You’re very welcome. Good luck. We all rush at times. And it’s easy to focus on Results and stop focusing on Process, especially when we do experience some success–human nature is to switch our attention to our newfound ability and not to what got us there. I’ve fallen into that trap more than I’d like to admit.

But we learn from failure,…[Read more]

Some good responses above from j.gardam and Ron.

Locking down the throat, as you know, doesn’t help us; pressure can be a minimally effective short-term crutch, but hurts us as much as it helps us.

Believe it or not, releasing the air with the energy it has from the body and atmosphere is enough to play above the staff. We don’t need to…[Read more]

Hi there, welcome. Good post from Ron above, as usual. I thought I would add my $.02 FWIW:

What do we move to change pitch?

That is, perhaps, the million $ question.

FWIW, my understanding is that Shape determines pitch. Air is for volume and long notes. As such, we must separate Shape and Air when determining how to achieve…[Read more]

Hi there,

Welcome. I’ve been there myself, it took me several laps through WindWorks and even finding other videos out there on YouTube to reinforce / provide different perspectives of what Greg explains here. Each lap through WindWorks was a fruitful one–makes me want to do another just typing this.

What you describe doesn’t sound…[Read more]

I don’t do them a lot, but I do find them helpful when I do play them. I usually try to “fall” and hit whatever tones down there that come naturally. I try avoiding manipulating things to achieve certain pitches. I do it more to be relaxed. I try to keep one consistent embouchure and when I do all this, when I ascend back up I find that it…[Read more]

Most likely, you should just play the music as it is written as music written for Trumpet most often means Bb trumpet. There are trumpets made in the keys of C, D, Eb and other keys, but most often it’s Bb for popular music.

If the music is written in Concert pitch, that means written for C instruments (i.e. Piano, strings). In such instances,…[Read more]

Sam,

Sorry to hear you’re having difficulties. Glad to see you received some solid responses above. The only things I could add is that your response to Chris above makes me think you may be using too much air.

One of the crucial things we must teach ourselves to do is separate Air from Shape. Shape determines pitch. Air is for volume and…[Read more]

Great points Ron!

Shape is the formation of the aperture using muscles in our face and tongue level.

We want the engagement of muscles on the outside of the Mouthpiece and keep top lip relaxed as its what vibrates and needs to vibrate fast to achieve a high pitch.

Harmonic slurs help us hone in on efficient Shape change if we diligently…[Read more]

Hi Eric,

If the reason you are feeling pressure on the fingers is due to your lips being pushed inwards and forwards from engagement in the aperture corners, then you are doing great.

It is also possible, unfortunately, to engage the lip muscles themselves directly and to form a pucker with tightly engaged lip muscles–lips that are tightly…[Read more]

Hi Jerome,

Welcome. My understanding is that the visualiser should be placed where the tissue responds to the air the best. We want to move the location / angle of the visualizer such that the air moves through and interacts with the tissue the most unobstructed. This ensures optimal efficiency or at least removes any poor setup to start with.…[Read more]

Yep, that’s what Greg described he realized he was doing (if I recall correctly) and I can relate to it as well…I’m sure many can…

That is due to a fundamental, instinctual misconception of how the instrument works.

Bottom line is that we can’t fight the horn, we have to find the most efficient shape for each pitch for our own anatomy and…[Read more]

Also, Greg has a lot of free videos on YouTube that I have found very helpful and I’ve listened to those on my commute into the office, etc. I believe those cover most of the vernacular you inquired about. I recommend watching and/or listening to those videos away from the horn often so that you are building your understanding away from the…[Read more]

Hi Thomas,

I’m sure Greg will respond but I thought of the following link which may be helpful to you:

WindWorks Course Overview

It is an overview of the course and you can probably scan it for the most common concepts (Body Concert Hall “BCH”, MmmWWwwAaaaOooohh, Point of Difference, Coffee Moment, etc.).…[Read more]

Brian, I’ve been loving that bar straw between the lips trick…thank you! I’ve moved from the 1.25C MP that I went to back to my 40 year old 3C (maybe not quite that old) and have been on a tear the past couple days…I think I made it to “11”… 🙂

Cool…but you’re Titlecase Steve, not lowercase steve… 😉

Steve, I just realized that I thought you were “steve” not “Steve”. But glad if my points were helpful to you.

I’ll have to check out that video clip. I love Bryan Davis’ stuff as well. Best, John.

My Bach Strad is 40 years old. Never used toothpaste on it. It works fine. Be careful.

A company like Yamaha stands behind its products.

I believe they have a 5 year warranty.

If the shop you bought it from is an authorized dealer, they will help.

If not, contact Yamaha.

But I would try my suggestion first–oiling at start of practice, not at the end.

Good luck.

Yamaha? Why did you buy that???

Just kidding, they make fine instruments. I know of some great players who play Yamaha… 😉

I would call the shop you bought it from and tell them ASAP. There may be a defect with it and it may need to be returned.

You could try a different valve oil. I have always loved “Al Cass” valve oil. I think it…[Read more]