(Sorry I see no ‘edit’ button for the above so I’ll add my clarification here).

P.S. I want to clarify the idea behind my post above. I’m talking about actual trumpet playing potential dependent on actual physical limitations.

What I mean: I have “played” trumpet regularly over 10 years and naturally I would have developed enough muscle support for my embouchure to be able to overblow and squeeze out a high C. Well, according to Greg many real trumpet players do just that.
However – when I try to intelligently to overblow and prepare my embouchure for the high C with the worst sound possible – I have no sound coming through or otherwise just hiss coming through.

Actually the G on top of the staff is a ‘cut-out’ note. Everything above it with the highest amount of overblow and anything including kicks or pushes or whatever existing bad technique possible “Just to get there” – simply doesn’t work for me.

I mean I don’t even try to play with those bad techniques – I sometimes use them just a a test to find out if I have a potential for good techniques but my bad techniques that work for real trumpeters don’t work for me as an indicator that I have a potential.
Hope this is clear now.

I just noticed that the link I was supposed to insert in the first post didn’t come through and doesn’t show up so I’ll try to post it here as a regular text instead:

Tooth Structure and Brass Embouchure

However that’s just to support the discussion. The major point is still above.

Thank you for your comments and encouragement- Greg and John.
I’ll try to record a video. I’m an old school “phone for calls only guy”. I have a video camera and I need to set it up and film myself playing simple things as Greg pointed out.

OK, I recorded a (very crappy 🙁 ) video and I’ll attempt to send it to Greg for expert assessment.
Need to find some WWW storage now… (Again, I’m an “old school”, it’s all some effort for me.)

Greg could comment on the video here, if he wishes – I don’t mind – It’ll be some help to others.
(I want to keep the video private… sorry – too much crap.)

1. I assume I can do some things wrong but I don’t know how much I’m off.
2. As I noted above I have bad teeth and some scar tissue behind my embouchure point – how much that’s an issue – I don’t know.
3. I never took any lessons over my 10 years of “playing”.
Shame, shame, shame on me…

I sent a PM to Greg via ‘General Inquiries’ with a link to my video and asked Greg to comment here. Hope it works out…

Greg, a few clarifications for the teeth and scar tissue in the video:
– First of all the video image is correct – I’m not used to seeing myself from the front;
– I’ve made a rough sketch of my lips-teeth problems (below) and here are a few comments:

1. Since the upper front incisor is missing there is a plastic insert in its place (drawn in gray) which is shorter than a normal tooth would be but the hole is closed and it feels acceptable;
2. I indicated in the sketch that I place the MP rim to the side over the normal tooth;
3. The scar tissue is right in front of the normal upper incisor, close to the upper lip bottom line, on the inside of the lip of course. It’s somewhat a dense spot when feeling it by fingers but it’s not too big. I drew it in red.

Maybe this image is a little more clear, cannot EDIT any longer the above:
(just experimenting…)

https://s742.photobucket.com/user/DiaxII/media/Embouchure.jpg.html

… No – it doesn’t work, something’s wrong with the html codes. I leave it as a link.

Greg generously replied to me and provided his valuable comments about my playing.
The major reason of my problems according to his observations… well – you guess: TOO much tension even when I get only at E in the staff.

Honestly saying I was aware of that but to know something and admit it is one thing and to overcome bad habits is an entirely different effort.
Here is where Greg’s method should help – I’m going to stick with it.
Lot’s of work ahead…
Thanks, Greg! You are a REAL gentleman.

Thanks John, I’m down to the Singing C Series and I feel it’ll take me quite a while to ingrain the concepts. I’ll see how it goes and if it really takes me anywhere I’ll report back here.

So far I found the following.
Doing ‘Singing C’ C#:
Step 1 = OK
Step 2 = OK
Step 3 – NO way
Step 4 = OK

That is – I can’t do C#-F# slurs at ‘FF’ or ‘F’. To do that I have to engage too much muscular tension of the ‘Uuuh’ shape and trying to engage it I immediately tense up and Passive Release turns into Active Release.
On the contrary, when doing the same slur after C# has been reduced to ‘p’ involves no tension in the passive release.

Finished Singing C’s for today. 1 hour is spent on this.
In all three sections, C#, D and finally C, FF slurs don’t work for me. P slurs are OK.

