Setting embouchure? Farkas one is tiring? - WindWorks Trumpet Academy by Mystery to Mastery | WindWorks Trumpet Academy by Mystery to Mastery

This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 1 month ago by SvV.

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- 4 June 2018 at 8:28 pm #5201
  
  fmaziers
  Participant
  
  Hi Greg,
  
  First of all thanks for this new site. It’s very well made. Bravo!
  
  I have a question to ask you about setting embouchure because i think its as important as air managment. Indeed how to operate a whistle that is broken even if it blows well?
  
  One can read, in the abundant literature for the trumpet, that several type of embouchures exist: Farkas (a pucker smile with firm corners and a flat chin in the book “The art of brass playing”), Maggio, superchops by Callet, Stevens embouchure; and that the Farkas one would be the most tiring for the same results than the others?! (lot of tension in the corner says Pops McLaughlin).
  
  What do you think about that? What do you think about the book written by Farkas “the art of brass playing”? Have you some remarks to make about the fact that the best way to play is with Farkas embouchure? Is there another way to play thats takes less effort? What embouchure do you use? When i look at you its seems to me that yours lips are puckering a lot?
  
  Kind regards.
- 5 June 2018 at 8:41 am #5258
  
  Greg Spence
  Keymaster
  
  Thanks for the question! As you will see as you work through the course, my approach is to find the optimum setting with the minimum amount of work. I believe the issues above are caused by far too much negative tension in the centre of the lip oscillator therefor increased air pressure is exerted thus making the cheek/facial muscles work way more than they need to.
  
  Without having read Farkas in it’s entirety, I believe it was a study of the different set ups people used. All I can say is that a lot of my students have very different set ups based on their anatomy, but one thing is consistent – efficiency. I don’t let people get away with unnecessary internal tension.
  
  The aaaahooooh is simply about discovering the aperture corners and getting the lips out of the way of the air column. Remember, the lips oscillates sympathetically on the air column.
  
  I am certainly not a rolled in player as I ascend…I used to be when I was killing myself playing. I have learned to minimise the clamping and to engage from the aperture corners without choking off the air column as I ascend.
  - 14 March 2020 at 9:40 am #45894
    
    SvV
    Participant
    
    Greg – isn’t ‘AUH’ shape, at least in its fundamental form is a kind of Maggio type? Doing ‘AUH’ extends the lips forward a little, however it’s probably not an extreme pucker associated with the original Maggio setting – ‘the monkey lips’.
    I just read an interview with you taken off ‘The Brass Herald, July 2014, Issue 54.’ and in the text you say that “…My “AaaaahOoooh” exercise is a combination of Maggio, Jacobs and Bobby Shews’ spit rice. It is all about getting the lips out of the way and allowing them to RESPOND to the airflow.”
    (published online so I’m not sure if it’s legal to quote).
    
    So, at least you’ve got a very good idea of the Maggio system but I doubt you advocate extreme Maggio-style pucker.
    Let’s put it in a different way: Would you discourage your students from using the original Maggio “monkey” embouchure?
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