Hi Guillaume and everyone else,
Thanks for mentioning Charlie Porter’s video on embouchure setting. Embouchure seems to be such a mysterious subject, I think it’s brilliant that someone has actually taken the trouble to provide a step-by-step guide. However, the video has raised a couple of big questions in my mind and I wonder whether anyone here can help.

Firstly, the video seems to suggest that a fair amount of pressure is needed to “pin those corners against the teeth” and make sure they don’t move. This seems to go against Greg’s advice, or certainly my understanding of it. My understanding was that the aperture should be much larger and the pressure of the mouthpiece on the lips much softer than implied in the video. Am I misunderstanding Greg or Charlie Porter or both?

Secondly, could anyone advice how important the alignment of upper and lower teeth is? Aligning the teeth, as Charlie Porter says, makes sense to me, but I headed down that road a few months ago with pretty disastrous results. (My lower jaw is naturally much further back than that.) Is it important that top and bottom teeth align and I really need to have another go at that or should I leave my bottom jaw where it “wants to be”?

I’m feeling quite confused about these fairly fundamental points and would really appreciate the thoughts of some more experienced players on this.

Thanks!

Jutta