Greg, thank you for the response and the huge amount of information. I’ll try to address each question.

I believe that the BCH is a familiar feeling. However, there are times while playing when I feel rushed to take a breath. I’ve read this before, which I belive in – the first breath is always the best. I don’t see how it is possible sometimes to take the same relaxed BCH breath when you have a split second to do it in. I just do the best I can to get as much air into my body as I can in the time I’m given.

I’ll elaborate more on my issues. Endurance first, range second. I usually start each day feeling fine. I don’t need a double C. For some shows, I could use a G but I won’t be heartbroken if I can never get that. But why the hell not go for it. I need a high D at the end of the gig. During my first practice session I slowly get fatigued. Depending on how much effects the rest of my day. Many guys can rest a few hours and be back to square one on stamina. Not me. Each successive session is like draining gas from the car’s gas tank until eventually it’s empty. Game over. Fortunately, each new day usually fills the tank up again. There’s ALWAYS a feeling of fear and doubt on gig day. Am I going to make it? At this point I know the answer is always going to be no. In symphony I’ll rely on my assistant, in a show I’ll start taking lines down an octave, in quintet I hang on for dear life. My chops give out every single time. And I should be able to make it. Range development is non existant. In warm ups and 15-20 minutes into my first session I can probably play up to an F, maybe a G but it is typically thin. It’s much easier to slur up there than it is to tongue and it’s much easier to get up there by scales that by large leaps. Your comment about not being able to ascertain what problems I’m having makes it all the more frustrating. EVERYONE says this when they hear me play. But I know there is a problem. Otherwise I could play like you!

OK, here we go. The “open” vs. “closed setting. I’ve read TONS on this and have talked to countless people about this. I understand the concepts yet am confused all the more about how to actually play. In the end, I don’t know 100% for sure what I am actually doing since I can’t see inside the mouthpiece cup as I play. Even if I could I’m not sure I would know. I was always taught to form the lips as if saying the letter M. Gently touching. Put the horn on the lips, take a big relaxed breath and away we go. That is what I THINK I do in a nutshell. I demonstrate to students sometimes how it is possible to play without buzzing the mouthpiece. I form my lips that way, start moving air through the mouthpiece, put the mouthpiece into the horn while still blowing, and voila, the air turns into sound. But that’s with my lips in the M formation. I cannot do it with the MAAAOOOHHH setting. I’ve tried and tried. I will keep trying, but this is a huge frustation. You said you were able to fix your playing issues while maintaining your performances. I have to be able to do this. But when I go back to picking up the trumpet to learn music for the next gig, I have to go back to the only way of playing I know so that the notes will at least have a chance of coming out! I tried another method where you do these unorthodox exercises and then when you are done you go back to your normal playing method. The ideas is that these exercises would gradually morph into your playing. I did that stuff for a straight year with no benefits. I can’t do an embouchure change. I don’t have the time, or more importantly, the courage to leave what I have built (albeit fragile) to go into the unknown with no guarantees. My desparation is such, however, that I almost did try an embouchure change when I had a 3-month lull in gigs one summer. In the end, I chickened out.

In thinking more about my playing, when I ascend doing flexibility exercises I do close the jaw somewhat which also brings the lips together more. I know that I do not with the mouth or aperture corners inward. I understand this feeling and can do the initial MAAAAOOOOHHHH with visulizer, mouthpiece, and leadpipe. I will keep training the brain and body to do this. I do believe in it and am willing to do it for as long as it takes. I’ll devote a portion of my practice time to do it, but I obviously can’t devote all of it, and when I do go back to playing I have to again, go back to the “wrong” way so I can at least play. I am going to stay at Largo stage indefinitely. Maybe this is the one tweak for me which will make all the difference. It seems so simple yet so far away. I send your friend Dan Quigley a bunch of questions and probably bugged the s&#@ out of him. He was very kind. He said it took him a long time to figure it out. I am not good at analyzing problems in my playing (DUH), but I am fairly certain that I pinch my lips together when I ascend.

I will not bother with the other isometric exercises I mentioned and just do these Largo concepts.

Another issue – I simply cannot play loud enough in symphony. The conductor is ALWAYS asking for more sound from me. This has led to overblowing. I don’t know how to get any more sound.

It does give me some comfort to know that other players have the same struggles. I so often feel very ineffective as a teacher, which is really my main gig. I really want to be able to help my own students battle these demons and have them succeed. So failure in two arenas as a teacher and as a player over years and years is starting to get old. It makes me think that after 35 years of playing this piece of plumbing that I still don’t know the first thing about how to do it.

Mouthpieces – ugh. I don’t enjoy the mouthpiece safari. I will readily admit that I don’t experiment with them for two reasons: I’m not educated on the millions and millions of possibilities, and the expense. Oh, one more. I don’t want to give up practice time to fiddle with mouthpieces. I have noticed something strange however. For years and years I played a Yamaha 14a4a on my piccolo just fine. Played all the Bach pieces, Baroque solos, etc. and range was not a problem. I never did have the range to play the Brandenburg, however. Anyway, a few years ago, that mouthpiece stopped working for me. I would get to a certian range, maybe high C, and I would feel my lips bottom out in the mouthpiece. No more vibration. Is that a clue? I can’t figure out why that changed. I had to started playing my 3C on it just to get higher notes. Isn’t that the opposite as to what should happen? Shouldn’t the shallower pieces help with range? By the way, I play a Picket 3C on everything else. I do not switch mouthpieces for styles, switching between B-flat and C horns, nothing.

Thanks again! It means a lot and I hope we can connect online soon. I’ve got to re-read Zen and the Art of Archery. That was over my head. It was like the results came from magic or something. Maybe my dumb brain just can’t handle letting go.