If you'll forgive a response from a novice horn player but an otherwise experienced music teacher, a couple of observations:
1. A teacher will sometimes ask you to make a major change in the way you do things - if this is a new teacher, no further explanation is needed; if this person has been your teacher for some time, it may be that they didn't feel you were ready for the change, for whatever reason, until now. You must decide if this is a teacher you trust - if it is, then you should follow their advice, and if you don't trust your teacher, you should find another teacher. That last point is worth reitereating - you need to trust your teacher, and if you don't, find another teacher, but if you do, then do as you're being asked. 2. From what little I know about the horn, your teacher's advice makes sense to me. Every time I improve on the horn, if feels like I've got more lip inside the mouthpiece, and that reaching a relatively high note is no longer the feat of athleticism it was before. Farkas makes a good point in his book - he says to push yourself past what you can do regularly but not to overdo it - if you stay in your comfort zone, you'll never improve, but by the same token, pushing yourself usually means using less than perfect technique to get to something you've never gotten to before - after all, if you could already do it, it wouldn't be pushing yourself. For me, regularly doing what you describe, which is kind of pinching my embouchure for lack of a better way to put it - I guess it's more like stretching than pinching - has been a way to try to reach notes higher than I could play well, but doing just the right amount of that has helped me finally learn to play another note or two higher _without_ stretching/pinching. In other words, a little bit of stretch/pinch is OK as you learn to play higher, but it should only happen on notes you don't really yet know how to play, and it should go away after a while. I imagine someone here will respond with words to the effect of, "One should never have to stretch the embouchure like that" and, as a novice, I can't really argue, except to say that building strength and endurance is funny business and how it happens is often unique to the individual; for me, I need to go through cycles of overdoing followed by backing off in order to eventually get somewhere. I notice that I often have my best days playing after several miserable days in a row followed by a day off - the day off turns the misery of the past few days into something useable - miraculous but I'm glad it happens. Your teacher's advice sounds good to me. Again, I am a novice but what your teacher is saying jibes with my experience on the horn thus far and with my 30+ years of music teaching and playing other instruments. The only piece of advice I can offer in closing is that it would be good to make such a change in your embouchure during a period of time when you do _not_ have to audition or perform - you don't want the pressure of having to play high because that will hinder the relearning process you need to go through. -S- > -----Original Message----- > From: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > du] On Behalf Of Karl Feinauer > Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 3:24 AM > To: 'The Horn List' > Subject: [Hornlist] High Notes > > Just recently in a lesson did my teacher say my high notes > were all wrong. > Apparently I was "smiling" to get the notes out, and I needed > to keep my lips still in more in the inside of my embouchure. > I could play high notes well up to a C but now I cant even > really play past an F very well. Does anyone have any advice > on how to re-learn high notes the correct way? I don't think > it is lip strength because when I get up to an F sharp, it is > just airy as opposed to full, but it doesn't pain my lips and > I am not smiling. Thanks all. > > > > -Karl Feinauer > > _______________________________________________ > post: horn@music.memphis.edu > unsubscribe or set options at > http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/steve%40fridaysc > omputer.com > _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
