This week my mantra has been "lead with air", and today I combined that with "fog up the mirror" and my tone was open and clear. Even as I spidered up above the staff on long tones, my sound remained relaxed. Great concept!
Now I wonder what advice is universally given by other teachers I've met. I think my college instructor would say "Slow before fast, low before high, soft before loud"
For me, it was reading Peter Bonds book and realizing that feels no different than me on the days where everything just clicked. So I play, and now teach the more advanced kids, like I sing. Very similar sensation to slower air “fog, sigh, etc” but I feel more of a sense of energizing in the mouth, and “support” feels natural of a model of singing where I found fogging made me too passive.
Interesting insights and worth further thought and experimentation! Sometime we do not PAUSE and analyze our playing…we are so focused on assignments or music assigned. Always good just ‘experience’ and take note and try things! Never complete, always learning. Good stuff again @Ryan
This is excellent and I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, changing how I warm up and practice and how I play the trumpet in general, to be healthier.
I think my approach is a combination of emphasizing fast air and emphasizing slow air. I think of it like a faucet or hose. The water should flow through the pipe in an unrestricted and free manner. To achieve a faster stream, you can put your finger over the end so the exit hole is smaller, thus requiring a faster stream to achieve the same throughput.
I try to approach playing as an opportunity for relaxation and introspection. Sometimes, I succeed. After the first few minutes of warm-up, I've developed the habit of thinking about the trumpet as being an efficient amplifier that probably needs less air to produce that magic, warm, and beautiful sound. Sometimes, I succeed.
Hey Ryan, I understand that you need to have a focused aperture, but I don't think that it is the aperture that makes the air move fast. From my understanding and experience, it is the tongue that compresses the air. The air needs to be moving the correct speed for the not you want to play before it reaches your lips in order to make them vibrate at that speed. you can't rely on your lips to make the air move faster. At that point, it's too late. The air has to move fast before it reaches your aperture. The tongue does that by compressing it against the roof of your mouth. It is just like whistling. The tongue moves higher to create a higher note. The aperture when we whistle stays the same. you don't close your lips to whistle higher. Just my experience.
No . That is incorrect. Raising the tongue DOES NOT compress the air OR make the air faster through the lip apereure. That is popular misunderstood air mechanics repeted by brass musicians. And the frequency of a pitch played has NOTHING to do with the flow velocity of the air ANYWHERE.Especialy over the tongue. That concept is simply repeated popular constructs.
@@BrassBro-Science-ys7sg , then please educate us on how the air moves faster. You just told us what is not happening. I watched this video with Sarah Willis playing her French horn in an MRI chamber and it clearly shows that when she is playing higher, her tongue is going higher in her mouth, compressing the air and making it move faster. If that isn't what is happening, please let us know how to do it. Maybe you could make a video showing us how you do it. Here is the Sarah Willis video. ua-cam.com/video/MWcOwgWsPHA/v-deo.html
@@RyanBeachtrumpet yeah brother! We are all students and I learn stuff from my students. I believe the more we teach, the more we learn when we keep an open mind. I really like the slow, warm, relaxed air approach you spoke of. Works wonders!!
@@jbmusicschool the Mills demonstration did NOT make any measurements of air flow velocity anywhere OR air pressure anywhere. You are attaching assumptions about those based on misunderstood air mechanics. Yes most players DO engage in tongue movements but it has no causative effect on pitch. Only the state of the lip posture/firmness controls the frequency or harmonic played.
I really enjoy your videos. Having said that, though, three different times in this video you made statements along the lines of how YOU wanted your students to play/sound (instead of helping them learn to play how THEY want to sound). That’s akin to the teacher who told K.O. Skinsnes (President of Stomvi USA), when he was in college what mouthpiece he had to play, because he had ALL his students play on what he considered the only mouthpiece they should play. You ALSO made a statement about prioritizing RESULTS over the PROCESS, which is opposite to some of the teaching and exercises of Greg Spence, where he has you learn and execute the correct process first, in ORDER to accomplish the results you want. In fact, in those specific exercises he cautions AGAINST doing whatever it takes to prioritize the results over the process because you will then cheat yourself out of learning the process you need to have in your toolbox in order to take your playing to more advanced levels. So, it gets confusing when you hear different accomplished players giving seemingly contradictory advice. I think you have to experiment and see what works for you, personally, in your own playing.
