have crashed and burned in pieces like the Alpine Symphony.

Looking at trumpets, lightweight "lead" horns are built with the Colin approach in mind, heavily braced horns "go for the flow."

My suggestion would be to learn both, and use both to make music, while not getting caught up in the technique.

This is why I like the "Magic Bubble" concept in which we use the air to "push" the nodes and anti-nodes forward to go higher. Is this scientific? Heck no! It is a quasi-Zen way of getting the mind back to the air, back to the wind in our wind instrument. Then, when things are working, we can check to see what the tongue is doing, just out of curiosity.

Tongue level is a symptom of; not the cause of good playing.

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gbdeamer

Thanks for the insight VB! I think I'm going to re-read my Colin book tonight...

dizforprez

VB,

Could you give us more info on how taking the flow study approach to the extreme could cause someone to crash and burn?

Vulgano Brother

There is documentation, but I refuse to mention the player (major orchestra status), the orchestra, or where he went to school. So, uhh, I guess not!

I can give an anecdote, though. I saw and heard Boston play Concerto for Orchestra in Stuttgart. Schlueter played beautifully, but without any "zing" to the sound, without any of the "grab you by the nether regions" approach that the piece deserves. Sounding nice is great, but the trumpet can, and should sometimes sound nasty.

Ever notice that some jazz/lead/commercial players sometimes make fun of "legit" players because they sound "wimpy?" (All in good fun, of course!) Rightly so!

This is why I like a both/and approach to playing, as opposed to an either/or.

Hope this clarifies!

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dizforprez

Schlueter is hardly someone I would associate with that approach. Your first comment makes it sound as if the approach itself can limit players. I am not asking you to name the player, but asking if you can clarify your comment since you are offering one players bad day as a critique of an entire approach.

Vulgano Brother

(Stuff in "[ ]" mine.)

Hey Diz, the original point was that of "both/and" rather than "either/or." Case in point--there are any number of gifted young (at least in my eyes) trumpeters that can play a beautiful, refined and elegant Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuÿle in Pictures. Unfortunately, Schmuÿle's message is neither beautiful, elegant nor refined! It is supposed to sound nasty and frantic and desperate! The best way of doing that is to raise the tongue "too" high, get a nasal sound, and couple that with an ugly sounding aluminium straight mute.

So yeah, I am saying that an approach that maximizes beauty at the expense of musical meaning does limit players. Not always, not in all circumstances, but sometimes.

That is why I advocate a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" approach to playing the trumpet.

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tptshark

Hi all,

For what it's worth, my take on this is that you use the right tool for the job - and that doesn't just mean the right gear setup, but also means the right technique for the intended outcome.

If you're playing lead in a big band, then smaller gear, higher tongue position, harder articulation, 'wedge' breathing, etc; playing an orchestral gig, then larger gear, a more natural breath, crisper attacks etc

The thing is that we need to be proficient in all these techniques and therefore need to regularly practice and maintain them. In my own routine, i practice each style/concept of music with a different setup and approach... i now have it so that it no longer presents much of a problem to switch approach depending on the music, though at first it threw a couple of spanners in the works, and feel much more comfortable and confident across the board.

- in my book, it's definitely a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" approach is what is required for a working professional musician these days.

Cheers!
- Adrian

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