Thank you! My tone and range has always felt worse than everyone else’s in my two years of playing and I never knew I had some of these problems as I’ve never had any one on one instruction. I hope this can help me.
Just stumbled on this and had to laugh. I was taught the "smiling" embouchure many years ago. This was back in the day when "brass teachers" were each trying to come up their their own signature method, or were the "champion" of some crackpot method or another. Dennis Brain used one such excruciatingly horrible embouchure. The thing is, a good player can make any embouchure work, no matter how misguided the perceived underlying principles. I switched to low and middle brass to sort out any embouchure "problems" I had back then, and got rid of a number of myths: long tones, lip or mouthpiece buzzing, warmups, and warm-downs, the latter of which was popular back in the 1970's. I don't know if people are still doing that. I learned from research done at the University of Edinburgh that the lips don't buzz while playing, that lip-buzzing is a fiction that exists solely in the mind of the player. Right before playing I do softly blow a note or two, but that's it, and it has served me well for well over 50 years.
The variables that go with the different shapes of a persons or peoples mouth is endless… to find a definitive way to create a brass player’s embouchure, let aalone a beginning hornist’s embouchure, is a pretty big challenge. For me, as a private lessons instructor for brass students, and as a hormist, I always spend as much time as I can or that the student is willing to work with, to be as comfortable as possible with their mouthpiece. I also always bring different mouthpieces to first try out, as one mouthpiece may be good for one person, but not the other. Not to drone on about that, but sometimes, we assume that one piece of equipment is “the one”, that should be the foundation for all beginners… we always want quick results, but aren’t willing to set up fundamentals properly. And the horn is arguably one of the most unforgiving wind instruments to not get a good start on.
Some good points, but I disagree with the point about playing too low. Playing with an upstream embouchure may be the correct way for a student, forcing them to play against their anatomy will only lead to sadness and failure for the student.
Do these instructions pertain at least minimally to woodwinds as well as brass, Mr. Elliot? (I’m asking as a guitar player now attempting to add the soprano saxophone to his pallet of instruments but ever fascinated by the French horn.)
I'm an old guy who played the horn more than 50 years ago, and now I am missing my top front teeth, and some lower ones. I tooted my horn yesterday and found it quite difficult to hold my emboucher. Should I just give up?
I know lots of guys with missing teeth, bridges, dentures, you name it. Just keep at it. You'll improve. You should have a look at old photos of Chet Baker's teeth.
I always catch my bottom jaw moving forward and back when I play any sizable embouchure. And my face just moving too much altogether sometimes to the point where it sounds like my notes are being chewed.
Practice with a mirror and mouth piece visualizer. I used to use the loop on my second valve slide for a mouth piece visualizer because mine was the perfect size.
Xbox_Golden i have a friend who plays like that and she sounds great. So, as long as it’s just your exterior side lip bulging out and it doesn’t tire you, you should be just fine.
