One of the finest trumpet players alive today, Jon Faddis, talks about how your stance is extremely important when approaching the upper register. He states, that you should stand as tall as possible, as if someone had a string pulling your head up. I couldn’t agree more, if I try to play in any other stance, my range and endurance suffer. My thought on why this is so has to do with how our breathing apparatus functions. My approach also involves pulling the chest up high and the feet placed a bit further than shoulder width apart, with a slightly squatty stance as well. Jon also stresses the importance of being able to hear in your head what it is you want to play in the upper register. Moreover, he emphasizes listening to other masters of the stratosphere, such as Maynard Ferguson and Dizzy Gillespie. Of course, the TrumpetDude strongly suggests you listen to Jon Faddis!

The great teacher, Arnold Jacobs added to this aspect of playing by focusing on the size of the air column too. He said in almost every instance when players came to him wanting help with their embouchure, he would end up pointing out that they simply were not supporting the embouchure with enough air, that the air column was too thin. This brings me to my other aspect of playing well. Our throats must be open WIDE!! An open throat is imperative to achieving the large air column necessary to play well in any register, to have endurance, and of course, to be able to play high notes. Much of this, of course, is MENTAL. Trumpet playing is a physical sport but one that is done with more mental energy than say weight lifting. If the mind is not right, the body will NOT follow. Sometimes we are just too tired to concentrate properly, other times we are just too UPTIGHT. When we are uptight, because of performance anxiety or just because we are stressed about whatever, our throats close up, it’s just a natural bodily reaction to the stress. So, one approach that Arnold Jacobs taught was to think and ingrain in your head OH for inhalation and TOH for exhalation without any hesitation in between. OK, what do the chops do? They vibrate and the mouthpiece captures the vibrations. Nothing more. Nothing less.

In sum, to play trumpet well, you must have your MIND right, your AIR full and unrestricted and your CHOPS vibrating! Sounds easy enough, but of course some days you just want to throw the horn out the window because you just can’t get it right. Well, perhaps it’s good that I delayed the writing of this article. Because, what I came across may help all of us with achieving the sweet spot in our playing everyday!

A trumpet player named Glenn Bengry wrote a brief piece on TPIN putting forth his distillation of what his friend Emil Gowatch gleaned from the infamous Raphael Mendez. Mr. Bengry says, ‘the chops come to the mouthpiece, not the mouthpiece coming to the chops.’ I think that is so very true, although, invariably, as impatient people we confuse this.

I believe the warm up approach that Mr. Bengry describes has a great deal of merit and should be tried in anticipation of implementing the other notions of playing issues I have presented above.

Glen says, “Blow gently through the mouthpiece, lips in a general mmmmmmm position but very loose, mouthpiece very lightly touching the lips (barely) NO SOUND YET, all you impatient trumpeters, WAIT. You don’t want to get a sound until you’ve blown in this fashion probably between 10-20 times give or take a little. (Mendez says to blow 2-3 minutes just air) You want the air to FLOW THROUGH the mouthpiece as easily as any exhalation Repeat this step with a VERY SMALL increase in air speed. Hold the lips together a LITTLE more firmly. Each time, you will be a little faster and firmer. the lips will gradually begin to gently “grip” the mouthpiece with somewhat equal contact around the whole circle of the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece does NOT hold the lips in place (our biggest hurdle perhaps). The mouthpiece “catches” the vibrations. So the chops come TO the mouthpiece, not the mouthpiece TO the chops (and usually too much against the chops). The trumpet beast makes us press too hard. The horn is only a resonator and amplifier essentially. It amplifies what it catches from the lips. At some point as you make these tiny adjustments the speed and firmness will be at the point where a vibration will spontaneously happen. It may only be a short vibration, which will disappear right away. You are now extremely close to a balance/efficient point. Now speed up your air a little more and you will likely get a longer buzz (it’s tempting to abandon your perfect spot and immediately go back to the “old way”. Resist if you can. Once you get here, you are real close to YOUR magic spot. You should now be real close to being able to maintain this easy, flowing, light pressure sound as a long tone. See if you can maintain the balance between air speed, embouchure firmness and mouthpiece contact/pressure. This is the basis for your own tone production balance (you have to find that spot every day).”

Keep jamming fellow Trumpeters!!

Trumpetdude