Trumpet vs. Trombone?

Originally Posted by kievins

Every morning, breathe in deeply and then blow out again. Lots of times. Your playing will increase like hell.

Also do it from the diaphragm as well (inhale and think about your shoulders, your shoulders should not rise with your chest if you are doing it right), it helps with support. Also, try taking in a lot a air, hold it in your diaphragm, and kneel down (standing on both feet), and bend your torso around squeezing the air in your diaphragm while holding your breath. Then try and take in another sip of air, and squeeze it again. It should begin to hurt or strain fairly quickly, not badly, of course, but you can feel your diaphragm working, and that is crucial to solid tone production.

Thanks for your opinions guys. I'm staying with trumpet, but lol I don't think there's a way I could get good enough for concert band in 2 weeks. I've got the buzzing thing down and I can get a decent sound, but I'm having trouble even getting a tone with lower notes. For instance, I can play middle g, but I can't get a good sound of it, I can play middle c, but I get a horrible sound out of it. And I can't even hit middle E or high G, which I'll both need to be able to hit if I'm going to play in concert band or heck, any band. My range right now is Low C - Middle D, but in order to really be good enough to play any standard piece, I'll need to extend my range from atleast a Low C - High G.

Do the breathing thing. Every morning or evening, or preferably both. Seriously. I did that on tuba and it really does help.

Actually, get yourself just one lesson from some really good trumpet player. Tackle the problem with them. When I did that on tuba my range immediately went up a couple of notes.

Just out of curiousity and maybe some personal benefit ( ), Kievins, what are some things you picked up from that session and what was and is now your range? We have two other tubas in my school and they are not the most serious, so I really don't know how I stand. Just for an idea, I can usually get pedal Bb (we're talking a BBb tuba, here) and most of the notes between that and low Bb, and I can go right up to D middle line (bass clef of course), and that's where my tone starting becoming a little pinched, but I can get up to maybe Ab, and if I use a different embourchure altogether I can get from that Ab up to maybe F above the stave, but it's very .... not lovely.

I play Eb tuba. Before my range was from Bb1 to D4 (if you were lucky), now it's from G1 to E4. Apparantly, since I already have a good low and middle register (I don't know if that is how you spell it), my high register will come. I just wish I could get to that bit sooner.

Basically, amend fingering. Do you really need to use a 1 and 2? Can you cut corners with just a three? Or on a really difficult note, I discovered that on D4, it was easier to play with 1 and 2, instead of just 2, which I normally did.
Also, the harder the note is to play, the more air you need. This kinda sounds obvious, but it's amazing how much you really need. You may need an entire lungful of air for one note, so you'd be kinda screwed if that was a really long note...
The tendancy with difficult notes is to either tense unnecessary muscles (such as shoulders), or to press the mouth closer to the mouthpiece, or both (in my case both). Don't. All the energy should be going into blowing, and getting lots of air out of the lungs very quickly. This is why breathing excercises help.
I don't know if that helped.

Lip flexibility exercises....







LIP FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES!

Don't play until your lips hurt, if they do stop and rest.
Practice frequently, not continuously.
Keep your emboshure constant.

Originally Posted by Paginani

LIP FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES!

That goes for any instrument anywhere near brass. Not so much for tuba, but for trumpet this is essential. And I came up with a good exercise for it... somewhat challenging. Start out with quarter notes (or just half notes) and gradually go faster. A pro could manage 16th notes with no problem, I would imagine. So aim for that. But more importantly, concentrate on accuracy, hitting the right notes, so your lips get used to 'lipping' the intervals. So anyways, the first set: Low C, Low C (again), mid C, low C. That's four notes. Now, repeat that over and over again, each time raising the second and fourth notes of each four up a half step. Slur everything, don't take a breath unless you really need to. So anyways, the whole thing would be: (all slurred, for lip flexibiliy, remember?) [ Moving notes of interest bolded. ]

Low C, C, mid C, low C
Low C, C# mid C, low C#
Low C, D, mid C, low D
Low C, D#, mid C, low D#
ect...
Low C, mid B, mid C, mid B
Low C, mid C, mid C, mid C
and up...
Low C, mid C, mid C#, mid C
Low C, mid C, mid D, mid C
Low C, mid C, mid D#, mid C
and the last, if you make it...
Low C, mid C, high C, mid C, and finally Low C (held for a few counts)

GREAT exercise, I find it so hard. First, try to get it just tonguing each note, then introduce the slurring little by little until you can play the whole thing slurred with a consistent embourchure and taking breaths only when absolutely necessary. This is not exactly something that you would play for your girlfriend on a starry evening, but it does what it needs to do: build lip flexibility, stability, and dexterity. This works best for trumpet, (French) horn, and baritone/euphonium treble clef.

Back to me, what do you guys reccomend doing for high notes? Right now I can BARELY hit an E or an F and haven't had any luck reaching the g above the staff yet. So basically right now I can play Low C - Middle C well, I can sometimes hit middle d, I can rarely hit middle e and I've only hit middle f a couple times, by pure chance(It's like I hit the note, but had no idea how I hit it).

Originally Posted by Mark

MORE AIR!

Good, solid advice there, don't just rely on lips. Use air, and lots of it.

Long, low notes also help, start from the lowest note you can play and for 10 to 15 seconds, and then move up chromatically to your highest note.

Lip flexibilities, start with G to low C, then back To G and up to middle C.
Repeat with all valve combinantions going down chromatically, thus:

0-2-1-1/2 etc.

Don't expect results too quickly and don't tire your lips out too much.

the above advice is good. But one thing to remember is if you want to learn high notes practice high notes. Sounds stupid but its true. Do some slurs or Clarke studies in the upper register and graddually increase the range everyday. If you do this you should see some improvement.