I appreciate you watching my videos and supporting me! I have a few thoughts that might clarify: When I say I want my students to play the way I want them to, I mean I want them to understand the habit I am trying to help them develop. Clarity in communication is huge, so if I can get them to understand better ways to approach the horn and they can understand and reproduce the healthier habits, that’s a win for me. Once they understand how to successfully produce the healthy habit, I always say they can think of things however they want - as long as they produce sound in a healthy way. My goal with this video was to share a more process oriented cue to replace a previous result focused cue. I agree that focusing on the process is better than focusing on the result. If the video suggested something otherwise, it was unintended.
I think what he meant at 4:40 to 4:49 was that he was that "fast air" is the result of your embouchure. He now realizes that he wants them to focus on the process of getting to that "fast air." He realized that in some ways he **used** to prioritize results over process, and he now realizes that he wants to prioritize the process over the results. (I think you assumed he was talking about what he teaches **now**, not in the past. The heart of this issue kind of goes back to the difference between the pedagogy of Donald Reinhardt versus the pedagogy of Arnold Jacobs. Reinhardt tried to scientifically describe embouchures, and teach people the process of what they were doing, with the idea that they only focus on that in practice, and they forget it all when they perform. Jacobs thought that was too complicated for a person to focus on their embouchure, and tried to bypass talking about it at all, trying to get people to think about their sound without talking about what they are doing to actually get that sound.
If you go back and think of your own description” it’s not spit it’s condense” think about the process when you take water out of your instrument that’s simply the way to do it. Sigh into your instrument… (credit to Paul Mayes… trumpet prof, London..)in case never blow the trumpet.. sounds crazy, but it’s true.😊👋
Yeah, like I said in the video, I play this way, but wanted to correct something I’ve shared in the past that maybe wasn’t as helpful as this video is.
This week my mantra has been "lead with air", and today I combined that with "fog up the mirror" and my tone was open and clear. Even as I spidered up above the staff on long tones, my sound remained relaxed. Great concept!
That’s so cool! I’m glad this helped you.
Now I wonder what advice is universally given by other teachers I've met.
I think my college instructor would say "Slow before fast, low before high, soft before loud"
For me, it was reading Peter Bonds book and realizing that feels no different than me on the days where everything just clicked.
So I play, and now teach the more advanced kids, like I sing.
Very similar sensation to slower air “fog, sigh, etc” but I feel more of a sense of energizing in the mouth, and “support” feels natural of a model of singing where I found fogging made me too passive.
Still haven’t read that book. I think it’ll be next.
Interesting insights and worth further thought and experimentation! Sometime we do not PAUSE and analyze our playing…we are so focused on assignments or music assigned. Always good just ‘experience’ and take note and try things! Never complete, always learning. Good stuff again @Ryan
Thanks Joel!
This is excellent and I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, changing how I warm up and practice and how I play the trumpet in general, to be healthier.
It’s something we keep learning about for most of our careers I think
I think my approach is a combination of emphasizing fast air and emphasizing slow air. I think of it like a faucet or hose. The water should flow through the pipe in an unrestricted and free manner. To achieve a faster stream, you can put your finger over the end so the exit hole is smaller, thus requiring a faster stream to achieve the same throughput.
I agree with this for sure!
I try to approach playing as an opportunity for relaxation and introspection. Sometimes, I succeed. After the first few minutes of warm-up, I've developed the habit of thinking about the trumpet as being an efficient amplifier that probably needs less air to produce that magic, warm, and beautiful sound. Sometimes, I succeed.
I like this idea, playing an opportunity for relaxation. Thanks for sharing this!
LIFE IS A SCHOOL, we supposed to learn something NEW every day. but FIRST. we have to be just a little open to be WRONG.
I’m always open to learning new things!
Hey Ryan, I understand that you need to have a focused aperture, but I don't think that it is the aperture that makes the air move fast. From my understanding and experience, it is the tongue that compresses the air. The air needs to be moving the correct speed for the not you want to play before it reaches your lips in order to make them vibrate at that speed. you can't rely on your lips to make the air move faster. At that point, it's too late. The air has to move fast before it reaches your aperture. The tongue does that by compressing it against the roof of your mouth. It is just like whistling. The tongue moves higher to create a higher note. The aperture when we whistle stays the same. you don't close your lips to whistle higher. Just my experience.
