Hi Steve
Im also steve.. I m not a good trumpet player.. beeen playing for 3years, practise 2 hrs a day, never had a lesson, in last 6 months I ve started to get it together!! but I wanted to help cos u very open. I m a big fan of all Greg s stuff. Watch all his videos. Like u 6 months ago g above staff out my comfort range. Now it isn’t .. easy as say the old e. A above staff is now the new goal. 2 days ago it came out perfect.. easy and reasonant at the end of a line of music. So my advice. Clearly all greg s stuff on the money and here a few other things I did.

1 – mouth piece position.. i started 50 50 spread bottom and top lip. Always felt this pressure in my cheeks. Now I am bottom 65 top 35.. You do need to find the right split for your face. I e mailed one of the guurs on this and he was saying even 65 might be better. Of course some of these guys u can see on you tube are say 70 top 30 bottom.. feeling i get is people unlikely to be 50 50… so find the one works best for you. (By the way when I thought I was 60 40 I asked one of my boys to check and he said “its 50 50 dad!!” so don tmake my mistake!)
2. – even more forward tongue – Check out the Jerome Callet you tube on tongue position. He has a lot of critics but at least for me getting my tongue more forward.. still anchored.. has helped. Even if he doesn’t help you Steve its worth watching the video for motivation.. like you .. for 10 years he was stuck.. he said he got worse.. 10 different teachers.. but he found his way thru.. so will you .. bearing in mind Gregs teaching any “breakthru” you make in set up has got to feel easy relaxed.. and in my experience will make an IMMEDIATE improvement in 48 hours (soemtimes u think eureka but it was only cos your lips sensational that day so does it still work 48 hrs later!) .
3. Check out the Wedge mouth piece. I bought a year ago. Would not go back to a conventional.. Dr Dave there gives great service.. (at one point he stopped me buying a mp cos he said it was the wrong one for me!.. say a warm hello from Steve in Helsinki to Dave.. by the way he has money back guarantee so no risk.. his sales up 50% last year.. word is spreading )
4 Read Inner Game of Tennis – short but best book on how to play the Trumpet some trumpet guru said on you tube.. maybe he was right.. on the trumpet you re not going to make the notes.. just let them happen… let go..
5 Take lead pipe 1 step further.. take out either slide 2 or slide 3 (is that the one at back) practise matching different notes as you press the valves.. taking into account point number 4 don’t worry too much what s going on.. your steveie self2 will work it out…
6 Gregs tip last week.. forward pout on lower lip works for me..

All the time Greg’s learning philosophy is going to under pin all this

hope this helps a bit. sorry for the typos!

cheers steve