Posted by Jay Bertolet on February 11, 2001 at 18:26:28:
In Reply to: Re: Re: hold that jaw open!!! posted by The Mad Flute on February 11, 2001 at 17:44:23:
My student used to drive around with it between his teeth. That usually amounted to about 2 or 3 hours per day. If your son rides the bus to school, I'd say that might be a good time. I don't really have a specific recommendation for exactly how many minutes/hours for you. My instincts tell me that it would be different for each individual anyway. The trick to this technique is in getting a muscle memory for the open mouth sensation and then transferring that sensation to the tuba. It might be analagous to how long it took him to learn to take the full breaths required for the tuba. This would be a similar sensation memory situation. Just make sure that he doesn't use it until his jaw gets sore. Like I said before, if the current diameter is too large, go to something a little smaller. The last thing you want is for him to develop TMJ. All you're trying to do is get him used to the sensation of having his mouth open in this manner. Once that feeling and mouth position transfers to the tuba, you can pitch the tube. Best of luck to you!