I think you’re right. Looks like I misspoke a little in the video. Thank you!
No . That is incorrect. Raising the tongue DOES NOT compress the air OR make the air faster through the lip apereure. That is popular misunderstood air mechanics repeted by brass musicians.
And the frequency of a pitch played has NOTHING to do with the flow velocity of the air ANYWHERE.Especialy over the tongue.
That concept is simply repeated popular constructs.
@@BrassBro-Science-ys7sg , then please educate us on how the air moves faster. You just told us what is not happening.
I watched this video with Sarah Willis playing her French horn in an MRI chamber and it clearly shows that when she is playing higher, her tongue is going higher in her mouth, compressing the air and making it move faster. If that isn't what is happening, please let us know how to do it. Maybe you could make a video showing us how you do it.
Here is the Sarah Willis video.
ua-cam.com/video/MWcOwgWsPHA/v-deo.html
@@RyanBeachtrumpet yeah brother! We are all students and I learn stuff from my students. I believe the more we teach, the more we learn when we keep an open mind.
I really like the slow, warm, relaxed air approach you spoke of. Works wonders!!
@@jbmusicschool the Mills demonstration did NOT make any measurements of air flow velocity anywhere OR air pressure anywhere. You are attaching assumptions about those based on misunderstood air mechanics.
Yes most players DO engage in tongue movements but it has no causative effect on pitch. Only the state of the lip posture/firmness controls the frequency or harmonic played.
I really enjoy your videos. Having said that, though, three different times in this video you made statements along the lines of how YOU wanted your students to play/sound (instead of helping them learn to play how THEY want to sound).
That’s akin to the teacher who told K.O. Skinsnes (President of Stomvi USA), when he was in college what mouthpiece he had to play, because he had ALL his students play on what he considered the only mouthpiece they should play.
You ALSO made a statement about prioritizing RESULTS over the PROCESS, which is opposite to some of the teaching and exercises of Greg Spence, where he has you learn and execute the correct process first, in ORDER to accomplish the results you want. In fact, in those specific exercises he cautions AGAINST doing whatever it takes to prioritize the results over the process because you will then cheat yourself out of learning the process you need to have in your toolbox in order to take your playing to more advanced levels.
So, it gets confusing when you hear different accomplished players giving seemingly contradictory advice. I think you have to experiment and see what works for you, personally, in your own playing.
I appreciate you watching my videos and supporting me! I have a few thoughts that might clarify:
When I say I want my students to play the way I want them to, I mean I want them to understand the habit I am trying to help them develop. Clarity in communication is huge, so if I can get them to understand better ways to approach the horn and they can understand and reproduce the healthier habits, that’s a win for me. Once they understand how to successfully produce the healthy habit, I always say they can think of things however they want - as long as they produce sound in a healthy way.
My goal with this video was to share a more process oriented cue to replace a previous result focused cue. I agree that focusing on the process is better than focusing on the result. If the video suggested something otherwise, it was unintended.
I think what he meant at 4:40 to 4:49 was that he was that "fast air" is the result of your embouchure. He now realizes that he wants them to focus on the process of getting to that "fast air."
He realized that in some ways he **used** to prioritize results over process, and he now realizes that he wants to prioritize the process over the results. (I think you assumed he was talking about what he teaches **now**, not in the past.
The heart of this issue kind of goes back to the difference between the pedagogy of Donald Reinhardt versus the pedagogy of Arnold Jacobs.
Reinhardt tried to scientifically describe embouchures, and teach people the process of what they were doing, with the idea that they only focus on that in practice, and they forget it all when they perform.
Jacobs thought that was too complicated for a person to focus on their embouchure, and tried to bypass talking about it at all, trying to get people to think about their sound without talking about what they are doing to actually get that sound.
If you go back and think of your own description” it’s not spit it’s condense” think about the process when you take water out of your instrument that’s simply the way to do it. Sigh into your instrument… (credit to Paul Mayes… trumpet prof, London..)in case never blow the trumpet.. sounds crazy, but it’s true.😊👋
Yeah, like I said in the video, I play this way, but wanted to correct something I’ve shared in the past that maybe wasn’t as helpful as this video is.