As I finished I decided to do just a quick test after a break, of how high up to middle C I could go maintaining the singing Low C Passive Release attitude while preparing the Corners as best as I can, without any tension.
I almost reached middle C but it actually came out as a hiss. The B below it is very faint, a whisper B.

One other SAD thing: I have the same old tired feeling in my chops as I normally do. I’ve always had a feeling that my lips for some reason refuse to resonate at higher frequencies. Hence the purpose of this thread.
Too early to claim anything, I’ll continue to do the exercises without being impatient. I’ll do nothing but Singing C’s, say for a month or two and add Largo Status exercises on top soon.
Let’s see…

Back to studies after a weekend break.

What I find wrong with myself when doing Largo Status RESULT oriented exercises.
– After doing Largo Singing C’s for an hour (with breaks of course!) I feel some tired feeling around my mouth (nothing new for me here).
– After a break when continuing with Largo Status (long tones, slurred steps, chromatics) due to tiredness in my embouchure muscles I cannot perform these exercises with the intended quality – that is with ‘Beautiful’ sound. My sound is muffled.

Here I also find nothing new to me: I’ve always had poor endurance. Mind you! – I DO take good deep relaxed BCH breaths, do my ALL WindWorks exercises with CLOSED EYES!
However – there is one thing I’m not quite sure about yet. Sometimes (but when I’m a little fresher in the beginning of the exercises) with some adjustments in the embouchure SHAPE I can find a better resonant tone on some tones BUT – I have to make conscious adjustments to my lips.
NO – I don’t manipulate anything below (all in the PASSIVE RELEASE mode) but I DO have slightly manipulate my embouchure SHAPE to find the center of notes. However – being a little more tired in the embouchure this doesn’t seem to work.

After a good break I found ONE more interesting thing today – and that is a BIG surprise. I have to be very careful now!
So, what I found: I decided to run all the Major scales in the ‘ CLOSED EYES + BCH + “SAGGY EMBOUCHURE” ‘ mode but only up to in the staff E, that’s actually normally is already quite stressful for me.

Now, my own a little silly sounding term I just made up: “SAGGY EMBOUCHURE”. It’s not what you might think though. Nothing actually sags or is overly loose.
Let me explain: normally, when I play I consciously tighten up everywhere and my embouchure is no exception.
When I ran my scales in the “SAGGY EMBOUCHURE” mode today I just set up the basic SHAPE and only concentrated on the BCH breath and PASSIVE RELEASE.
I did everything with CLOSED EYES!
I tried to do almost nothing with my embouchure, well – I still had to keep it intact, otherwise I would leak the air from the mouth corners but that was absolutely minimal effort required to keep the mouth sealed.
So, the SURPRISE part: I was able to reach notes above the middle C with just the same feel I played them in the middle C vicinity. Actually that was rather strange sensation and it’s hard to believe. By the way – the notes were rather well centered and resonant.
However – my embouchure although I could not see it with the closed yese felt more like a Dizzy’s puffed cheeks which is no good. I need to open my eyes next time to see what actually happens.

However I found that it’s quite easy to lose that feeling once something changed and I tried to manipulate it back.
It’s sort of a meditative process that was set-up with the Singing C exercises.
As I noted above – I could not achieve this ease of tone production for the Largo Status exercises I did immediately (but with a break!) after Singing C’s. That’s actually a STRANGE part.

Anyway – that was just a short experiment to check what I could do with this new approach. It worked out this time but I just take it for granted – nothing to celebrate so far.

Small correction to the above (edit time expired):
Instead of: “I was able to reach notes above the middle C with just the same feel I played them in the middle C vicinity.”
it should be: “I was able to reach notes above the middle C with just the same feel I played them in the Low C vicinity.”

Today I realized why I can’t do the Largo Status exercises as intended – with the ‘Beautiful’ sound:
– Obviously I can’t find the pitch center of notes other than maybe for the Low C.
– I can’t find optimal airflow. “Passive Release” just seems to be easy. It is NOT. If uncontrolled and not coordinated with the embouchure (SHAPE?) it doesn’t add anything except for the PROCESS feel of the exercises but the sound quality goes out the window.
– I constantly forget about the ‘UUUHHH’ shape when I concentrate on the passive release. Too many things to keep in mind.

I find the method quite difficult when in unsupervised mode.
However, I can now see the problems. Good ear and pitch recognition are very important for trumpet.
OK, I better start rambling and return to this thread IF I have some RESULTs … “IF”…