I ran across the same video and it made me think as well as some of Charlie’s videos are what got me on the comeback trail. And he’s clearly a very accomplished trumpet player.

There’s also a video from Paul Mayes “Trumpet Professor”, who is also obviously a very accomplished player and teacher and who’s posted some helpful videos; one of the videos, however, seems to imply that he buzzes his lips to a point in which the sound not only continues as he pulls the trumpet off the mouthpiece (and continues buzzing/blowing) but the pitch actually goes up…

While I respect both of these players and teachers and have benefited from the videos they have posted, neither of these concepts makes sense to me.

Wayne Bergeron points out in a clinic he gave which someone posted online that he doesn’t buzz while playing and he demonstrates, similar to WindWOrks, that the vibration stops.

It seems to be common sense that less is more–we should only have the aperture as tight as needed at any given point in our range and the more open we can be the less strain, more volume, etc. we’ll have.

Charlie and Mr. Mayes have most likely forgotten more about trumpet than I’ll ever know and I’ll probably never be at even 1/2 their level; however, I have been playing (off and on) for 40 years and have learned a lot over the past year or 2 and it seems that when I play my best and have the best sound and endurance it’s when my aperture is more open, not when it’s tighter.

Buzzing the lips, mouthpiece and leadpipe seem to help focus the lips and allow them to vibrate better once playing the horn again, but it seems to me that’s like swinging a baseball bat with weights on it–when you take the weights off, swinging is / seems easier. But that doesn’t mean you should leave the weights on in a game.

My $.02.