Hello Andrew,
I am certainly no expert but when reading your post I was reminded of a problem I have had intermittently in the past and one that I still watch out for. I had the habit of involuntarily closing my throat for a second or two while playing and unlike you I was not aware of it until pointed out in a lesson I took from a fellow band member. I am wondering if the movement in your throat is the involuntary closing that I experienced?
Greg’s concept of the “body’s concert hall” with door, foyer etc may be helpful for you to focus on along with the ” MM-AHH-OOO”. Before practicing, I now do this little exercise regularly along with beginning full breath (with the knuckle in an open mouth) to remind myself to keep the throat open; I feel it has been helping.
Further to this comment, I would also advise you to stick with the process Greg outlines despite occasional setbacks or slow progress. I am a little further along the course than you and feel it is slowly helping me despite a number of bumps along the way. Still a work on progress but there is progress.
I hope this may be helpful to you. Good luck with course.
Pat

I’d be curious to hear Greg and others chime in on this. I discovered that I’ve been doing a throat stop (Valsalva) and releasing the air on my attacks in conjunction with tonguing. I had no idea this was happening, in fact, I was certain it wasn’t since my very early trumpet lessons dealt with some of the pitfalls of Valsalva and how to avoid it. Guess I should’ve taken a few more lessons back then…

Now I’m hyper aware of any change of feeling in the throat. Sometimes I feel something like a “click” when I’m doing a harmonic slur, or some subtle movement at the beginning of playing and I worry that I’m doing it again. I don’t really trust my ability to perceive it correctly yet, although eyes closed, focused practice has been helping that somewhat. Maybe do some eyes-closed work intentionally engaging the throat and focus on what that feels like for comparison?

I have been working on reducing tension in my throat while playing trumpet. I’ve experienced periods of “EUREKA” moments where I could play easily and fully relaxed, so I know what effortless playing feels like.

However, after 6–7 good days, my throat suddenly locks up, and I enter a crisis lasting several days, making it very difficult to play above G2.

Could you provide specific steps or exercises to quickly address this recurring throat tension and help me regain consistent ease?