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congratulations on wanting to take the shortcut to easier brass playing now I’d like to talk to you about velocity now that might be something that you’ve never actually considered but we do know that we need to have a faster vibration to play high notes and a slower vibration to play lower notes but when you understand the whole idea behind velocity that’s going to be enable you to be able to change the way that you are thinking about playing in different ranges I would get you to
consider that if you’ve got two walls here and there’s a flow of water or air between these two walls and those walls come together the velocity the speed of the air increases it goes faster when we understand that and then we have the whole concept of that top lip being nice and loose the skin of the top lip being loose like a sheet a bed sheet on a clothes line the milk spout getting this bottom lip out of the way then we’ve got a control of
the Velocity when we use the apperture corners and we change the velocity horizontally the bed sheet will vibrate faster the pitch on the instrument will vibrate faster common traditional teaching is Buzz the lips faster so if we try to do that we’re going to tighten the lip up which is actually slowing the vibration down Our intention is to use the muscles to increase vibration yet in actual fact by grabbing those muscles we’ll actually slow down the vibration now some people out there can Buzz their lips
very very uh fast but that doesn’t transfer to being able to play higher on the instrument I know a bunch of people that can Buzz really high Buzz fast at the lips but can’t play high on the instrument because what happens of course everything locks down we go into air lock or we start overblowing overexerting creating too much energy too much heat we’re burning the pizza we’re going into the airlock all of these errors that are not necessary when playing a brass instrument so with a
change of understanding the pychology that you have in regards to playing you will be able to unlock the pinch down and start to use the horizontal activation of the lips in order to dictate the speed of the velocity and therefore the range of the instrument then of course when we need to play louder the whole trick and challenge behind brass playing is able to keep the velocity the same while increasing flow and our mouth was horizontal so if we want to increase flow we got to
open the lips we got to let more energy through without compromising the lip zip and the horizontal inward movement of the lips there’s a bit there it’s a bit complicated however when you learn this it is the most powerful thing to do because you’re letting go of all that internal compression and the the Thro culation that you might be feeling or The Limited range or The Limited endurance when your act when your aperture Corners are working effectively and you understand how to dictate pitch by changing
the velocity and that is the tongue affects velocity and the aperture Corners uh affect velocity when you learn these playing unlocks you will have limit unlimited range and unlimited endurance that is really really important and it’s super fun and satisfying to be able to play longer over a greater range easier more fun more gigs brass playing is no harder than humming talking and singing and I’d love you to come and check it out hey guys if you’re wanting my help to develop an efficient 3 to
four octave range with consistency confidence a killer sound and a virtuoso technique I’ve put everything I’ve learned over the last 35 years into one easy to follow program that you can benefit from right now at absolutely no cost for the next 7 days from your very first lesson you’ll begin to understand why you’re having playing problems and while you’re hitting ceilings our step-by-step comprehensive technical development program is for all brass players of all levels and all styles and I run live weekly master classes and live
lessons via Zoom to make sure you’re on the right track if your mind isn’t totally blown by day seven you can opt out without being charged to [Music] sent
Greg Spence explores air velocity and the coordination of the aperture corners in changing register. This demonstration contrasts horizontal lip movement with squeezing down or forcing a faster buzz.
What does this lesson say about velocity and pitch?
Greg connects changes at the aperture with air velocity and lip vibration, then considers the separate challenge of increasing volume. The lesson introduces his Lip Zip, Bed Sheet and Milk Spout concepts through practical demonstrations.
This recording is part of Greg Spence’s public teaching archive. References to dates, events and offers reflect the original recording.
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