Hey everyone, welcome to my channel. If you're looking for a place to learn about how to practice your instrument efficiently and effectively and get tips and tutorials on how to set up practice routines and more, you're in the right place.
I've been playing trumpet in professional orchestra, teaching, coaching, and creating content for many years, and I'm excited to be able to share what I've learned with all of you!
I’m a huge Maynard fan, but while it’s accurate to say “legit” players have a smaller upper register sound, that sound does seem to fit the way you guys play. It’s hard to sound better than Hakan Hardenberger (sic) or Phil Smith in his prime. One of the things I love about trumpet is that Miles, Chet Baker, Dizzy all have very different trumpet sounds yet they all play and sound fantastic.
I totally agree. I have lots of influences and I like to think they combined to become “me”, if you will. And also agreed about the volume difference between lead players and orchestral players. I had a lead playing friend sub with the orchestra here once for a big band pops show and it was crazy how much more volume he put out than I do.
Hello again Ryan nice to see you again. So the scales you told us to do A major etc ..get us up into the higher range and we hear it and feel it better than just randomly play high notes , correct me if I am wrong or misunderstood you , thank you Anthony
Yeah, we’re on the same page. You can play “randomly” if you want, it can definitely work. I think this structure is helpful so you don’t have to think as much and can progress more easily over time.
I don't understand what I'm doing wrong with the pencil exercise. The pencil hangs straight down no matter how hard I try unless I balance it on my lower teeth.
Start with a shorter pencil, tighten your corners. You can even start by putting a finger between your lips, up against your teeth and gripping the finger with your lips. Hold for 20-30 seconds, relax a few seconds and repeat several times until you can't - you'll feel a burn in your facial muscles.
Push your jaw forward and align your two front top and bottom teeth to align each other so your playing with a more jaw forward approach instead of an overbite/ downstream approach
Upper range (and shallow mouthpieces in general) have always been my weakness. I’ve played with great lead players who I could run circles around technically, and I practiced more than them… but they had the tone and sizzle and could nail the part. Second trumpet syndrome 😂😂 if I could play the range more easily with better endurance, I could practice long enough to get really good. Been thinking about corners a lot
I hear you, it takes time to build this kind of strength. My take would be to focus on getting the form down (firm corners, consistent and energized air from the proper syllables), with plenty of rest. As you get more confident and automatic with the right form, you’ll be able to play for longer periods/rest less more successfully.
One of the confusing aspects of using the phrase "keep your corners firm" is that, for me, I didn't know what that meant. I later discovered that the "corners" being referred to meant the corners of the aperture inside the mouthpiece rim, not the corners of your mouth. In fact, what I discovered is that when I "focused" on firming my corners inside the rim, the corners of my mouth also firmed. But as I learned, my focus is on the inside of the mouthpiece rim. Something else I learned regarding mouth corners is that it is not uncommon for air to leak outside the corners of one's mouth while playing. I've seen this with professional trumpet players. The key is to have a good seal between the mouthpiece and the lips because that's where all of the air and vibration is managed, inside the mouthpiece.
This is really interesting. I’ve never thought about it in this way, but will definitely try it if I come across players struggling to get the right idea of firm corners. Thank you!
I get that air leakage at the corners of my mouth sometimes when I haven’t been playing much. Oddly though it’s disconcerting it doesn’t have much of an effect-must be a trivial amount of air.
Thanks for the insight! I always appreciate hearing your perspective on topics that I'm always somewhat familiar with because you provide a very systematic approach. If I'm having a bad day on trumpet, having a systematic approach to the upper register provides a checklist of things that I can pay attention to. Is it my tongue? Ok, what about the corners? Not only does this help me get back on track, but it also prevents me from turning away from healthy habits as soon as things go wrong. Bad days happen and having a systematic approach to playing gives me the confidence I need to get through it.
You nailed it 100%. The systematic approach becomes a way to diagnose issues and keep you on track. Over the long run, this helps you play with better habits more often, which compounds significantly over time!
If you didn't have much familiarity with it, I suppose you could listen to a bunch of recordings to get a general idea of an appropriate tempo with this method. But, once you get the idea of the excerpt, playing with rubato is fine. If you chose to play it at a slower tempo, you could keep it strict for that, if you were looking to solidify some production related goals.
I've only been playing for 3 years but recently switched from a Bach (idk which model) to a brand new Yamaha 4335. Can't tell you how much more I like the Yamaha
I'm a retiree learning trumpet. I love this instrument and try to practice daily. I am able to apply this video immediately and appreciate the info. I'm able to play from C up through the staff now, but note quality is another matter. Working on steady pitch, tone and breathing. Looking forward to learning from you Ryan. If you could recommend one book to begin my studies, so that I'm not immediately overwhelmed, which would you suggest? Does Arban start at the beginning or is it tailored more for the intermediate and beyond? I look forward to your suggestion.
The Arban book is a good place to start, sure. You can find really simple things all the way to incredibly difficult things, so it would keep you busy for awhile I think. “Special Studies for Trumpet” by John Daniel is a great book to learn about trumpet efficiency as well.
Yeah. Once you feel you have a good approach, you want to rotate faster and slower tempo to challenge your double tongue speed, and continue refining too.
