A couple things -
First, it's important to understand that no embouchure issues can be
fixed over an email list. Finding a *good* teacher will me key for you.
That being said, I've been undergoing a major chop change over the
past year and a half and have found that far fewer people know what's
going on in their mouth than let on.
Also, you must understand that an embouchure change can not be taken
on as anything but a full and complete change. If you think a couple
incremental changes will make everything better, you're info a sad
realization and years of frustration. Hard work and diligence are the
only real solutions. Settle for nothing less than correct. (bear in
mind not everyone's "correct" is not the same but at least similar).
One interesting approach I've been subjected to while working with
Marty Hackelman is the "cause and effect" concept. He's constantly
reminding me that many of the things I'm trying to fix are in reality
the effects of a proper embouchure and fixing the cause is more
important than focusing on the effects.
But again, a good teacher is the most important step you can take at
this point.
Cheers-
Jeremy
On Jan 28, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Donald Huang <don....@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello all,
I've only posted here once or twice before on some embouchure
problems,
which still plague me. My old embouchure (which I used since I started
playing around 7 years ago) involved not using any corner muscles
and having
the top lip overlap the bottom lip and the mouthpiece stuck in the
middle of
the top lip (inside the red). I could play nearly anything fast or
slow,
tongued or slurred. My main (technical) problems were playing
securely below
A below the staff, lip trills (of course), and playing things where
I had to
play a phrase ranging over an octave without taking changing my
mouthpiece
setting a little (I only noticed this when I was assigned Kopprasch
No. 42).
I was advised to try to move my mouthpiece above the red of the lip,
but
even with a Laskey 85G (18.5mm), I couldn't really move it up that
far.
Overall, I was pretty happy with my playing, considering I could
usually
play up to and above high C. Around November 2007, I started to try
to get
serious about horn playing and try to practice around an hour every
day, but
I eventually found that on the tougher studies, I could only play
the high
stuff a few times. Then, when I had to play first for my school's
Beauty and
the Beast, I found that I just couldn't play above top space E for
that
long.
After forcing my mouthpiece above the red of my upper lip and
finding that
this didn't help anything at all, I decided that I should try an
embouchure
change and eliminate the overlap. I've gotten that to work to a
certain
degree now, though I can't control part of my bottom lip that I put
in the
mouthpiece at all, so it just pops out when I play (there's a pic
showing my
mouth setting before putting on the mouthpiece at:
http://don.hcd.googlepages.com/DSC00032.JPG ). Now, I can play any
notes
between a 2nd line G and D above high C pretty easily, but I can't
easily go
below 2nd line G or tongue notes quickly and accurately; when I
repeatedly
tongue a 4th line D, for example, I usually end up playing a tongued
trill
of sorts. Does anyone have any suggestions on fixing these two
problems?
Thanks a lot!
Donald Huang
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