How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension

Trumpetsplus

@Kehaulani said in How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension:

@Trumpetsplus said in How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension:

My heart sinks when I see students waving around the photos of successful trumpet player's faces and wanting to look like them.

In Philip Farkas' book, The Art of French Horn Playing, he's got a number of photos of top horn players' embouchures. The first thing one is hit with is that no two embouchures are exactly the same.

apropos of nothing here
One should never play a piece of music the same way once.

@Trumpetsplus said in How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension:

The reason that the world "embouchure" is banished from the lexicon in my teaching studio is that players will often think that xxx embouchure is something to strive for. No. One's embouchure is the result of doing things correctly for one's own body in the performance of trumpet.

Yes, doing things correctly. However, if your student has a distinct smile of an embouchure, do you leave it alone knowing its limitations or suggest a more appropriate embouchure like as if saying, "M".

@Kehaulani said in How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension:

The first thing one is hit with is that no two embouchures are exactly the same.

I have to agree since I've seen and investigated dozens of embouchures. However, forming the most stable embouchure should be the goal. At the current time that appears to be forming the embouchure as if saying, "M"

@Trumpetsplus said in How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension:

One should never play a piece of music the same way once.

Absolutely!

Trumpetsplus

@Dr-Mark As I have written in My Friend the Trumpet, the first and only lesson required to play the trumpet is to breathe, hold lips together (as if saying M) and blow.

Kehaulani

@Trumpetsplus said in How To Play Trumpet With Less Tension:

One should never play a piece of music the same way once.

Some of us can't help it.