FWIW, I kind of went through this months ago–it felt like I needed to move to a bigger mouthpiece. I’m an amateur comeback player and all I had was a 7C and a 3C which I had played through high school and a little college (mainly the 3C later). I started back on the 7C but then went to the 3C when I was doing the WindWorks course. Went well for a while, but then I felt like I lost my way a bit. Ran across some other videos out there that seemed to suggest, consistent with Greg, that you should play the smallest gear when you can and the biggest gear when you can, etc. I decided to keep things simple and remove variables and went back to the 7C. That has been feeling and sounding good so I’ve stayed with it. But I’d like to go try out some different mouthpieces to see what may feel / work even better. Tried a 3E but I bottom out, touch the inside of the cup.

I had some great success with playing (increasing my range / improving my sound) but then struggled a bit and lost the sensation of what I was supposed to be doing; I’ve been building things back up and had a great day today after a pretty steady few weeks building back up. Great day today, played some things better than ever in my life.

I think I understand what you’re talking about playing on the red–I think I was doing that as well and then reverted to rolling my bottom lip under which is what I think I did when I was in high school.

I wound up going back to a Charlie Porter video on setting up an embouchre–he says “hide the red” and create a gap between the lips–which is consistent with what Greg says. That seems to have helped me set things up better and ensure I’m not buzzing my lips in the mouthpiece while playing. It feels better and I seem to have a flatter but still forward embouchre–in fact that was what was so amazing today–as I ascended up to A and high C I didn’t move much I kept my lips “forward”, I didn’t pinch or try to do any big movements just a subtle tightening of the corners (ooohh) and in fact I felt like I was widening the aperture and arching my tongue and I got the most resonant and loud A and high C, even a loud and resonant high D and E, as well as touched an F and double G but didn’t focus on range today–I was trying for the best sensation, most resonant sound and consistency and I got it. Felt like a “coffee moment” today.

I do the Windworks setup (aahhh oohh, focus on the air column / position and check to make sure I’m not buzzing) but the “hide the red” thing seemed to help me as well–seems like I’m getting the right part of my lips into the mouthpiece where they need to vibrate freely in the air to make sound, whereas before I was moving them too much to try to pinch the air to make it go faster but instead was overblowing and cutting off the air.

I still catch myself kicking with air and pinching a bit to see if I can squeak something out higher, but I’m catching myself and stopping myself. Today was good–I felt like I really owned high C, D, E (ppp to FFF) and could really feel what everything was doing (lips, tongue, air on my tongue, aperture corners, jaw) and it all felt good and in synergy and the sound was like never before–I felt like it couldn’t have sounded or felt better; I have no doubt I was playing as I should be. And as I ascended above high C and was doing some harmonic slurs with different fingerings, I am sure I hit some notes that I never have before but am not sure what notes they were as I didn’t have my tuner on and wasn’t really focused on that today.

Really looking forward to digging into the Ultimate Level and seeing if I can work up to “owning” a double G, and hopefully above that someday.

BUt I am so grateful to be able to be able to play the whole range of the trumpet from double pedal C up through E above high C. I had given up in college as all I could really ever muster was an A above the staff and only really owned the G. Never even touched a high C until 2018–40 years after starting trumpet…