Re: Re: Re: Lip questions


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Posted by Bill Pritchard on July 12, 2003 at 12:52:29:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Lip questions posted by Winton on July 12, 2003 at 11:21:14:

Just to jump on the bandwagon here,
I've seen Adam Frey's embochure and it's really funky looking (Adam even said so himself) and he sounds great. A guy who solos with the Boston Pops, on an "underdog" {as it pertains to the orchestral world} instrument must be doing something right. In fact he was telling me that his face made some things so much easier to do.
As far as pressure is concerned, recently I was trying to play with little or no pressure at all with the thought that less is better. I found myself going too far in that direction. Centering notes and holding them without a "wobble" or just a feeling of "non-crappyness" was just not happening. I went back to using an appropraite amount of pressure (ie not jamming the damned thing down my throat).
I have been lucky so far to be around lots of trombone players and a big thing for them, especially bass trombonists is knowing where your embochure shifts are. I can recall a Dave Taylor masterclass when he told us just where his shifts were and how he would practice going over those breaks. I think that this can be easily translated into the tuba world. My mouthpiece does shift upward when I go higher, I don't try to do that it just naturally creeps up there sometimes. I do try to stay conscious of where it is and sometimes I will stop and reset to try to play on my regular embochure and 9 out of 10 times I can and the sound is better because more of the lip is vibrating. I think what we as players need to do is keep in mid the ultimate embochure goal, which for me is little or no movement, but work from where we are and try to bring the gap between the two.
But, any preconcieved notion of a "perfect" embochure should be secondary to the result that comes out of the bell.
Hope that helps,
Bill Pritchard


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