This is great info / a great thread.

You may be right and of course Morrison’s explanation will work for some / many, I’m sure and I hope.

But the “Give it More Air to Go Higher” method doesn’t work for many people and the frustrations of that method of teaching are what brought me to WindWorks and I believe are what led Greg to write the WindWorks course.

I can still see in my…[Read more]

I think technically what Morrison is saying in that video contradicts what Greg explains.

Morrison obviously has forgotten more about playing trumpet than I’ll ever know and is probably one of the greatest, most naturally talented players ever. And he endorses WindWorks, so I could be wrong.

But, in this video, he recommends using Air to…[Read more]

Sorry to hear, Greg. My thoughts are with you and your family.

This is great, thanks e.

It is amazing how important our minds are to playing.

If we don’t approach playing with the right mindset, we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

We must surrender all preconceived notions we have about playing, including how it feels when producing a pitch or moving from one to the other.

We must…[Read more]

Here’s a proposal for an agenda. The more people that weigh-in on this, the better. It’s not going to hurt my feelings if we come up with something entirely different. This agenda might be too long for an hour, although I could probably stay on if it goes longer. But we should try to make it as efficient / specific as possible. Some of this…[Read more]

Yikes, Ron, that’s a lot of responsibility!

I’ll post a proposed agenda below as a start, but it would be good to get Greg’s and other members’ (especially yours) feedback into this. This might be too much for 60 minutes. It wouldn’t kill me to go longer, but some people may have a hard stop after 1 hour and we should try to make it as…[Read more]

Neat idea, Ron! I’ll try to think of an agenda to suggest–I think that would be key. If Greg is sitting in, perhaps even just a Q&A with him would be INVALUABLE for everyone. That would be pretty exciting, actually. I actually haven’t had a lot of time to play / practice lately and have been mostly just screwing around and not playing a lot…[Read more]

You’re not stealing Bill, you’re paying it forward by sharing your experience with others like you who are working on figuring things out as well.

The point of difference is tricky. It is very easy to fall back into old habits, especially at first, until you form new habits. In time, it seems to get better and it seems like it’s easier to…[Read more]

“John, what do you advise if you feel you are using the aperture corners properly but the aperture closes off? I suppose there’s only so far you can pull the drawstring before the bag closes up completely.”

By contracting the corners inwards towards the center of the mouthpiece / the air column to reduce the aperture (as opposed to pulling the c…[Read more]

Ha! We’re all whack jobs, Bill, that’s the great thing about the trumpet…

Here’s my $.02 FWIW, but looking forward to see what Greg / others say:

1. Maggio – I do think that there are some similarities in what Maggio and Greg prescribe. At the end of the day, it’s more or less about reducing the size of the aperture by contracting the lips…[Read more]

I may not be the best one to provide meaningful feedback to this as I’m an amateur player with no playing commitments, etc. But it seems to me that it’s somewhat normal to go through phases where playing fluctuates a bit better or worse and I think those fluctuations are both physical and mental. Some of them are even, in my experience, more…[Read more]

I’ve experienced an airy sound before and battle that on occasion; it’s been better lately. My recollection / understanding is that when that happens it is an indication that our lips are too close together and trying to play softer and open up usually helps me. My understanding is that there’s a balance between Air and Shape that we have to…[Read more]

Sorry to hear that, Ron. Things have been feeling a bit stiff for me lately, but I’m just coming out of that now and am feeling better again. Never have I experienced what you’re describing.

Were you putting in a lot of volume of work (time) or were you playing excessively loud or high, more than usual? Perhaps you just overdid things.

I…[Read more]

I agree that buzzing isn’t probably a great idea as it probably will more likely have negative consequences than positive ones. Buzzing is harder on our lips than playing is and should be minimized for only a few minutes each day, especially if you haven’t done it before. Also, in the beginning, the whole purpose is to loosen things up, relax,…[Read more]

You’re welcome, Colin.

I’ve noticed too that obtaining a pitch with a breath attack or slur is different than articulating it.

I havent come up with a concise explanation, but WindWorks covers this better / more concisely than any method ive seen. And I’ve seen most methods, I believe.

Patience, experimentation while avoiding kicking with…[Read more]

Colin,

I have done a number of rounds through some of the lower levels of WindWorks (i.e. Largo) and found it incrementally beneficial each time I’ve repeated it.

The videos are very helpful and inspiring as well–there are a lot of kernels of wisdom in the videos.

I’ve gone up through some of the highest level exercises (Diamond), but had…[Read more]

You’re very welcome, Colin. Glad if anything I shared helped you.

Playing the trumpet can be very frustrating and it’s easy to get discouraged and lose perspective.

My “bad days” now are way better than my best days when I was young, playing in school and taking lessons, etc.

It’s hard sometimes to remember where I’ve come from and to…[Read more]

Sorry, here’s the link to the Doc video I was talking about above:

I think the drawstring analogy is a great example and think Brian’s post is very good.

Precisely WHAT we should be doing is dependent upon our individual physiology; however, the way I understand it is that we are reducing the size of the aperture gradually as we ascend to create a higher pitch.

The tongue arches as well, but I believe that…[Read more]