Personally. I think the energy of the air ( by "energy " I assume you are referring to air pressure or exhalation effort) is not the problem with players. Most players use more than enough air to play. The issue is poor embouchure function due to innefective and high-effort approaches. Especially buzzing of all kinds.. Then, they just chase a "good" sound with ever-increasing effort. Encouraging "energy" just contributes to that when it isn't the issue. The very soft playing you demonstrate here with DIMINISHING air energy encourages efficiency and better tone. But without "chasing" with increased effort. This improves coordination of emboucure function and increased tonal skill. It must be repeted for habit. But most teachers have students jump right to high effort playing, and it never takes hold as habit. Of course. The student must have an aural sound model of beautiful tone for ALL dynamics and recognize when they achieve it.
Yeah, I agree that more air is not the problem, that’s why I try to always say consistent and energized air. This video was a focus on the consistent part. The whisper tone exercise does help develop more energy (air speed) sort of as a byproduct.
@RyanBeachtrumpet but soft tones require the lowest air pressure and air flow. "air speed" is just popular verbiage that is not defined and nothing to be concerned with. It's still not clear exactly what you are referring to as air "speed." Do you understand the distinction between air pressure, air flow, and air speed? Soft tones can develop efficiency. Which requires LESS air energy input. Understand? Also, dynamics requires various air energy inputs. So if by "consistent," you mean constant, then I disagree. Air power DOES and MUST vary with dynamics and range if one is playing efficiently. Is air energy required to play a tone? YES. Does the level of energy input vary for dynamics and/ or partials? ABSOLUTELY.
@RyanBeachtrumpet I don't think so. Words have definitions. Unless you and the viewer agree on definitions of words, then you aren't communicating clearly. It is a common problem in brass pedagogy. Popular but meaningless or misdefined words. For example: Air VOLUME is often used erroneously. And air "speed" is just tossed around often with little agreement on exactly what it is referring to.
Can you word it better for someone who’s younger because I can’t really understand it fully 😢 I’m trying to learn the trumpet in middle school and want to excel
Is there a way to prevent the tongue getting stiff? Mine stiffens up like a bicep during a bicep curl and loses all speed when trying tonguing exercises like these.
It’s hard to give specific advice without hearing you, but it’s likely that you’re not focusing on letting the air flow, or you’re trying to double tongue for longer periods of time than your tongue can handle. Maybe try shorter bursts with more frequency rest and see if you still have the same issue. If that helps, then slowly build back to the longer stretches.
Allen Vizzutti once said that everything is a long tone. Trills are long tones, slurs are long tones, triple tonguing is long tones. That mentality has helped my mental model for playing the trumpet and I think it resonates with the points you make in this video.
@@songandwind72 while I agree that song and wind is the ultimate end goal of playing a brass instrument, I do not believe it is the most efficient way to learn how to play an instrument. I studied with arguably the best teachers on the planet, ones that played with Bud and Jacobs, and we spent plenty of time talking about how the trumpet works. This video is not intended to be an entire philosophy on how to play the trumpet, rather a simple drill to help players understand what healthy air flow feels like, and what it will sound like. I said this in the video, but once this is understood, you put it back into context in fundamentals and repertoire. I’m trying to give you space to share your thoughts, but your dogmatic, somewhat informed understand of how to best learn the trumpet isn’t the only way. If you really think that “most players” have things wrong, I would encourage you to begin making content correcting everyone as soon as possible.
@@songandwind72I don’t perceive your understanding of how Arnold Jacob’s taught to be fully informed. You have some of the basics, but there is a lot more nuance than what you shared.
There is no equivalent sound of french "u" in english. You pronounce it like french "e". It has to be between the english "u" and english "ee" sound. It’s like german "ü".
Thank you for this i had a terrible practice session yesterday and watching your video made me realize it was because i was sacrificing my approach to sound to keep doing the same rep instead of changing what im doing to hold on to the sound. I didn’t think about changing the exercise to something that you can keep quality instead of trying to bring quality to what you are doing.
Is it fine that I play with mouthpiece slightly to the left horizontally or no cuz that’s how I learned and my teeth are shaped weird so I just do that should I change?
@@RyanBeachtrumpet Ive have been playing fine with it since I've started about 3 years ago I'm freshmen in high school the main issue I have is endurance in upper register especially in pieces without much rests but that's just something I need to practice for.
I've heard/read about this before however, having a video explaining is excellent, so thankyou. I find double tonguing and K-Tongue lends itself to Claude Gordon's K Tongue Modified. Tongue tip ends up behind bottom teeth. I cannot tongue very well with tip behind top teeth, almost feels like the back of my tongue is bunched up in my throat. I think we all have different size tongues too.. or is it tu? 😉
I agree with what you’re saying, about not having the tip of the tongue higher up. But I try not too think too much about this kind of thing, I think it’s easy to overthink and go crazy.
Yeah, I get the analysis is paralysis argument, but if something is not working.... Admittedly I am prob too aware of my chops, the inside of my mouth when practicing. Thanks for the tips and happy practising. 😊
It’s almost correct, but still not exactly like Arban did it. Now you pronounce ‘tu’ like we (Belgium/France) would say ‘te’. The ‘tu’ like we pronounce it, is even more forward with your tongue. Take Google Translate and tranlate “you are” to French. That would be “tu es”. You’ll here the ‘u’ from ‘tu’ is like you say the very beginning of the English word ‘you’. Quite difficult to explain in words that is’nt even my first language 😅
I appreciate you sharing this! I knew it was different than English, and understood a French pronunciation would produce a more proper embouchure, but wasn’t 100% sure I was saying it correctly.
It depends on what you do. Playing in a concert band, not super important. Playing in an orchestra, it’s really important. Overall, the skill of transposition is good for gaining greater knowledge of playing in key centers, which is helpful for sight reading and ear training.
